Unforgettable Florence Wedding
Unforgettable Florence Wedding
Recapping the most over-the-top 3-day celebration I've ever experienced in the heart of Tuscany
The summer has been nothing short of a whirlwind, and as a result, my blogging has fallen further and further behind.
As promised, I owe you a recap of the final leg of our European trip in June. After the incredible week in the South of France with Lynn’s parents and brother, we were Italy-bound to attend a friend of Lynn’s wedding in Florence/Tuscany. Her friends live in Miami now, but went on their first trip as a couple to Florence years ago and fell in love with the city and region, so decided to have their wedding there.
Our trip started with a bit of a travel hiccup as our flight from Montpellier to Paris (then to Florence) was cancelled due to a strike at Charles De Gaulle. We scrambled and called Air France (thanks Lynn for the solid French-speaking skills) to adjust to fly from Montpellier to Rome, take the Metro into Rome, then a high-speed train north from Rome to Florence. Despite the multiple stages and a new language that Lynn doesn’t speak, it actually went very smooth, and we checked into our incredible Florence hotel (thanks Marriott points) about an hour before the first welcome reception. Sidenote: the train from Rome to Florence flew through the Italian countryside at 285km/h. Why we don’t have trains like that in North America is beyond me
.After checking in, we quickly changed and hopped in an Uber to a private residence at the top of this hill in the middle of Florence, overlooking the entire city for a sunset cocktail event. This was the moment I realized we weren’t at any other wedding, and it quickly became apparent to me that I was about to experience the most extravagant 3-day event I’ve ever been a part of. Let’s hear it for “plus ones”!
After meeting the bride and groom for the first time, I enjoyed some delicious Italian wine, met lots of Lynn’s tennis friends from her days in Atlanta, and had a great time soaking up the views. As the night was winding down, Lynn and I headed back to our hotel to get some rest knowing we had a big Friday planned.
With the next wedding event not scheduled until Friday night, Lynn and I had scheduled (by recommendation from friends in NYC) a private wine tour through northern Tuscany. Around 10am Friday, we were picked up by our guy Stefano, a sommelier who started his own tour company. He drove us through the hills of Tuscany, about 50 minutes to our first stop: a small, family-owned winery that also grew olives, and garlic, produced a dozen wines, 30-year-aged balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and other specialties. The tour guide at the winery was awesome, answered all our (my) questions, and ensured we left full and buzzing.
We stopped at two other wineries and continued to ask questions of Stefano along the way, learning as much as we could about the region, the history, and what type of Super Tuscan pairs well with tofu.
We were dropped back at the hotel around 4pm, and it was time to get dressed for the official “rehearsal dinner”. I put it in quotations because it wasn’t one of those situations where the rehearsal is limited to close friends and family, or to people from out of town. Instead, everyone with an invite to the wedding was welcome to this insane dinner setup right on the bank of the Arno river running right through central Florence. While the walking paths along the river are raised up high at the street level (~5 metres above the water), there is one spot on the bank, underneath a famous museum, that has a beautiful grassy piece of land carved out specifically for events.
This event was awesome as I met more of the international folks attending the wedding, who we ended up being sat with during the actual reception dinner the next night. We also got to experience a private gondola ride underneath the famous bridge from which jewelry shops and small residences hang ominously over the water.
At this point in the three-day event, I could only imagine what the actual wedding venue was going to look like (the couple kept this a secret from the guests).
Saturday morning arrived, so Lynn and I walked through the streets of Florence, grabbed a nice Italian pasta lunch and then walked back to the hotel to prep for the main event.
The groom comes from a Greek Orthodox family so the ceremony was held at a small Greek Orthodox church in the middle of Florence, Italy which is somewhat ironic. After the ceremony (they said ‘I do’) they had shuttle vans pick up the ~90 guests from the church and drive us outside the city through winding countryside roads to an incredible estate overlooking the rolling Tuscan wineries and housing a ridiculous castle/mansion that had been converted to an event space.
For the cocktails, we were outside in the garden, sipping champagne and enjoying hors d’oeuvres, while taking a picture every 20 seconds of the breath-taking views. Once the couple arrived, we were literally paraded via drum-line and trumpets around the venue to the front door where we were greeted by some sort of flag-throwing dance team that performed a ceremonial routine for ~10 minutes. The scene was difficult to describe but needless to say we felt like we were attending the wedding of the Prince of Monaco.
Once the flag-throwing ceremony was complete, we were slowly walked through the entrance of the castle and through various rooms of the event space, all completely dark save for a few candles lighting up the single musician(!) in each room. We walked by the first room with a violinist, then a pianist in the next room, and a cellist in the final room before being escorted into the main dining room, which, you guessed it, was bananas.
Lynn and I took our seat and enjoyed the next 3.5 hours at that table. We had a great group of guests so conversations (and wine) were flowing nicely. Included in this span of time was a gourmet 4-course meal, a couple speeches from the families, an Italian opera singer dropping a couple Andrea Bocelli numbers, and even a private fireworks show launched from the lawn outside the windows to celebrate the couple! I wouldn’t have been surprised if desert was served by saber-toothed tigers restrained by 24-karat-gold leashes. Finally it was time to hit the dance floor.
They hired an awesome band so we enjoyed the party for a while but given how insane and exhausting the three-day Italian adventure had been, and with the looming cross-Atlantic flight in the morning, we figured we’d take a shuttle back and get some sleep.
The next morning, we checked out, flew Florence to Amsterdam to New York and our summer European adventure was complete. Thank you to Kelsey and James for inviting me to your magical wedding celebration, it was so much fun exploring Tuscany and meeting some great people!
Cheers,
Mike