An Epic Three Day Wedding Weekend In Umbria At Villa Valentini Bonaparte

Melissa Hammam
April 20, 2022
Categories: Cultural Beauty, Destination, Fall, Real Weddings, Seasonal Wedding Trend, The Blog

For Ayesha and Asad their epic three-day wedding weekend in Italy was amore all the way. From the welcome pizza party to the endlessly romantic all-white villa wedding, The Tuscan Wedding planned a celebration that stuns. Floral design by Il Giardino Delle Fate brought the couple’s love story to life through beautiful blooms, and Sandy & Odysseas captured every magical moment perfectly in their imagery. Visit the full gallery for the weekend in Italy you’ve always dreamed of.

From The Tuscan Wedding… A wedding is about two people coming together as one and professing their love and commitment to one another. Ayesha and Asad chose to marry in one of the most romantic regions in the world, Umbria, the “green heart” of Italy. On the 28th & 29th of September 2021, Villa Valentini Bonaparte served as the most perfect backdrop to Ayeshas and Asads two day wedding celebration, capturing their love story and adoration of color extraordinarily. The breath-taking styling by The Tuscan Wedding ensured that the couple was able to enjoy every single second of their magical celebrations surrounded by their most loved ones. Ayesha and Asad dreamed of having an Indian wedding before their white wedding with traditional dancers, music, and colorful, ethnic decorations nestled amongst the vista of the Italian landscape, with the romance of Umbria stealing their hearts and sealing their marriage. The Mendhi Night itself was something out of this world.

On the morning of their Indian ceremony, Ayesha got ready in the Villa with hair and makeup done by the talented Cherie Spisso. With Ayesha’s amazing wedding henna by Erica Mendhi and her soft blue sari and Asad’s color matching Indian wedding suit, all eyes were banned on this beautiful couple. After a wonderful Indian ceremony a musician with his traditional instrument, Dholak, plays during the Aperitif and created an unforgettable start to the Mendhi Night. Il Giardino Delle Fate created a beautiful centerpiece for the dinner tables filled with colorful flowers and surrounded by candles where the delicious dinner provided by Preludio Catering was served. With rustic wooden tables and Indian multicolor sofas, Preludio Noleggio made a more than stunning lounge area for guests and the couple. Every detail was decorated in shades of orange, fuchsia, green-blue & a touch of ivory and looked so precious and the atmosphere was magical. It’s these tiny touches that really set this wedding apart from others, with every aspect carefully curated and designed. The Tuscan Wedding‘s ability to show such different styles really stood out, with the two-day celebration providing guests with captivating scenes set in totally different styles. The wedding celebrations were a wonderfully special project to work on, and the styling and organization orchestrated by The Tuscan Wedding made sure that Ayesha and Asad had the most perfect wedding that they had always dreamed of, settled within the stunning scenery of the Umbrian Hills. The newlyweds danced the night away under the glow of the Italian stars with the people they cared about the most. The fabulous team from Sandy & Odysseas, an excellent photographer, & the talented Videographer fromVertigo Wedding created unique and perfectly captured memories of this magical wedding night. This wedding was a 3-day event. On the first day, they welcomed their guests with a pizza party. Enjoying freshly made pizzas gave the guests a chance to relax and enjoy themselves as they arrived for the wedding. In addition, they had their white wedding at the Villa the day after the Mendhi Night with a traditional symbolic ceremony. Everything was decorated in burgundy, blush, shades of green, and a touch of gold for a spectacular event. Also, this day was full of cheer, dancing, and smiling faces.

From the couple… Sometime during our 2nd or 3rd year of dating, Asad and I talked about having a Tuscan countryside wedding one day. We’ve always loved traveling and knew, even early on, that we’d love to bring our international family together for a multi-cultural, destination wedding. When it came time to actually start planning our wedding, Italy still felt like the natural choice. We loved the food, the culture, the atmosphere, the scenery, and the idea of giving our friends and family a beautiful adventure abroad. Since everyone would already be traveling, we decided to spread out the events over three days so that we would have quality time to spend with all of our guests. We started out with a classic Italian pizza party where our guests could casually meet each other, enjoy delicious gelato, and get henna done in anticipation of our second event, the Mehndi. Since my husband is Pakistani and I’m half Indian, we knew we wanted to incorporate some traditions from those cultures into our wedding. So for our second day, we held a Mehndi, which started out with a Dholak player who kicked off the party by leading us down to the amphitheater where a gorgeous stage had been set up for dancing. One of the most special moments of this day was watching our sisters and friends perform dances that they had choreographed and practiced together for months. We even ended with an impromptu performance that got everyone on their feet dancing before heading to dinner. The Mehndi then ended with even more dancing (albeit less coordinated post-limoncello) and toasts by our friends that had everyone in tears. With a venue as stunning as Villa Valentini Bonaparte, we knew we wouldn’t have to add too much extra decor to create an incredible experience. For the Mehndi, we wanted things to be bold and colorful, so we used vibrant pillows and fabrics in the amphitheater along with a vivid coral, teal, and gold palette for the dinner setting. We also added lots of fairy lights to create a beautiful evening under the stars. Our favorite part was having everyone seated for dinner at a long winding table where we ate and drank and enjoyed the gorgeous summer evening together. Mehndis are typically colorful and vibrant, so we wanted to use florals to help add to that effect. We incorporated bright, colorful flowers on strings as the backdrop for our seating, while the dinner table was adorned with gold birdcages filled with vivid pink, orange, red and yellow flowers. In the end, the table setting was absolutely gorgeous and one of my favorite parts of the whole wedding. Asad and I added some things here and there throughout our event to add a personal touch. Our outfits for our Mehndi, and Asad’s suit for the wedding, were actually all designed and handmade by Asad’s aunt in Pakistan at Muddhouse by Saima Rana. Designing those outfits together over the year leading up to the wedding was such a unique experience and really added our personal styles into our outfits. We were fortunate enough to work with Asad’s aunt, Saima, and her daughter, Minhal, to create custom outfits for the Mehndi, since they run a fashion house in Pakistan. We met multiple times over the course of a year via video chat to create my Lehenga and Asad’s two suits. For my Lehenga, I knew I wanted it to be some form of teal (both mine and Asad’s favorite color) with enough detail and beadwork to fit the occasion while being light enough to wear for hours without getting uncomfortable. I also really love pearls, so I wanted to incorporate them into the outfit in some way. After a few conversations, Saima and Minhal designed my dream outfit in the perfect mint color with a stunning back made of strings of pearls and paired it with a rose-colored dupatta. From there, they created Asad’s white “prince jacket” to match, with a hand-painted, floral design that complemented the colors in my Lehenga perfectly. For our Mehndi, we were both incredibly excited to see our sisters and friends perform the dances they had choreographed. We had successfully avoided any spoilers about the music choices or the dances themselves, and when it came time to perform, they all blew us away. We hadn’t realized just how dance-inclined our friends and family were, and it meant so much to me and Asad that they were willing to go out of their way to create this special moment for us.

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