There’s a great deal to be said about a destination wedding and, in my opinion, most of it is positive.
Planning a wedding has become an enormous undertaking, and the expense that surrounds it means brides often have to compromise on what they want.
I got married in Rome and recently my daughter, Lilly, got married in Positano. We’re not Italian and have no Italian family but for us it was an easy choice. What drove our decisions was the romance of it all! Plus, you really only have to ask close friends and family, and you don’t end up with an extended invitation list which includes people the bride and groom barely know let alone count as an important part of their lives.
Lilly wanted only the people closest to her at her wedding table.
The perfect wedding she aspired to would have been hard to pull off in Australia with a long guest list and a wedding industry that charges over-the-top prices. There was a budget, as there always has to be, unless you’re a Russian oligarch. A destination wedding ticked all the boxes — the romantic dream realised with only close family and friends in attendance and all within budget.
This didn’t mean we lost control of the arrangements. Each detail was styled and curated from Sydney and put into action in Positano by wedding planner, Emma, who’s based in Amalfi.
One of the themes Lilly wanted was olive leaves so these formed part of the bouquets, were interwoven with candles as a centre piece of the tables and decorated invitations and name cards.
Olive leaves remind Lilly of her childhood growing up on an olive farm in the Hunter Valley, in Australia, but also were readily available in the Amalfi area. It was important to work with Emma to create something very local but at the same time create an event which fitted Lilly’s brief.
One of the most wonderful aspects of the wedding was the quality time that the invited guests and the bride and her charming groom, Rob, spent together before and after the event. We shared incredible times and formed unforgettable memories together, particularly as they are remembered in the palette of Positano: bougainvillea fuchsia and aqua blue, sparkling under a golden sun.
