Italian Weddings - The Four Leading Causes of Disappointments
Italian weddings have
four major causes of disappointments:
Major Italian
tourist areas (Florence, Tuscany, the Amalfi, etc, etc.) get so
many tourists and so many weddings that many have simply developed a
"do not care" attitude. With 65 million tourists and ten thousand
destination weddings each year they have no reason to care. They
get business regardless of how sloppily or unethically they
operate. This "do not care" attitude is fine for a few days of
vacations, but totally unacceptable for weddings. This do not
care attitude also leads them to enforce many restrictions on
weddings - see below.
In addition to this there is
the difficulty getting around - traffic jams abound in the tourist regions.
For example, Positano which is only about 40 miles from Naples airport can take
and does take three hours and more to drive there - and there are no train
services.
We used to operate in the
Amalfi/Sorrento/Capri area. In one instance, instead of a hoped for testimonial
for our hard work, we received a note saying " ...... we stood in a long line
of brides & grooms looking and feeling like penguins taking the plunge ....".
The disappointed in that email was so palpable that it was the last straw and we
shortly moved the business. The mayor’s attitude was that if they want to
get married in this great region of ours then they can wait in line. This
contrasted so sharply with the experience after we moved just down the coast to
the equally beautiful, but unspoiled region of Maratea and the Cilento. At the
first wedding we held after we moved, the mayor arranged the town band, held
the wedding on a balcony overlooking the town centre, presented the couple with
a magnum of champagne and flowers.
Read what our clients have said about this area and
its attitude.
There are three major regional
restrictions imposed by most local governments in major tourist areas:
- Minimum stay
- many
tourist regions will demand a six day to a two week stay in the region prior
to marrying. Lesser known areas will have no minimum stay
requirements.
- Day of the week
restrictions - Again, many of the
major towns and tourists areas will limit weddings to one or two days a
week. A few will have no limit. Some will not allow Sunday weddings, but
are fine the other six days.
- Outdoor
weddings - most regions will not
allow outdoor weddings - so you are limited to a church or a town
hall. However, an increasing number of regions are
breaking the ceremony into two parts. The first part is a relaxed and
informal meeting with just the couple (no guests) and the mayor or
registrar. Here, an oath is taken and signed (as demanded by
Italian law). The mayor (or minister) then performs a full
ceremony at the venue of choice with all guests present. The
venue of choice depends on the individual major. We have some that are
very liberal mayors and ministers - they are quite happy with
beach, boats, mountain top, etc. Others might restrict it to hotel
gardens in the jurisdiction.
Many Italian wedding planners operate from places
such as New York, London, & Dublin. Many others are
based in cities such as Venice, Florence, etc, but offer weddings in
other parts of Italy. All of these organizations
then subcontract the management to some local organization or
person. This leads to another undesirable level of
management; which leads to the management of your wedding
being further away from you and less responsive to both you and to
looming problems.
Anyone can do a reasonable job of planning a
wedding from a remote location; however, you CANNOT
effectively manage a wedding remotely. You must be
there locally face to face with the many people required for a
successful Italian wedding.
Six years ago we traveled the length of Italy,
and determined that the Coast of Maratea and The Cilento was the
optimum location for weddings in Italy. Slow Dreams does not and
will not offer weddings outside this region - the region where
we all live and work, and know all the service providers personally
and intimately.
All of the Italian
Weddings event
management staff of Slow Dreams all live in this region, but they
all come from Britain/Ireland and the United States.
This is a policy of ours. These countries are where the bulk
of our customers come from. It
is not just language miscommunications that cause problems, but also
cultural differences. It is important to know not just the
language of your clients, but also their expectations for weddings.
For example - to Italians a wedding is all about food,
food, and more food. Music is not important to them.
Whereas to a British/Irish or American wedding, music is
extremely important, and they are more concerned with the quality of
food rather than the quantity. To the Irish, it's
not just the wedding day that's important, it's typically the
day before and the day after as well.
copyright 2008,
Slow Dreams, Inc,
www.slow-dreams.com,
info@slow-dreams.com |
