Florence Italy Wedding // Isa & Paul

From the Bride:

“It is often said you don’t control where or when you will meet the love of your life. Our story is a perfect example of such a fate. We were both headed to Raleigh for different reasons on two different days when destiny intervened. Paul’s original flight was scheduled for Monday. My flight was scheduled for Tuesday at 7:30am. However, Paul’s flight was cancelled and pushed to Tuesday at 9:50am. In the meantime, my flight was also cancelled and switched to the 9:50am flight.

No matter how much I tried, I could not switch seats. I had originally been upgraded but was now booked in the last row window seat. I must have called Delta a million times and even went to the lounge and talked to the gate agent. They all said that was the only seat available. Little did I know that Paul was last row middle seat :).

According to Paul, I didn’t look very happy as I was walking down the aisle to my seat . I, of course, deny this. Paul was sitting in the aisle seat when I got there and kindly moved for me to be able to enter the row and sit. He stayed in the aisle seat to give me some space. I randomly looked at him and said: I really hope whoever is sitting in the middle isn’t someone stinky. Paul smiled at me and said, actually that’s my seat and proceeded to sit down next to me. We spent the entire flight talking and before we knew it, we had arrived in Raleigh. We both left, eagerly awaiting when we would see each other again.

Paul and I both love to travel. DId I mentioned we met on a plane? ;) My dream was also to get married in Europe so a destination wedding just made sense. Europe, to us, has always had a special place in our hearts, especially to me. Nothing excels more romance than walking around a European city. The architecture, the vibe, the decor, everything just screams romance and intimacy, even if you are surrounded by a crowd of thousands. It is just a place that makes you feel like you are in your own little bubble of love. We initially looked for hotels in Barcelona since my family is from there but we couldn’t find what we were looking for. We decided to hop over to Florence since we had read about the Four Seasons hotel there. We couldn’t have found a more perfect location. The hotel is located within a ten minute walk from the city center and also has the biggest private garden in Florence. It was just perfect. The private garden helped us create that intimate/romantic feeling we were looking for and the location, with its proximity to the city, was perfect to entertain all the guests. The service of the Four Seasons staff was also exceptional AND we got to work with a michelin star chef! Who wouldn’t want that?! :)

Once we had the venue selected, everything started to fall into place. Google became my best friend for searching vendors. Because it is an international wedding, I had to rely a lot on internet searches and I needed that “visual connection” with vendors when I browsed their galleries/blogs. We were looking for a style that was romantic, elegant, and classy. We only have 37 guests so the style/vibe of the wedding was very important to us to make it memorable and to capture its essence.

Finding vendors like Elysium Productions that had already filmed at the Four Seasons Florence was like adding that top cherry to the cake. For photography, we expanded our search to Rome and found the amazing Rochelle Cheever. Her pictures just melted our hearts. You can see emotions through her pictures which is exactly what we were looking for.”

Want to see more?  Check out Isa & Paul’s feature on Every Last Detail :)