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Quote: Originally Posted by Italy2013 We leave this next Friday for our wedding in Montepulciano, Italy. We are having just 12 guests and we are paying for the travel, accommodations and car rentals for 8 including us (our children and their spouses). We are both 50 and our kids are 22 - 30 and we have one granddaughter. My parents and my brother and his wife are also going. The wedding and reception are really reasonable. The travel expenses are higher but we all get a vacation in Tuscany too! Our family will leave after a week and we are staying an extra week and traveling up to Portofino and Barolo for our honeymoon. Here are our costs. Efffetti Wedding planner in Italy - $1,881 Piazza Comunale Town hall - $1,300 Jay Studio Rome photography - $1,040 Jay Studio videographer - $1,235 Wedding/reception flowers - $630 Enzo Polito Musicians - $1,170 Bottegga del Nobile wine cave reception - $1,560 Wedding attire (both) - $2,375 At home reception (60 people) - $3,915 Travel for 8 - $15,600 Honeymoon - $3,000 Total $33,706 Not bad and about the cost of a wedding at home but we get to be in Italy!!! That really is awesome! I don't see DW brides from Italy on here so its definitely unique. Nice of you to foot the travel too- we could never afford that. Congrats and good luck with everything. I can't wait to see some pics- a cave reception sounds AMAZING!!!!!

We had a palette of blues with subtle peacock touches- it wasn't full on peacock, although looking at some of the weddings on here...I wish I had gone a little crazier with the peacocks! I was worried about the peacocks taking over. Initially everything I bought was peacock but then I pulled back to tone it down a bit. Blue is my favorite color and initially we were doing the teal and purple route, but once we saw James Bond Skyfall and my husband said "I want that suit" (its navy blue)- I knew our wedding theme would take a detour lol. We ended up focusing on the eye of the peacock as our color inspiration. There are so many colors in the feather- brown, green, dark blue, purple, teal- you really can't go wrong- but the eye is especially dark blue. Some of the pics posted here are professional and some are just great detail shots friends caught with their personal cameras. I also included two pics from my shower because by then- my mom knew how peacock crazy I was and I registered for all peacock China from Macy's- yes it exists LOL and yes, my husband is thrilled. Here are our wedding pics: (Groomsmen custom suit and ties, Custom peacock passport invitations, my "something old"- custom peacock bouquet with my grandparents wedding photo (Instagram photo challenge game- they were not supposed to look like diplomas. We had a printing snafu and didn't get them before the wedding so we improvised and printed on-site at the hotel which meant it came out on regular paper- which would fly away so we had to scroll them. Luckily I had the ribbon LOL I wish I had pics of the inside- my husband workds in advertising and he copied the peacock from our invitations and the inside of the scroll had two peacocks kissing with an "I spy" game (that no one except the kids played haha)- Peacock favor bags for my girls- I gave them their jewelry, a clutch, and a parasol) The groomsmen suited up- that's my husband in his James Bond Skyfall suit, My dress with the maid and matron dresses- my sisters dress is the darker blue- also a pleasant mistake. My twin sisters did not get their dresses in time and had to buy off the rack. They bought a dress similar to my other bridal party members in a slightly darker hue. The feathers on the cake are edible. The beverage napkins had the same peacock feathers as the matches (for cigar bar), but it got covered- the wording on the napkins was my idea because I'm a complete and utter dork haha The entire bridal party together- My sisters, again in the darker blue. It worked out nicely- people thought it was intentional, even though I fretted over the fact that my sisters didn't match the rest of the bridal party. Tired of paying for the resort companies decor- we bought navy blue sashes for the chair backs- for $38 (50 sashes- and they arrived flattened out so they took up absolutely no space in the luggage- I highly recommend), bought peacock feathers, and paid the $50 set up fee to have all the chairs adorned with them. The DJ lit up our dancefloor in our peacock colors! Our signature drink- "The Peacock"- feel free to steal the recipe. I bartended as a second side job for the wedding. The drink is a martini we made at our job called the "Blue Island"- I copied the recipe and made the name fit our theme. Everyone LOVED the drink- in fact it was practically all they drank that evening. When made properly it has a bright blue hue- though the bartender didn't quite nail it-it came out a greenish blue- which was fine anyway. Our AHR- in the Bronx, New York And then we kept the peacocks going at our AHR. Guest fingerprint frame (we wanted a peacock but settled for a stock tree sold at Michael's) adorned with two peacock birds, our blue dais, Entry table that initially had the place cards (this pic was taken after) And the end of our night- Sorry for all the kissing pics haha- apparently that's all I did the night of our wedding.