Evaristelle&Wouter

Imagine being immersed in a summer fairytale: a wedding atop a hill, offering views of a castle and volcano on one side, and the seaside with the Aeolian Islands on the other. A gorgeous 3×3 meter platform adorned with generous amounts of white English roses, delphiniums, and amaranthus; an elegant, romantic gazebo for dinner with light fabrics fluttering in the breeze as the sun sets over the islands. The night filled with magical lights: the moon, the starry reception sky, and 2-meter-large imperial tables with rich runners overflowing with glass chandeliers, candles, and flowers. And, to conclude, a small “volcanic eruption” made of a thousand red roses.

Planning this wedding was a truly challenging and remarkable experience. Evaristelle and Wouter, a couple from Benelux working in Panama, decided to gather their families and friends from all over the world to celebrate their Big Day in Sicily. Their main goal was to find an outstanding venue with breathtaking sea views and a modern, linear design featuring white and light colors. Equally important was the planning and coordination of a sophisticated, high-end wedding design, a priority highlighted by the bride from the very beginning.

I started with the crucial initial step: estimating the wedding budget and prioritizing expenses. As the design my beautiful bride envisioned was quite luxurious and required significant funding, it was essential to set budget limits for each vendor from the start of planning and vendor selection. We discovered amazing venues with excellent on-site catering, which allowed us to allocate a significant portion of the budget to the elaborate decor without exceeding the overall wedding budget. The selected venue, Villa Hera, was located about 1.5 hours from Catania Airport, but its central location in Milazzo, just a 5-10 minute drive from 4-star hotels, was very convenient for both guests and transfer arrangements.

Once the venue and main vendors were booked, I prepared detailed, high-quality sketch designs of every area, from the ceremony to the reception. The main theme of the wedding decor was white, both for the flowers and the guests’ dress code. Professional sketching is vital at this stage as it allows us to understand the pros and cons of each design solution, such as flower shapes and types, quantities, lighting, table placement, chair styles, and stationery options. This greatly helps in coordinating the decoration implementation on the wedding day, managing the spaces, and identifying potential issues during the planning stage, rather than an hour before the ceremony.

For the wedding ceremony, we built a white platform (later used for the wedding cake cutting) featuring a large, 3 x 3 meter plexiglass frame completely covered in white roses and delphinium.

The reception was initially designed for 40 guests but expanded to almost 80 two months before the wedding. This expansion was the most challenging part of the planning due to the limited space of the reception area. However, we found an excellent solution by managing different shapes (rectangular and round) of the tables and adapting the design.

 

You can be interested in this article wich offers a list of advices regarding luxury decor design planning in Sicily published with a tecnical video of the decor assembly for this wedding.

A truly unique piece was the custom-built trees welcoming guests at the tables. The bride admired luminous trees with many lights, a popular style in Belgium. Just two months before the wedding, she sought a similar solution, which was practically impossible to order externally (pre-ordering custom design elements, if unavailable locally, requires 6 to 8 months’ notice). The trees were created in-house from real baby’s breath, and I suggested using them for the tableau de marriage (seating chart), crafted from mirrored plexiglass pieces for each table. This original solution was well-received, with many guests using the trees with hanging mirrors with their names as a photobooth.

With a focus on sustainability, we repurposed the ceremony area for the cake cutting. The six-tiered wedding cake was absolutely breathtaking, its fire-red color standing apart from the main wedding theme. This vibrant hue represented Mount Etna’s lava flow and was achieved with approximately one thousand red roses. It served as a tribute from the groom, expressing his admiration and respect for the local volcano.

Special notes about the particular international nature of this wedding:

• different religions were present and individually coordinated;
• the wedding reception was arranged as a buffet-style event with table service due to many menu differences;
• the guests were carefully insformed about travel considerations in Sicily,  and a custom road map was created and provided;
• a mocktail bar with non-alcoholic cocktails and fresh juices was set up at the couple’s explicit request;
• professional French and English translation was provided during the ceremony.
• an uncommon request to provide a special juice to guests during the ceremony blessing was transformed into an elegant solution;
• an explicit request from the groom to use only their custom playlist for the DJ was respected and coordinated.

You can enjoy the couple’s kind feedback and browse the structured wedding gallery below.

Photography: Isabella Sorge