A hamletic question, a difficult question to answer. The chicken or the egg as they say. Where should your priority be? If you’ve chosen to have a destination wedding in Italy, you’ll have definitely decided to do so with the inspiration of the beautiful landscapes in mind. It is liely that your first response would be the ‘obvious’: the wedding venue. An hotel or villa where you can share this unforgettable occasion in Italy, surrounded by your dearest friends and family members. So you surf the web and feast your eyes on the magnificent locations placed in some of the famous places in Italy, with breathtaking views. You go through the millions of wedding photos, and begin to imagine that yours could take place in one of these sublime locations. And maybe you push a little further and you even contact the venues yourself directly, and sign a contract to reserve your spot at your dream venue in Italy! It’s done, and you’re proud that you did it on your own!
Post contract consequences
However, it is a shame that you didn’t properly concern yourself to know the conditions and intricate policies a luxury villa brings when your reserve your event at one. Many luxury venues offer their private clients a list of exclusive service providers immediately following the signing of the contract. You are limited to those suppliers for your wedding. You are obliged to use a specific catering service, to hire only their preauthorized audio and lighting designers, and often even musicians and florists are to be chosen among the 2-3 authorized companies that the villa provides. Finally, quotes and prices are mapped out, and then the worst realization – you’re terribly out of budget! You never expected certain services to cost so much, and now you have to reckon with the penny to figure out what you can afford.
It’s true, you have a beautiful villa. But you risk not being able to do even half of what you had in mind for your wedding, because the villa alone ate half your budget. And maybe you have 100-150 people to provide meals for over the course of two or three days. And the most frustrating thing is that there are other suppliers, less expensive. But you can’t hire them because the venue takes care of its image before your wedding, and it will never let social media run images of set ups or services that are not supplied and ‘okay’d’ by the villa.
I have met brides who could not hire a wedding planner with what was left of their budget after confirming the villa. They were preparing for the exhausting planning months and instead of enjoying, relaxed, the waiting time before the wedding, they set themselves up for stress from the get go.
Indian food or Italian cuisine?
And, do we want to talk about Indian food? Another sore point when it comes to Italian wedding venues. You might want to follow the traditions and offer Indian dishes to your guests, but you aren’t allowed to bring an Indian catering or even a chef, and you have to settle for Italian cuisine. Don’t get me wrong, I’m the first to say that Italian dishes cannot be lacking at a wedding in Italy, otherwise it wouldn’t be a real Italian experience. But I’m also the first to say that the wedding is of the bride and groom, and they must have the chance to do it the way that they dream of doing it. If they want Indian cuisine, then Indian cuisine it is! But what’s done is done. When contracts are signed and payments are made – it is difficult, if not impossible, to go back and change your choices.
A wedding planner like a right investment
So what is the solution?! The answer comes naturally – to rely on a specialist who will not only help you choose the venue, but will also guide you in managing your budget to be able to achieve what you have in mind while respecting the budget you have available. Obviously, considering the budget is a realistic one, the help of the specialist is indispensable. That’s because you cannot know how to navigate the Italian wedding circuit, regardless of your extensive research, especially when it comes to an Indian marriage. And maybe you orient yourself on the figures that are far from reality – both negative and positive. It may happen that the budget you have in mind is too much for what you need, but very often the opposite happens.
So, to conclude, just to avoid compromising situations to the success of your marriage, making the brave choice to choose a wedding planner to help you will be your safest bet and your biggest asset in this complex process. Because the right wedding planner will listen to you, understand your needs, assess your budget and – together with you – decipher the best way to distribute funds according to your priorities. And above all, after a careful analysis, you will find a selection of villas suited to your needs, where you can create the type of wedding you want, making the right investments.
Your wedding happens once in a lifetime
And this situation becomes doubly important when it comes to Indian weddings. A venue can be beautiful and even fit into the budget, but it may not be suitable for an Indian wedding at all. It may be that it does not have suitable spaces or does not offer the possibility of serving Indian food; or perhaps it is not possible to have open fire for pheras ceremony. There are so many factors that to you, the bride, needs to carefully consider when preparing your Indian wedding; while a villa, on the other hand, may not have the faintest idea of these needs. So it is easy for miscommunication and problems should arise.
Hiring a wedding planner specialized in Indian weddings means that she already knows all the specifications and has already made a careful selection of Italian villas able to host an Indian wedding, and offers you only the right venues. This prevents you from a workload that would have absorbed you for weeks. But especially it takes away the terrible risk of missing the right venue and consequently not being able to have the wedding you’ve always dreamed of.
Is it worth the risk? No, it isn’t. Because the stakes are too high – it is your marriage celebration, which happens once in a lifetime. And entrusting your vision to the wedding planner specialized in Indian weddings also means finding the most suitable venue for your Big day in Italy.
Conclusion
So, now you know how important is to have a person at your side who will know how to distribute and manage your budget; a person who will have certain bargaining powers with the venue; and who has a circle of trusted service providers who offer preferential prices just because they want to work with her. This persone is the only wedding planner in Italy who specializes in Indian weddings!
As you can see, there is a microcosm of different needs for Indian weddings. And it’s pivotal to rely on a professional who fully understands these needs and is able to deliver a traditional Indian wedding without any unwanted surprises. Listen to the feedback of this bride, for whom family we organized three weddings: her, her sister’s and her cousin’s:
Are you considering a destination wedding in Italy? Start Here!
