How to Make Your Wedding an Italy-Inspired Wedding in the States
If you’ve ever said, “I just want my wedding to feel like Italy,” this is for you. Not Italy as in a plane ticket or a perfectly styled Tuscan backdrop, but Italy as in the feeling. Slow mornings and long tables. Wine poured without measuring. Conversations that linger because no one’s in a rush to be anywhere else. An Italy-inspired wedding isn’t about recreating a place. It’s about honoring a pace. Letting things breathe. Choosing connection over perfection and presence over performance. It’s romantic in an undone way, textured, lived-in, and deeply human.
And here’s the part I love most: you don’t need Italy to have an Italy-inspired wedding. You can bring it home. Into vineyards tucked into quiet corners of the States. Into candlelight, worn linens, and wedding weekends that feel more like a gathering than an event. Where the beauty lives in the details, and the meaning lives in the moments between them.
This is for the couples who want their wedding to feel like a memory while it’s still happening. Who cares more about how it feels than how it photographs (even though it photographs beautifully). And who knows that the vibe isn’t the location, it’s the way you choose to show up for it.
What Makes an Italy-Inspired Wedding (Beyond the Obvious)
When people think Italy-inspired wedding, they usually picture the same few things: olive branches, stone walls, maybe a long table or two. And sure, those details are beautiful. But they’re not the heart of it. The heart of an Italy-inspired wedding is how it moves.
Italian celebrations aren’t rushed. They’re meant to be felt. The schedule bends. The wine keeps coming. The best moments happen in between, when no one’s looking at the clock and no one’s worried about what’s next. It’s a wedding that values experience over production. Where design feels collected, not curated. Where nothing is too perfect, and that’s exactly the point. The beauty lives in texture, in warmth, in things that feel touched and real.
An Italy-inspired wedding in the States works when couples stop trying to copy Italy and start asking, What do we want this to feel like? Slow mornings and shared meals. A wedding weekend instead of a single day. Time and space for connection to unfold naturally.
That’s what gives these weddings their depth, not the location, but the way they’re experienced.
Doing Italy Right at Home
This is what an Italy-inspired wedding in the States can look like when you lead with feeling instead of location. Set in a vineyard at The Crown Winery in Jackson, this wedding didn’t try to convince anyone it was somewhere else. It didn’t need to. Vines framed the space naturally. Wine glasses stayed full. The pace was unhurried, and the energy felt relaxed in a way you can’t fake.
The entire weekend was built around experience, time together, shared meals, and moments that weren’t rushed or overly produced. From the rehearsal dinner to a tea party-style luncheon, it felt more like a gathering than an event. Thoughtful, yes. Performative, no. That’s the shift that changes everything.
When couples stop asking where should this look like? and start asking how do we want this to feel? The wedding becomes their own. Italy shows up not as a destination, but as an influence, woven into the pace, the design, and the way people move through the day. You’re allowed to take inspiration from anywhere and make it yours. You’re allowed to bring Italy home. And when you do it this way, rooted in feeling, not geography, it doesn’t feel borrowed. It feels honest.
How to Make an Italy-Inspired Wedding Feel Like You
An Italy-inspired wedding starts with feeling, not location, not trends, not what it’s “supposed” to look like. Before anything else, ask yourselves one thing: How do we want this to feel?
From there, let your choices support that feeling.
Choose a space that invites people to stay - Vineyards, estates, places with outdoor space and natural texture tend to slow everyone down. When the setting feels relaxed, the day does too.
Think in weekends, not just wedding days - Rehearsal dinners, welcome gatherings, slow mornings after. Italy-inspired weddings are rooted in togetherness, and that takes time, not a tightly packed timeline.
Let design feel collected, not curated - Warm linens, candlelight, greenery, pieces that feel worn-in rather than styled for a moment. The goal isn’t perfection, it’s ease.
Build in space to linger - Longer meals. Fewer forced transitions. Moments where nothing is happening on paper, but everything is happening in real life.
Give yourselves permission to let go - Not everything needs to be controlled or optimized. The most meaningful parts of the day usually show up when you’re not trying to manage them.
When you design your wedding this way, an Italy-inspired wedding in the States stops being a theme. It becomes an experience, one that feels honest, personal, and entirely your own.
Why Italy-Inspired Weddings Need to Be Documented, Not Directed
Weddings like this don’t need to be managed. They need room. When a day is built around feeling, slow moments, shared meals, people coming and going naturally, the worst thing you can do is interrupt it every five minutes to pose or reset the energy. Italy-inspired weddings work because they’re allowed to unfold.
That’s why documenting matters more than directing. The moments worth remembering aren’t the perfectly arranged ones. They’re the in-between pieces: someone refilling a wine glass without being asked, hands brushing at the table, laughter breaking out mid-conversation, a quiet pause before the next thing begins.
This kind of wedding calls for a travel wedding photographer who’s paying attention rather than pulling focus. Someone who knows when to step in and when to step back. Someone who understands that the story lives in the rhythm of the day, not just the highlights. When you trust your wedding to be documented this way, you don’t just get photos of what it looked like. You get reminders of how it felt, and those are the ones you come back to.
Book Me as Your Travel Wedding Photographer
If Italy has ever pulled at you, chances are it’s not about the country itself. It’s about the way life slows down there. The way people gather, and how nothing feels rushed, and everything feels intentional.
That kind of wedding doesn’t belong in one place. It belongs to couples who care deeply about presence. About their people. About creating space for connection instead of trying to control every moment. An Italy-inspired wedding in the States can be anything you want it to be, rooted in feeling, shaped by intention, and deeply personal to you. It can live in a vineyard, a backyard, an estate, or somewhere entirely unexpected. What matters is that it feels like home when you’re in it.
And if you’re dreaming up a wedding like that, one that unfolds slowly, honestly, and fully, I’d love to be there with you. Not just to photograph it, but to witness it. To document the parts you didn’t even realize were happening. To help you remember how it actually felt, if that sounds like someone you’d like by your side, reach out.
Looking for more destination wedding inspiration? Check out a few of my favorite love stories below.
Why a Destination Wedding in Italy Deserves Full Weekend Photography
What It’s Really Like to Have a Wedding in New York City: A NYC Wedding Guide
How to Make Your Destination Wedding Feel Like You: A Guide to Weddings in NOLA