Sicily · Wedding weekendChiara
Chiara wrote to me after finding me online and, shortly afterwards, we began planning their wedding. The project had started as a simple day on Lake Maggiore, but it turned into something entirely different: a whole wedding weekend in Catania.
During the months of planning, Chiara and Francesco were living in Abu Dhabi and New York respectively. Finding the right moment for a video call with both of them present was not always easy. Between diaries, time zones and their wish to step outside their comfort zone, I proposed a destination very different from the one first imagined. And so we set off together for the first site visit in Sicily: it was there that the wedding truly began to take shape.
Chiara and Francesco have known each other almost all their lives and, curiously, their families come from the same town. Over time, though, life had taken them far apart, and the guests would be arriving in Catania from every part of the world. The main challenge was therefore to build three days able to make everyone feel welcomed and part of the same story.
We looked after the logistics with particular care, arranging transfers both from the centre of Catania and from the resort chosen as the base for the overnight stays, the welcome event and the gathering on the day after the wedding. Every journey and every moment was designed so that the guests could live the weekend easily, without having to worry about a thing.
Having come to know the land that would host us, we decided to start from exactly there: from its colours, its wonderful food and its energy. The citrus grove chosen for dinner gave rise to a playful, unusual theme, developed through illustrations hand-painted in watercolour. Oranges thus became the heart of the painted elements, the thread running through the wedding website, the logo, the invitations, the menu and the tableau de mariage.
The tableau was made of many baskets brimming with oranges. Among the fruit appeared the traditional tissue wrappers used to protect them: on each one the couple was drawn, together with the guest’s name and table.
The same scene reappeared on the menu, with one small difference reserved for the sharpest eyes: Chiara had changed her hair and part of her dress. It was a detail we had kept hidden even from Francesco, for obvious reasons. When Chiara walked into the citrus grove with her new look, the drawing came to life. A discreet touch, yet able to tie fashion, graphics and storytelling together in an entirely personal way.
A discreet touch, yet able to tie fashion, graphics and storytelling together in an entirely personal way.
On the first evening the guests were welcomed onto a terrace, almost a square above the sea, with a party dedicated to the most authentic Sicily.
The traditional luminarie lit up the space, while a Sicilian folk band accompanied the evening with the sounds of its own land. Busiate, arancini and the weekend’s first party gave everyone the right charge of energy, anticipating the atmosphere of the days to come.
The ceremony in the church at Militello was beautiful and solemn. The guests then made their way to the Castello di Xirumi, where the aperitivo took place among gardens lush with palms and flowers and in the castle courtyard.
The real surprise came at dinner. The guests were led into the citrus grove, where long tables rich with colourful flowers awaited them beneath trees lit by hundreds of small lights. A setting full of colour and vitality: a true ode to happiness.
The evening went on by the pool with a great tiered cake, finished with candied oranges and inspired by the decorations of the Sicilian cassata. Then the party, which carried on until dawn.
To let everyone rest after the celebrations, the final gathering began in the early afternoon: a proper pool party, thought through in every detail. The guests found everything they might need, from sun cream to aspirin, from towels to water pistols. Nor could the typical Sicilian granita be missing, along with the open bar and excellent live music.
Magic shows among the guests accompanied the afternoon until the sun set over the sea, closing the weekend the same way it had begun: with lightness, love, energy and the pleasure of being together.
With lightness, love, energy and the pleasure of being together.
Among the most intense moments lived behind the scenes, the whirlwind that struck the coast on the very afternoon of the welcome party remains unforgettable. In no time at all, rain and wind flooded the terrace on which, a few hours later, we were to welcome every guest. We decided to push the start of the evening back by about an hour, giving the staff the time they needed to dry and completely restore the area.
It was a difficult moment, in which every decision had to be taken quickly and with great care. When the guests arrived, however, everything was ready for them once again: the luminarie were lit, the music was playing, and of what had happened shortly before there was no trace at all.
So many memories remain of that weekend that choosing just one is almost impossible. I remember Chiara arriving at the church, with the very long veil that followed her every step up the imposing staircase. After studying all her outfits together and imagining that moment for so long, seeing her finally climb those steps was truly moving.
I remember Chiara and Francesco dancing to the songs of Sicilian tradition on the first evening: a spontaneous, joyful, genuine moment that told perfectly the spirit in which they had chosen to live that weekend. And I remember Chiara’s emotion at the goodbyes, when the time had come for us to leave. After so many months of phone calls, time zones, site visits, decisions and shared details, that farewell held the whole journey we had made together.
What had begun as a single-day wedding on Lake Maggiore had become a three-day journey into the heart of Sicily: a weekend built around the guests, around the land that had welcomed us, and around the story of two people who had chosen to go far beyond what they had first imagined.
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