Original choices wanted
Thinking out of the box
The search for the place to celebrate your wedding is by no means a walk in the park, as I wrote in last Sunday’s issue. Even when you are totally free from rules and customs, finding the ideal place is always energy and time consuming. But nowadays, thanks to technology, many (if not all) destinations become reachable at the drop of a hat: virtual visits – especially in times of pandemics – have become the norm. Granted, visiting a place in person is a totally different story. But still.
One usually looks for and finds faraway places when comfortably seated in front of a computer. The newlyweds-to-be shortlist a couple of them and then they go visit them in person; that would be the traditional sequence of events. Sometimes visiting in person unveils something not entirely convincing; other times, by breathing in the place’s atmosphere (something not even the best computers are able to transmit) the couple falls immediately in love with it.
Let me briefly tell you a story that made me smile.
A while ago, a couple of friends decided to make their union official: they had moved in together a few years prior and you wouldn’t have thought they needed to “legalize” their union, but, unexpectedly, they came out. One evening, over dinner at their place, right in the middle of a conversation on a completely different topic, they kind of casually went “You know, we’re getting married”. They threw it out there as if they didn’t care. “How come?”, I replied, without thinking (well, you shouldn’t really respond like that). “We just thought that we maybe wouldn’t mind being married”.
In a split second, this whole naïveté turned into an organizational machine never seen before: they started going around Italy from North to South in search for the perfect place to celebrate their wedding and receive their friends. The problem, though, was that they had been to all their relatives’ and friends’ weddings and wanted to make their special day something original and unprecedented. That is, they wanted to find a place where nobody had ever been for a wedding, but that, at the same time, would be equipped to host one.
The bride-to-be then found a solution: she obligated her fiancé/groom-to-be to get on Google Maps and sift through the whole area they were interested in, looking for private mansions closed to the public. And they were successful, as, a fine day, they told me they finally found their dream place. The (slight) problem was that the place was owned by a family that was living there!
So they networked and got other people involved and, somehow, they were able to get to the owners and went to meet them in person to express their desire to celebrate the wedding in their stunning property, where, by the way, a little private chapel was available, consecrated and fully working.
The family, though, turned them down, as they weren’t keen on sharing their private spaces with a pack of strangers, not even for a single half-day.
The bride-to-be, however, didn’t give up and charged back with the help of a well-known wedding planner, who was able to convince the family.
And so, that was it: my friends got married in that wonderful place and, most importantly, none of the invitees had been there before.
Now, it’s worth reflecting on this story as we tend to follow paths already beaten by others, seeking security. By having your fantasy work for you, though, you can find unique and unimaginable solutions.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of that beautiful wedding, as the only ban from the owners was not to shoot any pictures if you weren’t an official photographer for the event. But I believe (and hope) that your imagination has helped you out while reading this story.
Next Sunday we will venture into the real organization of the event: where to start, what to do, what not to forget, and much more.
Take care