A romantic destination wedding in Italy at Borgo di Celle, Umbria
Destination wedding in Italy
I was delighted to photograph this beautiful destination wedding in Italy. As an Italian wedding photographer based in London, I’m always thrilled to be able to cover Weddings in my native country.
Everything is always so romantic, exquisite food and stunning wedding venues.
I would like to take you there back to the wedding day, even just with your imagination.
CAN YOU feel the breeze, the warm sunshine? Can you smell the flowers and the delicious food? Can you hear the sound of the swimming pool and the guest enjoying the day? Can you feel the excitement and the anticipation?
Close your eyes... we are in Italy in Umbria, in Borgo Di Celle for Jenny and Neil’s wedding, the most adorable, relaxed and totally in love couple. The venue is stunning and authentic, sitting in the hilltop of a magnificent Italian region, Umbria, offering a breathtaking view.
Jenny’s family has lived between Italy and England. Opting for this location was the perfect choice.
Amoretti Wedding planning's support was impeccable, very professional and creative, giving Jenny and Neil the freedom to enjoy their big day without worrying!
This is what the couple had to say about their special day!
Why did you pick this venue?
When I was a child, my family moved to Rome, where I lived all my first experiences, and I met very good friends.
We spent most of our weekends and happy moments in Citta’ di Castello.
Neil has always been an Italy lover, so summing up all the things, we definitely wanted to get married in Italy.
We chose Borgo di Celle because we wanted to get married in a beautiful Italian landscape, and a borgo with its small streets, little corners and stunning views were what we dreamt about.
How did you make your wedding about you?
Neil and I started to plan our wedding by ourselves, in fact, Neil is an accountant, he’s used to keeping accounting books and he would have known how to do it. We were very excited because our fairytale was becoming a reality!
We started our research, but then we realised it was complicated and confusing... we needed help.
We asked Amoretti Weddings to plan our wedding... a modern boho!
Was your invitation design something unique?
We wanted our invite to represent us and our special day, so something simple but classy, with olive tree leaves to represent Umbria, hand embossed with gold leaf.
Where was your dress from?
The designer is Alan Hannah. I fell in love with that dress because it was simple, just like me! I wanted a simple design that would have been comfortable in the heat of the hot Italian summer and that dress perfectly suited all my wishes. So it became my dress!
Did you have any jewellery or hair accessories?
I don’t like to wear too many jewels and accessories, they don’t represent me!
For this reason, I was wearing only a pair of earrings, very beautiful, given to me by my mother-in-law as a gift.
Tell us about your shoes
Actually, no heels for me, I wore a pair of flat sandals in white and silver. They were just amazing, I liked them so much because they were perfect for me. They were also very comfortable so I could use them all day long with no pain!
Hair and makeup, what you decided to go for and why?
I don’t usually wear makeup and I always wear my hair down so I didn’t want to change this too much. I wanted to be at my best but still myself on my wedding day!
Since my sister’s hair and makeup always look great, and she knows me the most, I asked her to help me.
Tell us about the handsome groom
He wore a suit from Next, which fit him like a glove, he was terrific! The tie and shoes are from House of Fraser.
Did you have bridesmaids?
I had a flower girl who wore a headband of olive leaves and flowers, just like the design on the invitations.
What was your favourite part of the ceremony? Who was the ketubah designer?
We didn’t have a ketubah but only a Jewish blessing. My family live in Italy and Neil’s is Jewish and live in England. We wanted to make sure the wedding reflected this. After a civil ceremony by the Mayor, a close family friend, Malcom, that prepared Neil for his Bar Mitzva, performed a Jewish blessing, which made it special.
How did you decide on your chuppah design?
The chuppah design was suggested by Malcom. We used bamboo poles to support the tallit, held up by close friends of the groom.
What songs did you play at your wedding?
For the ceremony, we wanted something classic that enhanced the nature surrounding us, so we chose for my entrance “Brandebur Concerto no.3”, Jean Sebastian Bach.
For our exit, we thought that the perfect song was “Here comes the sun”, The Beatles.
We both love indie music so we found an excellent Britpop covers band called Britannica, who is based in Rome, to play at the wedding. We opted to all friends and family first dance and it was “The concept”, Teenager Fanclub.
Tell us about the flowers
The fabulous florist was Hiden Floral design! They made a stunning job!
The bouquet was made of peonies and English garden roses mixed with greens like eucalyptus and olive tree leaves, the colours were really bright!
The buttonholes were miniature pink and purple roses, and the table centres were high gold metal stands with lots of greeneries resembling Umbrian trees, adorned on the base by small poses of all different white flowers.
Tell us about your photographer
We only used a photographer, so we don’t have a video.
Our photographer was Paola De Paola. We found her through our wedding planner and it has been an easy choice! It was enough to see her gorgeous pictures to choose her!
Tell us about your cake.
The cake… was traditional and Italian, an Italian millefoglie with strawberries.
Entertainment
We had a live band that really made our day super fun and we had also an area set up for the children with games, lego, colouring tools etc etc
Wedding favours
We chose traditional Italian wedding favours to honour our host country!
They were the Sulmona confetti, the same used in the British Royal Weddings!
They were given in beautiful boxes on the tables and in each box there were 5 confetti, to symbolise that the marriage is indivisible since you cannot split an odd number, as the Italian tradition wants.
Are there are any particular stories about something that happened on your wedding day?
I would start this answer by saying that towards the end of the party most of the guests jumped in the pool! It was really funny, a way to escape from the Italian summer heat!
I really loved the table setting of my wedding, which I think is amazing! As I said before, they were designed thinking about Umbrian trees, but in a modern way, so everything matched! Our modern but at the same time, traditional souls were fully represented.
Where did you go on your honeymoon?
We went to Canada and the USA on a road trip, it was amazing! We wanted to go there because it had always been our dream, we are travel lovers and the idea of a road trip, just me and Neil, sounded amazing!
Advice – any little pieces of advice you would like other future brides to benefit from
Well, I would say to them to hire a wedding planner!... on that day I could “relax”, party with my loved ones and think only that I just got married to the love of my life.
Finally, if you don't mind telling me what your professions are, and briefly how you met that would be great too!
Neil is an accountant, and I am a teacher. I left Italy to come in the UK and teach in London, and when I arrived here, yes I started teaching, but I met him too… we met three years ago, it’s incredible because it seems like we met yesterday!
A HUGE thank you to the lovely Jenny and Neil for the special day and to Emiliana from Amoretti Weddings!