Real wedding – il matrimonio di Elisa e Andrea: un intreccio d’amore tra Messico, Spagna e Italia

What can we say about one of the weddings that tested us the most this year?

A whirlwind of emotions, laughter, tears, and a whole lot of fun.

Elisa and Andrea are an extraordinary couple. They met in Mexico, where Andrea (originally from Bologna) had been living for work for several years — and it was love at first sight.

Andrea described the moment he first saw Elisa at a party as “hands down the most beautiful woman there.” But Elisa is far more than beautiful, and Andrea knows it — and holds onto her tightly: she’s witty, sharp, capable, full of energy, and she brings good mood into any room she walks into.

And what about Andrea? Open, easygoing, always smiling, and remarkably sharp and thoughtful underneath his seemingly “casual” air.

A combination that made planning genuinely fun for us, and kept the preparations light even with the distance involved.

Honestly, I can admit it now: I wish we’d had more time together, because every meeting was full of laughter, but also real connection, ideas that came up spontaneously and were shared openly, and so much genuine openness.

Honestly, clone Elisa and Andrea for me — I’d plan their wedding a hundred more times.

I won’t bore you by going on about how good we are at pulling off amazing weddings, because for us a wedding is MUCH MORE than just a collection of pretty photo corners.

Without a structure behind it that engages not just the eye but also the fun of the day, guests inevitably enjoy it less — and the whole experience, which should engage every sense, suffers for it.

So, if you’re curious to know more about their story, let me walk you through our journey together and how we got to the finish line!

Choosing the caterer

This is definitely one of the funniest stories.

When we started planning, Elisa and Andrea were living in Madrid — and then they had the brilliant idea of moving to Italy exactly one month before the wedding, just to add a little extra stress to the mix!

In December, they planned a week in Italy to meet several vendors and evaluate them together.

In total, they’d be with us for four days.

To fit all the appointments in, I started asking which of the vendors we’d sent quotes for they actually wanted to meet.

Then came the caterer question.

💁🏻‍♀️ (me and Selena) — “Okay, out of the quotes you’ve seen, tell us which ones you’d like to taste”

👰🏼‍♀️🤵🏼 “Oh, I’d say out of the ones you sent us, we’re interested in 5”

💁🏻‍♀️ — “5?!? But we only have four days, how are we supposed to taste 5 different caterers?”

👰🏼‍♀️🤵🏼 — “Don’t worry Anna, we like to eat!”

💁🏻‍♀️ — “I like to eat too, but every tasting includes an aperitivo, at least 4 or 5 first courses, three or four mains, 5 or 6 different wines, and sometimes all the desserts too… you’re going to end up completely wiped out!”

👰🏼‍♀️🤵🏼 — “Come on, it can’t be that bad…”

In the end we talked them down to just three caterers (plus a cake and cocktail tasting).

Can I just say that by the third tasting, Elisa and Andrea were completely done in?

“We can’t eat another biiiiite” and “I don’t want to see food again until Christmas!” were just a couple of the comments that came out after the tastings — which had genuinely worn them out, especially scheduled so close together!

So many couples underestimate the menu tasting process, and end up halfway through completely unable to think straight!

Our tips for surviving it?

If possible, schedule tastings at lunchtime, even if it means taking half a day off — you’ll be hungrier and have plenty of time to digest calmly instead of a rough night of it, and the caterer will have far fewer clients around to give you the attention you deserve
Space out the individual tastings as much as possible, so you can actually appreciate each one properly
Prepare the day before: a light dinner and a low-carb breakfast with fruit and yoghurt, or a small piece of toast, so you arrive hungry but not ravenous
Don’t overdo it on the aperitivo! I know it’s the most tempting part, but you risk filling up right away and not being able to get through the rest.
Don’t eat everything! The caterer knows you can’t humanly finish it all, and they won’t be offended. Split the portions in half, and you’ll still have room for dessert at the end!

In the end, Elisa and Andrea chose the team at Eventi Catering — a name we always trust completely — and on the wedding day they were outstanding, especially in helping us keep the dinner outdoors no matter what, despite the threat of rain (but that’s a story for another article).

On top of that, the food was genuinely delicious — from the aperitivo, to the plated service, to the dessert moment with a live crêpe-making corner, guests couldn’t stop complimenting it!

Choosing the palette

At first, Elisa told me she had a white-and-green wedding in mind, but I worried that choice wouldn’t reflect their personalities at all.

They seemed far too lively and sparkling for such a classic palette!

So I took a small risk and, in the first colour proposal, alongside the white-and-green option she’d asked for, I put together a few others — considerably bolder.

Would you believe it? The couple flipped the script entirely and genuinely surprised me by choosing the most colourful, lively palette out of everything I’d proposed.

Here it is:

It was hands-down their favourite, and the only one that truly captured both of them — Italian authenticity with the spiced touch only Mexico can bring!

Which one would you have picked, out of everything on the table?

Where to host the dinner

Rocca Isolani was the unforgettable backdrop for this wedding. We loved it immediately — for its generous spaces, for how dynamic it let the celebration feel, and for the touch of Italian history it offered to tell to the many guests flying in from abroad.

We spent a long time working out together how to lay out the spaces, and for Elisa one thing was certain: the party had to end inside the Rocca itself.

We decided to take a risk and use one of the spaces I personally find most beautiful and, at the time, the least used: the dovecote tower.

We built one long imperial table surrounded by square and rectangular tables.

The lighting was also studied down to the smallest detail: together with the team at Pantheon we mocked up more than 5 different layouts to figure out where to place the light fixtures (I’m only showing you two here, because I got told off for making this article too long).

Elisa was clear from the start: absolutely no string-light garlands, the kind you see at a village fair — too rustic, too far from the style she wanted for the wedding. In the end we chose vintage-style crystal chandeliers paired with pale gold table lamps. Gold and crystal were the through-line for the entire lighting design of the dinner.

The flowers were also chosen with great care, thanks to the flawless work of Valeria from Le Ragazze di Flo, mixing striking colours with blue-and-white vases reminiscent of Mexican talavera pottery, with a touch of chili peppers and small cacti.

And can I say something? The final result was genuinely something that brought tears to my eyes, just from how beautiful it was.

And not just mine! When guests arrived, nobody wanted to sit down! Everyone just froze at the sight of it and kept snapping photos! They only started taking their seats after countless photos and videos.

And a little behind-the-scenes secret? Even our wonderful photographer Martina Boggian couldn’t resist, and confessed at the end of the night that she’d taken over 2,300 photos of the table alone.

Wow-factor achieved, wouldn’t you say?

Look at you, all the way to the end of this article!

I know I’ve written an absolute novel here, but there’s still so much to tell that I’ve decided to split this article into two parts and continue the story next week!

So you’ll have to wait just a little longer to see the second part of this wedding.

It’s not easy to sum up a year of work in just a few lines.

See you soon — and enjoy this incredible team effort (ours, the couple’s, and every vendor involved).