Your wedding should be a reflection of you and your partner, that’s step one when it comes to planning a rock n’ roll wedding! One of our favourite ways to do this is to look to both of your heritages and pull references from both sides, creating a really personal, perfect blend of the two of you. That’s exactly what Pietro and Ilaria, who got married in Parma, Italy did. Creating a day that was a fusion between India and Italy, meant they had incredible food and wedding style from Italy, paired with all the colours, dances, and vibes from India.

“We wanted the wedding to really represent us and who we are”, the bride told us. “We absolutely didn’t want a ‘regular’ wedding: we were determined to have a great party with all the people we really wanted with us in that special moment and celebrate our love happily, with good music, good food, and a special ceremony tailored to us. Then we found a Bollywood dance company as entertainment, and the rest is history.”

Ilaria wanted to include her Hindu beliefs into the ceremony too, but in her own way. “We took inspiration from the fire ceremony and the first steps together as husband and wife from Hindu weddings and made it our own,” she explains. For the music they chose songs that were special to them, including music from The Witcher 3 and Cirque du Soleil’s Alegria show. Another particular highlight was their red thread ceremony; a legend about holding together two soulmates by the little fingers of their left hand (symbolised by the red thread) who are destined to meet and stay together forever.

“Start planning early,” Pietro advises, “and absolutely do the extra investment to hire a wedding planner! We both work full time… and we were lazy. We preferred to pay talented people to do everything for us! They were a great help in collecting the ideas into a unique project, contacting all the suppliers, in taking all the appointments and keeping track of the costs.”