An Italian Wedding Adventure (Adventure Weddings #1)
Chapter 1
1
When the happy couple arrived for their first consultation, there was no immediate indication that the Tran-Welbon nuptials would be anything other than the usual perfectly planned and exquisitely executed destination wedding.
‘Lily, Roman, it’s so lovely to meet you in person. Can I get you something to drink? Tea?’
Sophie-Leigh gave the new clients her warmest smile as she ushered them in the direction of the Scandi-design sofa and the minimalist coffee table in the meeting room at I Do Destinations.
Against one wall stood a shelving unit of photography books, magazines and carefully concealed folders of information about getting married overseas – important, even if they didn’t enhance the aesthetic. Another wall was frosted glass and on the other two hung photos from recent weddings, printed on shiny acrylic, capturing a moment that contained two lifetimes – and the stunning backdrop of the exotic locations the couples had selected for their big day.
One featured the waterfront on the Italian island of Elba, the sun bursting over the horizon as the barefoot bride and groom, in all their finery, held hands in the foreground. Santorini was there too (Sophie had planned that wedding. The biggest challenge had been getting the crowds of tourists out of the background of the photos). One of the shots had been taken by a drone camera high above Whitehaven Beach in Australia, the small wedding party captured throwing rose petals into the air.
The meeting room was the heart and soul of I Do Destinations, a cosy place for honest discussion as well as a trophy room documenting the success of the many grand occasions the agency had arranged. It was Sophie’s happy place.
‘Coffee, please – for both of us.’
Taking the armchair opposite, Sophie set down her tea and reached for her tablet and stylus. ‘You mentioned in our call that you haven’t decided on a destination, but you have a specific idea for the ceremony,’ she began. ‘I’m intrigued. Do you want to start there?’
‘It’s quite… unusual,’ the bride, Lily Tran, thirty-two years old and originally from London – according to the profile she’d filled out online – began apologetically. ‘We’ve probably seen too many Instagram photos of couples in stunning locations.’
Sophie flashed them her brightest conspiratorial smile. ‘I’ve planned nearly fifty destination weddings so far and helped my colleagues on at least fifty more. I promise you, whatever you’re thinking, it won’t be the strangest idea I’ve ever heard and stunning locations are what we do here.’
The couple shared a smile, their hands clutched between them.
The groom, Roman Welbon, thirty-one years old, from Inglesbatch in Somerset, began eagerly. ‘Lil and I met through our climbing group. We both love the outdoors and we just thought—’ He gave his bride-to-be a giddy smile, even as Sophie’s slipped.
The outdoors. Climbing. Would she be in luck and they just meant stairs down to the beach? It was her job to make wedding dreams come true. She was used to keeping her own past out of it – her own hypocritically disastrous track record on love – but there had been a time when she’d loved the outdoors too. At least, she’d loved someone who loved the outdoors.
Lily nodded and continued, ‘A church or an events venue – even a mansion or a fancy villa – those aren’t the right places for us to get married. We’d really love that sense of achievement we get from a hike or a climb, so we were thinking?—’
Sophie leaned forward to make sure she caught every detail of the couple’s wishes – and tried to ignore her tingle of misgiving.
‘We’d love to get married at the top of a mountain!’ Roman blurted out.
Wonderful. Something that reminded her of the most mortifying day of her life. Sophie hoped they couldn’t tell she was gritting her teeth. She prided herself on being good at reading people – it was a necessary skill for her job. But that one man… If she ever needed reminding of her limitations, then that day, that man was enough.
‘You know those peaks with a cross on top?’ Roman continued. ‘We were picturing something like that, with views for miles.’
‘I’ve seen photos of mountain weddings. I don’t know if you’ve done anything like that?’ Lily asked.
Opening her mouth to speak, Sophie hesitated, searching for the words to reassure the client, while also admitting that mountains were a long way outside her current repertoire with good reason. But she was saved by the groom’s enthusiasm.
‘Our friends are mostly outdoor types too and our parents are also interested in an… adventure. Obviously, we couldn’t have a party or a meal up there, but that’s our dream for the ceremony – something really meaningful for us.’
‘Your… parents too?’ She bloody well hoped they didn’t have any medical conditions. What kind of insurance would she need for this? She was a wedding planner, not a mountain guide! The term ‘mountain guide’ made her swallow more uncomfortable memories.
‘I know we’d have to keep it small,’ Lily said with something like an apologetic smile.
Sophie gripped her stylus tightly and dragged her thoughts back to her clients. ‘There will be other logistical challenges. In most countries, legal weddings can only take place in designated areas.’
‘But on your website, there’s a whole section about commitment ceremonies,’ Lily pointed out. ‘We can get legally married here in the UK and avoid all those problems. And then we could design the day to be really special – and the budget would stretch further, because we wouldn’t have those administrative costs.’
‘Ah, if you’re… um… Yes, of course that’s an option. But you can also consider just the photos on a mountain. To be honest, those pictures you’ve seen online are all staged and taken the day before the wedding or the day after. We can absolutely arrange for that kind of photoshoot and then we don’t have to get all of your friends and family up and down a mountain on your wedding day.’
Lily reacted with a slight raise of her eyebrows, a signal of doubt that added panic to Sophie’s existing cocktail of unwanted emotions. She was here to make dreams come true, not criticise clients’ ideas – or the work of other wedding planners and photographers.
Roman was undeterred. ‘We were really hoping for a ceremony right at the top, a long way from any infrastructure. We’d trek up to the summit and that’s the spot where we’d promise our lives to each other.’ The adoring look Roman gave his fiancée would usually have prompted an indulgent smile from Sophie, but irritation rose up her throat instead. She swallowed it ruthlessly.
‘That sounds… very romantic,’ she managed to say. ‘But are you certain you’d forego the big white dress and the evening wear? If you want to hike up, it might limit your?—’
‘I was picturing just a wreath of flowers. The big white dress isn’t my thing anyway,’ Lily explained. ‘It’s the experience that’s important to us.’
‘After the scare we had six months ago…’ Roman’s glance at his fiancée this time was haunted. He turned back to Sophie with an earnestness that was touching, even in her state of distraction. ‘We have a lot to celebrate. The doctors weren’t sure if Lil would walk again. But she made a complete recovery and we’re climbing just like before.’
‘Oh, that is something to celebrate.’ And a reason to get over her own stupid mistakes and make their dream a reality. ‘I’m so sorry you went through something so traumatic.’
‘As Roman said, I made a complete recovery,’ Lily explained. ‘It wasn’t even an accident or anything. I just developed sepsis from pneumonia – rare, but it could happen to anyone.’
‘I proposed to her while she was on life support,’ Roman added, his voice weaker. ‘But I had to propose again when she recovered, because she only remembered it in a bit of a haze.’ He gave a short laugh that Sophie knew hid his lingering trauma.
‘Well, I suppose we need to plan a wedding that’s at least as dramatic as your engagement,’ Sophie said, bolstering her smile. ‘Aside from the… summit, did you have any other specifics about the location? A country? I see you’re looking at September or October next year, which gives us plenty of time to book a venue – for the reception, I mean. For the Alps, we could look at France or Austria, or perhaps even Slovenia. We had one couple marry near Lake Bled two years ago and their budget stretched a little further there.’
Of course, the Alps ran through one other country that she had failed to mention – perhaps on purpose. It was one of the most popular with her clients, the destination for the majority of the weddings she’d planned over the six years she’d worked for I Do.
She was an expert on Italian weddings. She knew all about the ‘ Atto Notorio’ and the ‘Nulla Osta’ and the intricacies of municipal politics in Tuscany and Verona and she’d even helped a pair of avid history buffs tie the knot near Pompeii last year.
But the combination of Italy and a mountaintop wedding clogged in her throat. She should have been over it. She was over him . She’d be a fool to still harbour romantic notions when the relationship had never been serious – to him at least. But that day, the 29 th of February nearly eight years ago, had etched itself into her obsessively overthinking consciousness. She had to find a way to be a professional about it – although mostly, she was hoping they just picked Austria or Slovenia instead.
‘Before Lil got sick, we’d started looking at a holiday,’ Roman said.
Sophie’s stomach sank. He was going to say it. She could feel it. Smoothing her hair nervously, she wouldn’t have been surprised to find a wild tangle rather than the neat chignon in her favourite sparkly clip. She slurped her tea to tamp down on her panic.
‘And our parents love the idea,’ Lily continued, ‘of an Italian wedding.’
Oh, boy . ‘Who wouldn’t? Were you… thinking of the Alps or the Apennines? Piemonte or Tuscany, Dolomites or…’ She forced herself to say it. ‘South Tyrol?’ Please don’t say South Tyrol .
‘Actually, we love water sports too, so we were hoping to find somewhere we could swim and windsurf as well – maybe for the bachelor party. Plus, our parents wanted somewhere to sit and enjoy the beach.’
‘Beach and mountains.’
‘Somewhere with local vineyards would be amazing too,’ Roman added. ‘We’d love a whole programme of activities for everyone – wine tasting, windsurfing, rock climbing.’
‘Beach, mountains – with a cross on top – vineyards and adventure activities,’ she repeated, blinking rapidly as she wrote the words painstakingly onto the blank page of her tablet with her stylus. Her script looked blurred and loopy – like these wild ideas.
It wasn’t a dream wedding – it was an organisational nightmare. But at least there were no beaches in South Tyrol. As long as she didn’t have to face constant reminders of her own stupidity while she planned and carried out this wedding, she could do what she always did: create an unforgettable day for her clients.
‘Roman,’ Lily chided her fiancé gently, ‘that’s starting to sound a bit ridiculous.’
Looking up, Sophie contradicted her with a sudden smile. ‘Not at all. I can think of at least three options off the top of my head. Let me find some photos for you.’
‘Great!’ Roman enthused, punctuating his eagerness with a kiss to Lily’s forehead.
‘Are you serious?’
She hadn’t yet earned Lily’s trust, but she was determined to do so. Taking down two of the many photo albums arranged alphabetically on the shelves, she opened the first to reveal a panorama shot of a bride and groom holding hands on the shore of a vast lake as sunlight rippled on the surface. Stones shimmered under the clear water in the foreground and in the background, looming green-and-grey mountains rose out of the water.
Lily drew in an excited breath that restored a measure of Sophie’s confidence.
Turning the page, she showed them a photo from the reception at a winery. Then she flipped back to the ceremony in the gardens of a villa, surrounded by trimmed hedges and palm trees, with a view of the lake, towering rock faces and a town of dappled clay roofs. Was it too much to hope that they’d change their minds and have a beautiful civil wedding in the villa?
‘This one’s not exactly “the beach”, it’s a large lake, but the area is very popular with windsurfers. If you’d like to look at?—’
‘It’s amazing,’ Lily said, tugging the album towards her as Sophie opened another.
‘Here we have Mediterranean beaches on Elba.’
Roman oohed and ahhed, but Lily was engrossed in the other album. ‘Look at these mountains – how high they must be. They come straight down into the water. Is this Lake Garda?’
Sophie nodded. ‘We have a hotel we often use in Limone sul Garda, but we have a long list of suppliers we’ve worked with that you could choose from.’
‘Our hiking group went there two years ago, but we couldn’t join them,’ Roman added, turning to the first album again. ‘Lake Garda would be wonderful.’
‘And the summit wedding?’ Lily asked. ‘Would that work here?’
Sophie truly didn’t have any desire to trek to the top of a mountain with a wedding party, but her boss had drilled into her when she’d started this job that the client was in charge – or had to feel that way at least.
‘We can make it happen,’ Sophie reassured her. She just wasn’t at all sure how . God, she hoped her boss, the queen of weddings Reshma Bakshi, would have an idea – something better than Sophie’s first thought: sub-contracting a company like Great Heart Adventures in Weymouth.
Noticing she’d scribbled down the name of the adventure travel agency, she hastily rubbed it out with her finger. Reshma would have a better solution – one that didn’t dig into Sophie’s past. And besides, there was no chance that he still worked there. He was probably at the top of K2 right now, freezing his fingers off for no apparent reason.
Swallowing her uncertainty for the rest of the consultation, Sophie reminded herself that she’d already organised two weddings at the lake and she would find a way to work this out – she always did.
If Lily and Roman wanted an adventurous wedding, they’d get the most adventurous damn wedding anyone had ever seen and it would have nothing to do with the larger-than-life Italian mountaineer who’d been the first to show Sophie how little she really knew about relationships.