ALETHIEA’S REAL BRIDE DIARY: THE VENUE & INSPIRATION

Hi you lovely lot, it’s Alethiea again. Today I am giving you the low down on my design inspiration of our wedding, which includes the hunt for the right venue and photographer!

I wasn’t one of those little girls that dreamed of her wedding day, I’ll admit I always wanted to find the ‘one’ but a wedding wasn’t something I particularly pictured (bar one memory where I remember standing under my Nana’s lace curtains at around 6 years old, holding it to my head like a veil and walking as far as I could go without pulling them off the wall) but having worked in the wedding industry for just over 3 years now I had a pretty good sense of what I was after. A mix of glamour and more rustic notes. It consisted of my love for ancient cultures, textures in particular stone (I was formerly a stone sculptor) and sparkles!

INSPIRATION

My personality is a little split – I love rustic, Georgian and classical but I also love minimalistic and contemporary design too, so I wanted to have both of these elements in the wedding. I decided to start from some of my favourite pieces of art and drew lots of inspiration from three painting in particular.

I started pinning things on good old Pinterest that I just loved. Not wedding related as such, just textures, colours, places, more paintings etc and this quickly made it very clear what the wedding would look like with pastels alongside metallics, glass and lots of textures.

VENUE

For me, as a wedding photographer, of course it all began as a tandem search of venue and photographer. On the quest for a warm outdoor wedding, I knew it would be a destination wedding in Italy. I am from Liguria but struggled to find a venue nearby that should it rain, I’d be happy to have it indoors. Knowing how much of a difference good natural light can make to your images, many of the venues had exquisite gardens but the interior and natural light just fell below par. That is, until I stumbled across Convento dell’Annunciata in Lombardia. It was as beautiful inside as it was out.

A 14^th century convent, it has been lovingly restored with gardens filled with cherry blossoms and jasmine. It smells just completely glorious too. The stonework is aged in that beautiful sun-soaked way and the cloisters/arches are just gorgeous! As my choice of photographer,Branco Prata (from Portugal), were my priority I worked to their schedule and booked the venue and date based on their availability.

It’s only 4 months until the wedding and I have done all the fun bits, now it’s the tedious logistical points that are keeping me up at night! Getting all my DIY, over 100 candles and eBay finds (of which I went a little mental!) over to Italy. Next time I’ll be talking about the dress, the guests and planning our engagement session.

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