We held a micro wedding in Florence, Italy for our family, and it was perfect. Let me give you some back story and walk you through all the details.
If you know Nick and I, you know we hate a lot of attention (which I'm told is funny because I am a Leo). We dated for 10 years before getting engaged, and I always said we would elope before having a big wedding.
When the time came, I got wrapped up in the idea of having a big party for friends and family to celebrate us, so I planned a wedding for about 80 people. I booked a venue and started seriously looking at the next round of vendors (photographers, florists, caterers). I was stressed in May for a wedding in April. I was worried someone would feel left out in my hopes of keeping things somewhat small and the size of the wedding kept snowballing. It didn't feel right. One day I completely flipped the switch and decided to follow my heart and "run away" to "elope" with my hunny in Europe. We decided on just our immediate family being there and Italy as the destination. Everything felt right after that.
Why Italy? Why Florence?
I went years ago to Italy with my family, and it was one of our best family vacations. The idea of returning to celebrate our love and marriage just felt so amazing. Plus, Nick has never been there and Italian food is his favorite.
We had a hard time finding villas near a big city that can provide activities and good restaurants to visit. We found the villa we stayed in and saw it was near Florence - which we could easily get to from Rome or fly into Florence. Also...think about the pictures for a wedding in Tuscany?!
Where we stayed:
We looked for a villa to stay in just outside of a major city. We decided to book it from April 20th to April 23rd with the wedding on April 22nd. This is the
Villa we rented. This and a few other villas in the area are owned by a management company. From the very beginning everyone I worked with was extremely kind and helpful. I emailed back and forth with someone in the company and eventually texted with a property manager who was available on site. Truly, I could not recommend this team enough.
The location of the villa is about 45 minutes away from Florence's city center. The Villa team has a car service that can take you to the city center, but it cost about 90 euros per trip. I did not take the car service often, but my family did and they had a great experience. For taxis from Florence to the Villa, it cost about 35-49 euros.
They offered tours, wine tasting, Private chefs, pizza dinners, etc. for an added price. We decided to utilize the private chef for our reception dinner. For 9 people we paid about $400 and our meal included four delicious courses. They provided options for a four course meal, so my husband and I were able to tailor the meal to our preferences. Additionally, we booked a gnocchi cooking class for $65/per person and my mother in law purchased breakfast for everyone at $20/per person per day. I highly recommend the breakfast!
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| Tomas our chef and his sous chef were amazing! |
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| Our main course, pork tenderloin and roasted potatoes. |
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| I printed out menus I made on Canva and brought them with me. The chef put everything else out! |
Vendors We Used
Florals: I decided I wanted a few floral arrangements to make the wedding feel a little more special. I contacted
Jardin Drivers for a bouquet and for one centerpiece for the table. I sent them inspiration through an email and they quoted me $361.
I was beyond pleased with the flowers and wished I could have brought them home with me.
Photographer: Jesus Caballero Photography was our photographer. When I tell you this was the part I was most nervous about, I mean it! Jesus and I did not speak on the phone and traded a few emails and Instagram messages back and forth. He was always kind, but you never know how you will mesh with the photographer. He was absolutely wonderful and exceeded our expectations!
We paid around $1800 for five hours of the wedding day and he included an engagement session in Florence as well. All the photos featured in this post were taken by Jesus. He captured the intimacy of my family and beauty of Florence so wonderfully.
Jesus's Platforms:
Overall, if you are considering having a destination wedding or a micro-wedding, I say absolutely do it! I liked being able to stay on the site where we were having a wedding and made sure we picked a spot that would not require decorations. Be sure to be diligent about checking reviews and validity of vendors and the rest is so easy. Please feel free to ask me questions in the comments below!
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