Why did you decide to get married in Italy?
To be honest, from the beginning we knew there was no perfect spot that would work for everyone.
We live in Australia and our families are based mainly in Poland and Argentina, our friends are spread all over the globe so we decided to find a sweet spot between all these locations.
Taking into consideration that we absolutely love nature, architecture and good food, Italy was a no brainer. We’ve never been to Tuscany before but we kind of felt it’s gonna be our vibe and we couldn't have asked for a more perfect backdrop for our special day.
How did you pick the date? Does it have any special meaning to you?
We got married on the 22.09.2022.
Our initial date was actually in 2023 because we booked the wedding at the end of 2020,
we weren't sure about the Covid situation, restrictions etc.
Since everything started getting back to normal at the beginning of 2022, we checked our vendor's availability and we decided to move the wedding for 2022.
We got engaged on the 22nd so I guess it’s our lucky number.
How many guests did you have?
Very intimate, only 13 guests plus 2 vendors.
How did you find your wedding venue?
I searched for places around Tuscany on Booking.com and Airbnb and I was sending a lot of emails.
Tip - Don’t forget that many places won’t allow you to organise parties or they charge extra fees. Make sure to contact them prior to the booking.
What’s the name of the venue and how much did you pay for having a wedding there?
Podere Campaini, 2000 euros for 1 day however we booked them in 2021 so the price probably went up.
Where did you get your white suit from? Are you selling it?
I got in on a Kyha sample sale. It's such a great quality and versatile piece that I am not planning to sell it atm.
What is the cost of catering in Italy? Is it more expensive than Australia?
Not sure exactly what’s the price of catering in Australia ($100?) but at the beginning of 2021 the prices in Italy were around 90 euros/person. Since the prices went up we ended up paying around 120 euros per person (including buffet before the dinner, 3 course dinner, cake, sweet table and midnight pizza).
How did you find your wedding dress? Did you go to many bridal shops?
It wasn’t an easy choice! I went to a few salons on the Gold Coast but I couldn't find anything special. I really liked the bridal salon “Bloom” in Brisbane. They had a great selection of dresses and the customer service was 10/10. Unfortunately the dress I picked was over my budget.
When we moved to Melbourne I found Mia Atelier on Instagram and after the consultation she created a sketch of the dress that I absolutely loved! It was a very clean and minimalistic design with a modern touch which was everything I wanted.
Favourite moment of the day?
Hmm… there were so many beautiful and unforgettable moments but the first look with Guido at the church was my fav.
Do you regret that you had such a small wedding? I’d love to have only my closest family but I am afraid the rest of my family will feel offended.
Not at all. I never imagined having a wedding for 200 people, we both have huuuge families. We wanted to celebrate it with our closest people and that’s what we did.
I only regret that a few family members couldn’t be at our wedding.
What would you do differently?
Not 100% wedding related but I wouldn’t go to Positano and Amalfi before our wedding.
It was such a stressful trip, we had to take a train and two buses from Napoli. There were so many people that we were waiting over 2h to get into the bus, then we had to leave our luggages (even a small luggage where my wedding dress was) in the baggage compartments underneath the bus. Every time someone needed to take their luggage, they had to remove ours first and I was stressing out that they would take our luggages by mistake or just leave it on the street. When we finally got to Ravello, it turned out it's a 15 min walk UP STAIRS to our Airbnb.
Ravello was absolutely stunning but definitely not the best option to fully relax before the wedding.
If I could change something, I would just stay longer in Tuscany.
Did you have any special diet?
Not really. I always try to eat healthy. I don’t eat gluten on a daily basis (with small exceptions for pizza from time to time:), I avoid dairy and sweets and I practise intermittent fasting almost every day. I hardly ever drink alcohol.
Apart from that I stuffed my face with a huge portion of ice cream two days before the wedding so that’s probably not the best example to follow lol.
What went wrong?
The main one was probably that the priest thought that our wedding was at 3pm not at 2pm. When my partner and my brother (who was a celebrant) got to the church and… it was closed. The priest was having lunch and it took him a while to open and prepare the church so the ceremony was delayed about 30-40 min.
Another thing… I left my veil, shoes and a bag (with my phone) in my bridesmaid car because we were supposed to go together. At the last minute I decided to change the cars. My second bridesmaid car was bigger so I thought it would be more comfortable to drive with her. We were supposed to go to the same parking lot but somehow we lost them.
They arrived 15 min later and I was freaking out that I will get married without the veil and wearing my brown Zara slider lol
Well…at least we have something to laugh about.
Are you selling your veil?
I made it myself and it’s so special that I decided to keep it.
Are you selling your wedding dresses?
Yes, feel free to email me if you are interested beatarasiuk@gmail.com
Did you cry guys?
No, haha. I am glad Guido didn’t cry because this would make me cry too.
Where did your partner get a suit from? Did you go shopping with him?
MJ Bale. Yes, I went with him - it was very quick shopping haha! Only 2 stores and done!
How much was your Leah Da Gloria dress if you don’t mind asking?
It’s a beautiful french lace with a lot of beading and Swarovski crystals so it was very expensive. I reckon the original price was around $12k but I got it second hand for a fraction of the price.
Show us the ugliest wedding dress you’ve tried on!
I shared some photos in my stories here.
How did you share the cost of the wedding? My parents want to contribute but I am not sure what’s the right amount of $$$ to accept
I can’t really answer this question. We didn’t want our parents to pay for the wedding.
We split 50/50 between us.
Did you stick to the budget? We have a wedding in 3 months and we already spent 10k$ more than we expected. What should we do?!
We were pretty good in that case. We didn’t spend more than we expected.
From the beginning we set the budget and we decided to spend money on things that are important to us like a nice venue with enough rooms to accommodate everyone, good food, amazing photographer and lots of alcohol haha.
I also decided to put a bit more money into my three outfits because I absolutely love fashion and I didn’t want to wear something I don’t like on my wedding day.
Vendors/things we decided to save up money on:
wedding planner, stylist, florist, music band, fancy car, 3-tier cake, makeup artist.
Did you have a wedding planner and stylist?
No. We pretty much organised everything on our own. The morning of the wedding we had to bring all the tables and chairs downstairs. It was a good pre-wedding workout lol.
We ordered decorations online and we bought a bunch of flowers and fruits a day before the wedding. Our guest helped us with the table styling and it came up so well!
Can you share your vendors?
Absolutely!
Venue - Podere Campaini
Church - St Augustin Church in San Gimignano
Photographer - Monika Frias
Videographer - Simona Tortolano
Stationery - Letterink
Catering - Giovanni Enterprises
From the wedding photographer perspective - what are the things that you believe are money wasters?
Wedding cake (I wouldn’t pay $500-$1000 for a cake, we had ours because it was included in the price of catering)
Fancy vintage car - there is so much going on during the wedding that you usually end up spending only a very short time in the car.
Guests favours - many people just leave it behind at the reception.
Printed programs - nobody reads them
Champagne towers - can we move to the next trend please?!
To be honest basically everything that you believe it’s unnecessary.
25. Did you have a civil and catholic wedding in Italy? What documents were necessary?
We were supposed to have a concordat wedding in Italy but since there was a problem with paperwork we had only a catholic wedding in Tuscany and civil ceremony in Melbourne, Australia.
That's the email I got from our local priest in Australia and all documents we had to provide for overseas catholic wedding:
- certified copy of birth certificate for both parties.
- certified copy of Baptism certificate obtained from parish of baptism. certified copy of Confirmation certificate.
- pre marriage course certificate. if either party has been married before, Death certificate of deceased spouse OR Decree of Nullity from the church Tribunal must be provide.
- An Australia Post international Express Envelop
- the Pre-Nuptial inquiry form.
Then all the documents were sent to Italy by The Vicar General Office in Melbourne (it took a couple of weeks to process everything and send it to Italy so make sure you to start preparations earlier).
26. Any tips for couples getting married?
Invest in a good photographer and videographer.
It’s your wedding - do it your own way regardless of what people think and say.
Don’t dwell on the hiccups. Like I mentioned before we had a few silly things happen and they’re ultimately the things we look back and laugh about!
Be present. The day goes by so fast, and once its starts, it’s a runaway train. From the moment you wake up on your wedding day, commit to love, enjoyment and fun, exclusively. Forget everything else. And be sure to create some time for just the two of you! It is your day after all!
Here are some of my favourite photos - we are still waiting for the final gallery so I might update this section soon :)
Brak komentarzy