Tracey and Joe are both Canadians who live in London England. After much thought, they decided they wanted to have two wedding celebrations: one small traditional church wedding in Canada with their families, followed by a party in Italy with their friends to celebrate their recent wedding wows.

Choosing Italy for their second wedding celebration was an obvious choice - Joe’s background is Italian and Tracey had fallen in love with Italy’s beauty over years of getting to know the country. They decided they wanted to celebrate in an enchanting castle in Tuscany with an abundance of local food and fine wine.

The fifteenth century castle they chose for their wedding site was surrounded by the Chianti landscape lined with cypress trees and junipers and amid sun-kissed fields and vineyards.

About 60 friends from all around the world joined them for a weekend celebration. Some guests booked rooms inside the castle, all with Tuscan brickwork floors, high ceilings and antique furnishings, while others lodged either in apartments that were later built inside the castle fort or in nearby villas.

The weekend festivities started off with a welcoming event at a nearby enoteca and pizzeria on a Friday night. On Saturday morning guests were free to relax by the pool, explore the area’s vineyards and rustic towns or go shopping at the nearby designer shopping outlets.

The wedding celebration started at 5:30 pm with a cocktail reception in the castle garden overlooking the unspoiled panorama of the Chianti hills. While enjoying the sounds of the live jazz quartet, guests were served a selection of sparkling prosecco, local wines and other beverages. Tables were laid in the garden with a gorgeous and bountiful selection of appetizers: cheeses, crostini topped with a variety of local delicacies, prosciutto, salamis, and other tuscan specialties.

Guests were escorted inside the main floor of the castle, where they were seated for dinner in a room surrounded by antique frescoed walls. The round tables were decorated with Italian porcelain dinnerware and low round flower centrepieces of cream roses and soft violet lysianthus with a cream pillar candle in the centre. On each guest’s plate was a bottle of Italian grappa labeled with Tracey and Joe’s name and the date of this event.

After a few welcoming words from the bride and groom, guests were served their first pasta dish – hand made ravioli with Pienza’s pecorina cheese and a sauce of Antinori brandy and pears, served with Bastianich 2002 Vespa Bianca wine (from Joe’s home region of Friuli). Next came a second pasta dish of maltagliati sul cinghiale (hand made pasta with wild boar ragu) which was served with Chianti Classico Riserva, Castello di Meleto 2000 wine (the wine from the wedding venue’s own vineyard). And for the main course, veal cooked with brunello, a 2 coloured flan and caramellized vegetables was served with one of Italy’s top red wines, Brunello di Montalcino, Casanova di Neri 1997. For dessert, the bride and groom chose the traditional Italian millefoglie cake made of layers of flaky puff pastry interlayered with rich chantilly cream and topped with dark chocolate pieces. It was a sweet ending to a decadent meal.

Along with their friends, Tracey and Joe enjoyed some more drinks at the open bar and danced the night away to a variety of songs spinned by a local Italian DJ. The party inside the castle lasted until 1:30 am but some guests continued the party in their apartments and hotel rooms.

As the guests left the castle, the walkways and the fort walls were lit with candle torches, providing an enchanting farewell to a fabulous wedding celebration.

After a few hours of sleep the guests gathered together for a brunch on Sunday morning in the castle’s panoramic garden. The bride and groom offered guests a light meal of salads, cheeses, salamis, and bruschetta, as well as the last few pieces of the marvelous millefoglie wedding cake and the few remaining bottles of brunello wine. The castle came equipped with bocce balls, so the groom and his friends battled in front of their friends and partners for the honour of bocce champion. This gathering was an opportunity for guests to say their farewells as they continued on to fly or drive back home or to enjoy their extended vacations in Italy.