Anni and Brendan in Italy

Click here for a slide show of highlights

July 4th, Appiano/Eppan, Italy

Anni and Brendan... where to begin...
Brendan's sister, Maire, was married here in Philadelphia last year and I had the privilege of photographing Maire and Joe's wedding. This year, Anni and Brendan contacted me to see if I'd be ok with coming to Italy to photograph theirs. Of course!

Eppan is Anni's hometown, near Bolzano. It's more Austrian than Italian. The ceremony was in German. The Alps are in everyone's yard. It's fantastic. If you want to go, this is a wonderful place to stay.

The wedding weekend started, for me, with Sundowners. This was held at the local winery Von Braunbach. Since wedding invitations went out to 11 countries, here's where the out of town guests were able to see the couple before the wedding day. I got to see some of the family that I had met at Maire's wedding. And I got to talk to Maire as a guest instead of as a bride, which was wonderful.

A note about Italian/German Catholic weddings... they let you play music that you can't play here. Like Eric Clapton, Irish songs, Anni's Song, and so forth. Delightful! There was a talented set of musicians and they filled the church with sound.




After the ceremony, the Umtrunk. Champagne and great food in the church courtyard while Anni and Brendan's friends had them perform for the guests. Anni's riding club friends made Brendan be a horse (she loves horses) and pull her from station to station to perform tasks based on where they had lived. For Ireland, it was to find the real Guinness. Innsbruck, do a waltz, NY... make sushi, Sud Tirol... guess the regional food. Then for getting everything right, he gets her to the finish line and the friends present them with a painting of her horses.



Then we went up the mountain in a fantastic car. Up a one lane, two-way, mountain road with switchbacks. Glorious.


The reception was at the family home. I had been there the day before to see how things were set up and for lunch. There had been a lot of preparation for this! It came together so well. For all the moving parts that this wedding had, Anni's family was calm, cool, and collected. Lots of details and food and things to put together, and it was divine.



Anni had told me that her friends would have skits and games and other such ways of having fun at the wedding. No garter or bouquet. Just lots of great things that their friends came up with:
1) The paint by number.

2) Her friends had created calendars of the couple and sold them to the guests and gave the proceeds to the bride and groom.
3) The cousins made them play charades and pictionary using such phrases as "chastity belt" and "binge drinking"
4) Another set of friends gave everyone a postcard to be mailed to the couple as designated times.
5) Yet another set presented her with a traditional chimney sweep blessing with a gorgeous gift of flowers.





After dinner, a lighted path to the pool for desserts and a slide show by more of Anni's friends. (they have a lot of friends!)



At 2am, the caterer brought out a copper pot with potatoes and a table of cheese and proscuitto, and other things that go on potatoes.

And by the way, Anni and Brendan are a wonderful couple. It's obvious that they adore each other, have a lot of love for and from their families, and when they're together it's the way it should be. No matter how many amazing things there were at their wedding, if they didn't look at each other the way that they do, it would just have been a beautiful party. The whole event was as magical as it was because they're head over heals for each other.

Catering: http://www.hannahelia.com/ (real pros. mountain top experience!)
Music by Sax Martl