By four in the afternoon on a Vernazza terrace in June, the air carries a fine film of salt that settles on every petal within twenty minutes. You can feel it if you touch a leaf — a faint tackiness, almost imperceptible. This is the single physical fact that shapes every decision we make about cinq…
The measurement that shapes your reception here is not the guest count. It is the depth of the terrace. The dry-stone terraces that step down to the sea between Monterosso and Riomaggiore were cut for vines and lemon trees from the eleventh century onward, by monastic and peasant communities who had…
Nine times out of ten, the first question a couple asks me is not about venues. It is about the date. And on Lake Garda the date is not a matter of taste — it decides which shore works, what hour the ceremony can start, whether the boat transfer is realistic, and how much of the lake belongs to your…
The parish church of Santa Margherita d’Antiochia, begun in 1318 on the rock directly above Vernazza’s harbour, has survived seven centuries of Ligurian sea storms — and it still cannot be reached by car. That single fact governs more of your date decision than the temperature chart ever will. Coupl…
Over the past thirty years I have watched couples fall in love with Portovenere for one reason and book it for another. The reason they fall in love is the row of tower-houses on the harbour and the striped stone church standing on the rock at the end of the promontory. The reason they book is far m…
By late May, the wind on the upper stretch of Lake Garda keeps to a rhythm that most couples only notice once they are standing on the water’s edge in Malcesine: a northerly breeze in the early morning, a lull around midday, then a steady southerly that lifts off the lake in the early afternoon and…
Most couples arrive at the tablescape conversation with a photograph and a question: will these colours survive the light? On Lake Garda that question is not decorative. The lake acts as a reflector, and between 6pm and 8pm in September it pushes a cool blue-grey wash across every pale surface withi…
At a quarter past seven on a late-September morning, the harbour at Vernazza is almost silent. The fishing boats are still hauled up on the slipway, the shutters on Piazza Marconi are closed, and the only sound is water moving against the breakwater. By eleven, several thousand day visitors will hav…
The first question couples ask me, almost always in the opening minutes of a call, is this: why does a wedding in the five villages cost more than one in a Tuscan estate of the same size? The answer is medieval. The Republic of Genoa fortified this coast between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries…
From Kiss Me Italy – Italian wedding planners with over 30 years of experience Portofino and the Italian Riviera offer some…
