Location: Castellina in Chianti, Tuscany, Italy
Setting: Borgo di Pietrafitta Relais, a beautiful venue nestled on top of a hill overlooking the rolling hills of the Chianti region
Wedding season: Late Spring / Early Summer
Amount of guests: 100
Wedding theme/style: Romantic, outdoor, traditional, rustic. Tuscan elegance, noting over the top as the Tuscan countryside is so beautiful!
Stephen and Giannina met in London in February 2019, having each “swiped right” on a dating app. They chatted, and after a few days, Stephen asked her for a drink. Their first date was almost canceled.
“We had each been out with friends the night before, so, by 6 pm the following day, neither of us felt too sociable. One hour before Stephen and I were due to meet, having feebly asked a friend if it was too late to cancel, I declared I was “going for one drink and will be home by 11 pm” – little did I know, he was having the same conversation! Needless to say, we met each other that evening and immediately hit it off. One drink turned into a few, the conversation flowed, and already we felt like we’d known each other for ages.
Stephen messaged me the following day, and a second date was arranged for a few days later and the rest, as they say, is history.”
“At the beginning of 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic hit, and Stephen moved in “temporarily” so that we didn’t have to spend lockdown apart – I’m still waiting for him to leave! Then, as lockdown restrictions eased, we made the move official.”
Their 2nd anniversary had been at the end of the latest set of UK Covid-related restrictions so these two hadn’t been able to celebrate quite as they had wanted. So, a few months later, Stephen told Giannina to keep the evening of 28 May free as he was organizing a special date for them as a belated celebration.
“Whenever I asked where we were going, he either gave a vague “dinner and drinks” answer or avoided the question entirely! Finally, on the day itself, he told me I must be ready to leave by 4.30 pm. We live 20 minutes from the middle of London, so I was desperately trying to work out where on Earth we were going that would mean we had to leave so early! Still none-the-wiser, I began to get myself dressed up, and the usual cycle of “are you ready yet?”/ “10 more minutes” that every couple endures on a date night began.
Eventually, I was ready, and, as we went to walk out the front door, Stephen told me I looked beautiful and jokingly asked if I would marry him. This question had come up as a joke regularly over the last few months, and I always had, in an equally joking fashion, always responded with, “if you get me a diamond, we’ll talk”. As far as I could tell, this time was no different so, with my head in my bag looking for my keys, I replied, “I told you, you need a diamond to seal the deal,” but was absolutely stunned when I looked up to see Stephen down on one knee with a ring! I immediately said yes, and that’s where our wedding story began!“
Stephen and Giannina got engaged at the end of May 2021 and knew they wanted to get married in the Spring/Summer of 2022. The couple got planning immediately. But, at this point in June 2021, they would have already been relatively late to the booking window for 2022. Of course, many venues and vendors were already booked due to couples having to move weddings from 2020 to 2021 due to the pandemic. Covid-related travel restrictions were still in place, so if the lovers were going to have the wedding they wanted, both knew they would need some help.
The couple researched, and Stephen came across Chiara and her Weddings in Tuscany page on Instagram. They loved the look of her weddings. They all seemed to have the romantic, magical, luxurious yet relaxed vibe that these two were looking for and immediately asked for a call.
“As a granddaughter of Italian grandparents, my Italian heritage is a big part of my identity. I have spent a lot of time in Italy, with nearly all of the summers throughout my life spent in our family home in a small village to the south of the Lazio region. As a young girl, I had always dreamed of getting married in Italy and just hoped my future husband would be happy to do the same! Fortunately, Stephen loves my big, loud Italian family, Italian food, Italian culture, and, most importantly, Italian wine! As a result, the decision to get married in Italy was an easy one.”
Stephen and I are both passionate about food and wine, and we love entertaining and hosting friends and family for dinner. We discussed our budget and our wish list with Chiara, and, while we wanted our wedding to look beautiful, we noted that the most important thing to us was that all our guests (who all were flying into Italy, especially for the wedding) have an unforgettable weekend with great food, great wine, and great entertainment.”
“While I would have loved to get married near our family home (in a small village in Lazio), the area is quite remote and does not easily lend itself to large weddings. As a result, we chose Tuscany as it had all the infrastructure and vendors that we needed to make our wedding easily accessible but also had the same rolling countryside views.
When picking a venue, I was determined to find somewhere with a similar “rustic, hilltop, post-card” feel as the small village my family is from – again, Chiara delivered. There were two venues that Chiara had proposed for us that met our needs. Borgo di Pietrafitta had the best availability. Unfortunately, our window to decide and secure the date was small. As covid-related travel restrictions were still in place, we could not travel to Italy to view the venue before we needed to book and pay for the deposit.
As a result, Chiara very kindly travelled out to the venue and gave us a video tour from our phone. While it wasn’t ideal, we could see, even through the small screen, that the venue was exactly what we had been looking for, so we paid the deposit. We did a lot of our initial planning remotely, and, at times, it felt like we were planning someone else’s wedding or that the whole thing wasn’t real.
We had booked a trip out to Italy for the following September. By that point, the Covid-related travel restrictions had eased a little to meet with the caterers and the florist to visit the venue in real life. After looking at, what felt like, every picture of the Borgo on the internet, I was a bit nervous that it wouldn’t be exactly as we thought it to be. However, I shouldn’t have worried. We arrived on a beautiful, warm sunny day in September, which was perfect. I was so relieved – finally, our wedding felt real!”
“So, we managed to secure the most beautiful venue, Borgo di Pietrafitta, perched on top of a hill overlooking the Chianti region of Tuscany. The venue itself was an old Borgo (originally, it would have been a medieval settlement) and was almost like a small village of its own! Not only did this remind me of the village of our family home, as I dreamt, it’s the unique position on top of the hill meant we had the most amazing, 360-degree views of the surrounding area.”
“We wanted to incorporate this into our wedding weekend as much as possible. So we decided to host the wedding breakfast in front of the main villa steps, where the views extended across the hills to the neighboring villages. When considering the layout, we decided to stray away from traditional round tables and instead chose to have one really (really) long table that stretched almost the entire length of the building. When the table was set, the lights were hung, the candles were lit, and the views were in the background. It was the most breathtaking part of the weekend, and it only got better as it got darker with all the candles and lights twinkling.”
“Additionally, our band was absolutely incredible. We had initially planned to have the entertainment spread over three sets, with breaks in between. However, Francesa and the rest of the Boden Band had the dance floor packed to the walls from the first song, and it stayed like that for the whole night! Three sets turned into one three-hour marathon, and there wasn’t a single moment where the dancefloor was not full. They played a song from almost every era and every genre, ensuring something for everyone, and even let Stephen on stage for a bit of spontaneous karaoke! Everyone had aching feet the next day, but people are still talking about how great the Boden Band were, and we would not hesitate to recommend them to anyone (or fly them over to the UK for any future event!).”
“Chiara shared our vision, and, together with her and our amazing planner Elena, we created a weekend that was more than we could ever have dreamed of!”
VENUE Borgo di Pietrafitta | PLANNING & DESIGN Weddings in Tuscany | FLORAL Nel giardino di Giulia | PHOTOGRAPHER Matteo Coltro | VIDEOGRAPHER Aberrazioni Chromatiche Studio | CATERING Eventi e Cucina | BRIDAL DRESS Enzoani | GROOM’S SUIT Tom Fox Tailoring | BRIDESMAID DRESSES Oasis | STATIONERY Ivy & Gold | WEDDING RING Tiffany & Co. | ENGAGEMENT RING The Diamond Ring Company
