Post # 1
Member
173 posts
Blushing bee
I’ve come to the point where we are seriously considering taking a small budget and eloping instead of dealing with the stress and controversy (my) family is causing. We want our wedding day to be about our marriage and not avoiding familial disasters.
We like the idea of a beach town wedding, but with a European flair. I’m thinking French or Italian Riviera, but the Amalfi coast might be nice too. We can fly out of JFK and get relatively inexpensive flights.
Does anyone have any experience with planning this type of thing? I’m assuming that I would need a contact there to arrange things. I was also wondering about cost. It would just be the two of us, but I’m wondering if Europeans hear the word wedding and jack prices in the way Americans do.
Post # 3
Member
6 posts
Newbee
Hi PlaidBee…I would suggest to you to check out the Cinque Terre in Italy if you need a budget friendly wedding. The Amalfi coast is super exclusive and I think you can get more for your money elsewhere in Italy. (My fiance is from Italy and we are currently planning our wedding there.)
To be honest I don’t think the vendors we have been dealing with have raised pricing simply because we have said ‘this is for a wedding.’ It’s more a matter of if the places deal with weddings or not. (This is just from my dealings with people in Italy.)
For Italy it is also about the “italian connection.” So if you don’t speak Italian or know someone that does you should consider hiring a planner. We initially wanted to hire a planner just to book a specific church that we could not have booked ourselves even though my fiance is born and bred Italian and we had his sister drive to the church and speak directly to the priest. If we really wanted the location the only way to get it was through the planner since she had “connections.”
I hope this info was a bit helpful.
Ciao!
Buona Fortuna!
Post # 4
Member
1317 posts
Bumble bee
I’m on the same boat but after working the numbers, realize it’s about the same price! The best advice I can give you is about researching the requirements for marriage in the country you want to be married in. A lot of countries were scratched off our list after doing research — most have really complicated marriage laws which require you to already be legally married to be married there. They word it like, “your real wedding can be amongst the beautiful views of blahblahblah …” but then when you dig in the faq section, they say you need to have a civil ceremony in your home country BUT you can pretend it was done there.
Post # 5
Member
1317 posts
Bumble bee
Post # 6
Member
3 posts
Wannabee
You should check out a company called Italy Prestige. This planner is well connected and seems to have good design sense.
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