Tuscany Wedding : Destination Wedding at Villa Il Poggiale

Joanne & Joe’s Destination Wedding at Villa Il Poggiale in Tuscany

For Joanne and Joe’s Tuscany Wedding, they ended up choosing Villa Il Poggiale, a historical Villa near San Casciano in Val di Pesa, right in the heart of Chianti (and luckily, VERY close to our house) as their wedding venue.

Joanne and Joe invited their friends and family from the UK and from all over the world to their Tuscany wedding, and they really couldn’t have chosen a better day. The sun was shining, the weather was warm, and the light was absolutely incredible.

Most think that to have a Small Wedding in Tuscany, one needs to get far away from Florence in order to find the best venues in Tuscany, but our Chianti region is filled with these hidden gems – and Villa Il Poggiale was definitely a great choice.

From including an interpreter to help the hard of hearing guests throughout the wedding, to the most moving speeches we have ever seen (from Joanne’s dad that made everyone cry, to their own speeches and vows that made everyone, including us, shed some happy tears), Joanne and Joe’s small wedding in Tuscany is the reason we think these more intimate weddings hit different.

We’ve said this before on here, but we’re pretty biased when it comes to the Chianti. We are fortunate to live in what we think is one of the most beautiful places in the world – and Villa Il Poggiale is only a few minutes away from our house.

One of the things we always tell our couples when they’re planning their Tuscany wedding is that the location needs to be an attraction to the guests as well. With guests making an effort to travel all the way to Tuscany, nothing better than to make sure they get an experience.

Villa Il Poggiale is surrounded by cipressi, tall cypress trees that greet you as you enter the lawn in front of the villa. Nestled among the vineyards and olive trees, this renaissance villa greets you with it’s epic cypress tree in the middle of the front lawn.

These two did an amazing job at focusing on what mattered most, creating an incredibly casual but very elegant atmosphere for their whole day. Joanne’s Alexandra Grecco dress fit in absolutely perfect with what they had planned for the day, and they both looked so incredibly beautiful.

Joanne and Joe chose to have their ceremony in the shaded part of the front garden. This also made sure to keep the rest of the decor of their wedding a surprise. As their beautiful ceremony ended, guests made their way down to the gardens for aperitivo. Yes, gardens. There are a few different sections to the garden, where guests can experience different corners of this venue’s landscape.

But it was dinner that stole the show, with the long imperial table set up in the shade, nestled between two rows of beautiful trees – covered by a sea of lights. The sun created the most beautiful contrast between its light and the shade of the trees, and we’re absolutely in love with all these photos of this table. It felt like the guests could have stayed here forever. Dinner at a Small wedding in Tuscany also needs to be an attraction, and Joanne and Joe did not disappoint.

The icing on the cake for us was incorporating some film photography shots of this Tuscany wedding. We have been working more and more with film, and it’s always a dream to get these rolls of film back from our friends at Carmencita Film Lab.

Joanne & Joe, thank you so much once again. Your wedding was really special to us, and we couldn’t be happier we had the opportunity to be there with you. We had an incredible time with you two and your families. Thank you!

Big thanks to Giulia Alessandri as well, one of the first planners we met after moving to Italy, for organizing this thing so beautifully. The day felt perfectly paced, not at all rushed – and everything looked absolutely incredible.