Crumbling walls, starry skies, fragrant warm nights. A magical day in a destination so romantic that it takes your breath away.
I’m Julie. I’m a bespoke wedding planner, helping you to experience the dreamiest of weddings in beautiful Italy. Before becoming a wedding planner in 2005, I was a luxury travel agent, specialising in helping couples with their honeymoon. I work alongside my daughter Emillie, who now lives in Santa Maria. She met and fell in love with Dario in 2014. They have a baby girl Aurora.
The couples we love to work with are focused on their family and friends having the time of their lives – that is when the magic happens
We do not believe in package style weddings and believe that you should be able to choose all the gorgeous elements of a wedding to make it unique and personal to you.
Any questions, get in touch, we would love to hear from you..
JULIE + EMILLIE
What elements would
you choose?
Live Band
Flowers
Make-Up
Hair
Wedding Day Transfers for Guests
Guitar and Mandolin or a String Quartet
A beach, Palazzo or ancient courtyard
Vintage Car
Fireworks
Legalities
Photographer
Videographer
OUR HIDDEN GEM
Where do we even begin to tell you how magical this little gem is and why it is the perfect place to get married in Italy.
Whichever part of Italy you choose for your wedding, it is important to find a wedding planner that has specialist knowledge of the area. We know and love Santa Maria di Castellabate which boasts both a beautiful little seaside town (Santa Maria) and also a medieval village (Castellabate) where cobbled streets lead you to the heart of the village and a tiny piazza perfect for post wedding drinks. Both, perfect choices for your Italian wedding.
WE LOVE to combine the two settings, so a sea-side wedding followed by a historic Palazzo setting in the village for dinner. Anything is possible and we are here to hand craft the perfect wedding for YOU. As soon as we start to talk, we can listen to your plans and enthuse you with ideas. The possibilities are endless but talking to you is really important to us, as we can get to know you and understand what type of wedding will be perfect for you and your close family and friends.
Authentic, Friendly, Magical – just a few words to describe this part of Italy
Guests Accommodation – There is a choice of quaint hotels and apartments to suit all tastes and budgets. There are lovely restaurants, shops and bars and when your guests arrive they are given a My Secret Italy Guide Book and a VIP card, which will open up the town to them so they feel like locals not tourists when they arrive. Everything is reasonably priced, and guests often surprised at how affordable it is to eat out.
Castellabate has recently been voted one of the prettiest villages in Italy and this is where we stayed on our first visit in 2002. From that moment on Santa Maria and Castellabate have stolen our hearts. Our first wedding took place in 2005 and we have not looked back since.
We keep in touch with many of our couples, value our testimonials and can always put you in touch with any of our couples, if you wanted to chat to them about their experience.
CHOOSING A VENUE
There are few venues you can consider and some ideas are featured on this page. You can marry on the beach (Best time May, June, September), on an ancient tower overlooking the sea, even in the grounds of a Palazzo still owned by an Italian Prince. If you are religious and want a Catholic ceremony, then at least one of you has to be Catholic. There is also beautiful shady courtyard in the grounds of a 17th Century Palazzo. (Great for a July wedding when temperatures soar).
You can combine any of the wedding venues with some amazing locations for the wedding Dinner.. from a rustic garden setting in a Palazzo to a starlit beach BBQ.
We layer your wedding day in ways that will delight and surprise you and your guests.
IDEA OF COST
When you start your journey, it is one of the hardest questions to answer and one most planners will ask “What is your budget?” Here is an example of what a wedding in this part of Italy with My Secret Italy may cost..
For a beautiful beach wedding in Santa Maria for 30 guests, with a starlit BBQ, live band, guitar and mandolin player, wedding cake, make-up, hair, legals, vintage car, fireworks, flowers, UK photographer – basically all bells and whistles – cost would be approximately €9,800.
It is your wedding, so you pick the services you want. Other venues will cost more, this is just to give you an idea of what is possible.
Our Wedding Planning fee is – £2,350 plus an admin fee of £395 to secure your date, which is non-refundable.
CREATING MAGIC TOGETHER
We only arrange one wedding per week during May, June, July, September and October and a maximum of 15 weddings per year.
We are with you every step of the way. Based in the UK during the winter months, so lot’s of chats during the lead up to the wedding. Help with legalities, and we are there pretty much from the moment you arrive in Italy until after the wedding. We love to keep in touch with all our couples, and many of them return, for their anniversaries and then with their children, which is lovely for us.
Once your wedding is booked, we set up a private Facebook group and you can invite your family and friends to join. This is a fantastic way for us to get to know everyone, share lots of information about flights, hotels and transfers.
YOUR HONEYMOON IN ITALY SHOULD BE AS SPECIAL AS YOUR WEDDING. OUR COLLECTION OF CHARMING HOTELS WILL INSPIRE YOU.
