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The Independent
an hour ago
- Business
- The Independent
The Bezos effect: Why more and more Americans are getting married in Europe
Italy is increasingly becoming the destination of choice for American couples tying the knot, with tens of thousands opting for a European celebration. Among them, James Atkinson and Samantha Fortino recently marked their wedding in Florence on July 24. Their Tuscan experience included a vineyard tour and a pasta-making class with family and friends. Mr Atkinson developed a taste for chianti, while Ms Fortino favoured Italy's hugo spritz, a cocktail noted for its minimal risk of staining her wedding dress. This surge in popularity mirrors a decade of high-profile nuptials in Italy, most recently Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez's lavish affair in Venice. 'Weddings in America can be a little too grand and a little bit too big and it ends up not really being about the couple,' said Fortino, 28, a neonatal nurse from Skaneateles, New York. 'We both just really wanted something intimate and meaningful.' Over 15,000 foreign couples wed in Italy last year, up 64% from 2019, the year before the pandemic, according to market research from the Center of Tourist Studies of Florence. Growth was led by U.S couples, who account for almost one-third of that total. Italy was the top international destination for American couples after Mexico, according to Maryland-based wedding planning website The Knot. For many Americans, Italy embodies the simple, beautiful romance of a bygone era. Weather is balmy and its varied landscapes, from the sea to the mountains, stunning. The food is familiar and crowd-pleasing. But perhaps the biggest driver of the recent uptick is ample opportunity for a range of outings, which together with the wedding event are alluring for those on a quest for unique, memorable moments — part of a consumer trend termed 'the experience economy.' 'In the United States, everything is just more expensive for one night and we wanted to make an experience, so we did two nights here," said Atkinson, 31, who owns a concrete company. 'It just seemed like way more worth it to us to do that and make a trip out of it with our family, our loved ones.' One guest who had never visited Italy was ecstatic about the invite, and took advantage to tack on side trips, first to Venice and then with the wedding crew to Cinque Terre. Another, Gary Prochna, nearly didn't attend because of work piling up at his paving company. He eventually came around and was floored by the venue — a 15th-century villa with a sweeping view over Florence and its famous Duomo. 'I got married in the United States and our venue was very nice. I thought — until this moment — we had the best wedding,' said Prochna, 68, adding that he now hopes his daughters will get hitched abroad. Marcy Blum, a prominent luxury event planner based in Manhattan, said almost 90% of the weddings she plans are in Italy. 'The reason Italy is so popular is because that's where your guests want to go,' she said. "You send an invitation that you're getting married in Capri or Positano and everybody comes. Everybody. They want to come. Nobody cancels.' Jack Ezon, CEO of Embark Beyond, a luxury travel and destination event service also based in Manhattan, said 60% of his company's events were outside the U.S. before the pandemic. Today it's almost 90%, nearly all split evenly between Italy and France. The threat of tariffs under President Donald Trump has given destination weddings a boost. Ezon has moved six events from the U.S. to Europe this year, because people were afraid tariffs on alcohol would cause their bar bill to explode. The shift to destinations has benefited planners with networks across Italy and local vendors. According to Wedding Italy, the husband-and-wife team who put on the Atkinson wedding, American clients spend three times as much as Italians, due to more elaborate wedding decor and other events in their multi-day lineup. Average spend on hometown weddings in the U.S. was $32,000 last year, according to The Knot. By comparison, foreigners' weddings in Italy cost an average 61,500 euros ($70,600) and typically have dozens fewer guests, the Center of Tourist Studies of Florence's data showed. In the garden where the Atkinsons held their service, cypress trees swayed in the wind as the bride emerged from the chapel, beaming in her lace mermaid-silhouette gown. She walked down the aisle as speakers played the theme song to Star Wars. It was her sneaky trick to make the groom cry, and it worked like a charm. Before the exchange of rings, before the lovebirds threw their arms around one another, their officiant said: 'Traditionally I would ask: Is there any reason why this couple shouldn't be married? But for goodness' sake – we all flew to Italy and can't get our points back! So instead I'll ask: Who here approves of this union?' Cheers all around.
Daily Mail
24-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
You star Madeline Brewer shares romantic wedding album as she ties the knot with Jack Thompson-Roylance
You actress Madeline Brewer has married Jack Thompson-Roylance. The July 12 wedding took place in the British countryside and was inspired by wildflowers, according to the 33-year-old star's Brides profile. The New Jersey native and Englishman met on a dating app in October 2022 and got engaged in January 2024. 'Knowing where Jack's from and knowing what the southwest of England looks like, I would have wanted to get married there no matter what,' Madeline explained about their destination wedding. According to Brides, Jack presented Madeline with a vintage ring he procured in London's Hatton Garden district. 'It was the most beautiful ring I've ever seen in my entire life!' the Handmaids Tale star gushed. After connecting with his future wife online via an app, Thompson-Roylance recalled their first date. 'I met her outside the bar, and with the street lights behind her, she looked like an angel,' he shared. But the meet-cute wasn't without a hiccup: 'I said, "Hi Madeline," and she looked at me and went, "It's Maddie." And I thought, Oh, this is not off to a good start.' Madeline shared her perspective as she remembered, 'He smiled and I saw that he had a half tooth and my brain went, "Next!"' But, she noted, 'He was really cute. Plus, I traveled all that way and he was wearing this nice button-down shirt. He's really charming and English, and was so suave.' The nuptials took place at North Cadbury Court in Somerset, England with 130 of the couple's closest loved ones. More guests joined the festivities for an indoor reception. 'Knowing where Jack's from and knowing what the southwest of England looks like, I would have wanted to get married there no matter what,' Madeline explained about their destination wedding Brewer walked down the aisle in a vintage Vera Wang ball gown and teamed it with a veil from London's Jane Bourvis. She tailored her dress to make it strapless and noted, 'I wanted the corseted feeling and we kept the bows down the back which were my favorite part of the dress.' 'The vision started with inspiration from English wildflowers and the ribbon tower at Glastonbury Festival,' Brewer dished to Brides ahead of the ceremony. She added, 'I knew I wanted lots of color and the easy, floating on the wind feeling from ribbons blowing in the breeze.' Looking toward the future, Madeline said, 'I have loved calling Jack my fiancé, but I'm really excited for us to be husband and wife.' For his part, Jack is looking forward to parenthood with his new bride. He added, 'I'd like to see some little Jacks and Maddies running around in the future.'
Yahoo
24-07-2025
- Yahoo
Are Weddings Supposed to Be Stressful for Guests? One Fed-Up Guest Asks Reddit to Weigh In
"I actually think this is the most stressful event of my life," the original poster lamented. Weddings are meant to be a lot of different things: emotional, celebratory, and fun. What they're not supposed to be? Stressful, and that's especially true for guests. As ceremonies and receptions become more and more involved, spanning over multiple days, and requiring flights and special attire for wedding attendees, guests are feeling less excited about weddings and more stressed out. Case in point? One recent Reddit post, in which someone invited to a wedding posed the question "Are weddings supposed to be this stressful for the guests?" on the company's r/weddingplanning thread. The original poster noted that she and her husband were invited to a destination wedding for one of his cousins. Unfortunately, they couldn't afford the cost of attendance, which the OP noted was over $1,000 per person. To make things more complicated, it is set to be a child-free wedding, so even if they could find the funds to cover the cost of travel, they'd be forced to also pay for childcare at home or find a sitter in a foreign country. "Basically she is having a destination wedding and no one can go. Like, any member of her family," the OP explained. "Her own mom can't even go. I think her dad is trying to scrape it together to go but her mom is obviously very upset about the whole thing. I think thats what started [sic] the big issues in the first place." Related: How Much Does a Destination Wedding Really Cost? The guest went on to note that the entire experience has been extremely stressful for her. "When I tell you we've had no end of drama. Crying, fighting, begging. I actually think this is the most stressful event of my life and I've been through some s***," she wrote. "Every day she's asking of anyone has 'figured out' finances yet. She's upset because we've known about the wedding for so long (despite her only informing us a few months ago that it would even be a destination wedding). Everyone is half way between being angry at her and being upset that they're gonna miss it." This led her to ask Reddit if it's normal for weddings to be this stressful for guests. The internet's response? While it's certainly not "normal," it has become more and more common. "I think this happens way more than people realize with destination weddings," one user responded. Another added, "No, this is not normal. Unfortunately she has company though." One more Reddit user summed it up quite simply: "Not normal. Weddings are not supposed to be stressful on anyone." The editors at BRIDES agree that a wedding shouldn't be stressful for your family members and friends—they're there to celebrate your union, and part of your role as a bride or groom is to host your attendees. If guests can't make it due to costs, it's up to you to decide if a destination wedding is worth the tradeoff of not having loved ones there. Up Next: Guest Outraged After Being Charged for Water at Couple's Outdoor Wedding on a Humid, Sunny 95-Degree Day Read the original article on Brides Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
19-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
They planned their wedding. They weren't even engaged yet.
Katelin Morales and her partner, Jeff Beqiri, began wedding planning in February 2024. The Philadelphia-based couple booked flights to Peru to meet with a wedding planner, look at venues and start to lock in vendors for their destination wedding. Now there was just one thing left for Beqiri to do: propose. 'I knew that I needed a long runway for the type of wedding that I want. And my fiancé wanted more time to buy the ring that he wanted to buy me,' Morales, a 33-year-old lawyer, tells Yahoo. 'So we had the wedding planner, the venue, the photographer and also the videographer booked all before we got engaged.' The pair met on an app in May 2023, and their timeline quickly fell into place. 'We both said that we were dating with the intention of marriage,' Morales says. 'We were official two weeks after we met, and by July, we were saying, 'I love you.' Pretty organically, we were talking about marriage.' They decided to get a head start on wedding planning without waiting for the formality of Beqiri getting on one knee. They're in good company. Planning nuptials before an official proposal is a trend that's been gaining momentum over the last few years, now inching toward common practice. A 2024 survey by the wedding planning website Zola found that a majority of couples were doing some ideating about their wedding day, like creating a mood board or curating a registry, prior to a formal engagement. But the smaller percentage of those who went so far as to decide on a wedding date, book a venue and start a wedding website (where friends and family can check out wedding details) more than doubled by 2025. Here, couples discuss why they decided to tackle the 'I do' before the 'Will you marry me?' — and how it saved them from extra wedding stress. Why plan early A few factors played into Morales's decision to plan early. 'I knew it was going to be a destination wedding and I wanted to give people a full year's notice of when we were getting married,' she says. 'We also had a conversation about kids very early. … We would like to have our first kid when I'm 34, so we wanted the wedding in early 2026.' Then there's her job as a bankruptcy lawyer. 'The workload ebbs and flows a lot. There are months when I can't even go to a dinner,' she says. 'I wanted to make sure that there would be enough downtime in my job to take advantage of for planning, instead of having to do everything in the six months before my wedding when I can't control work.' Having ample time for wedding planning was her main concern. And with that under her control, she could leave the timing of her engagement up to Beqiri. Devin Short felt similarly. The 29-year-old, who lives in Westchester, N.Y., tells Yahoo that both she and her then-boyfriend Nick had already set their sights on a particular wedding venue in Florida, which she was anxious to secure. 'The venue is notoriously booked out in advance, and the place is special to us,' says Short. So, when she was sure by July 2022 that her partner was preparing a proposal — 'I knew he had asked my dad for his blessing and that the ring had been ordered' — she gave the place a call. 'I called to inquire about the next year, and they only had one date left in December,' she says. 'I really wanted a Florida-in-Christmas moment, so I asked for a contract.' Short and her mom immediately started working on getting more details of the big day together. Nick was aware of it, but not yet involved — he was busy putting together a proposal, after all. Once the venue was set, Short booked a wedding planner, as well as a photographer and videographer. 'I waited to pick our band because that was his one request,' she says. Both Short and Morales's priorities were in line with others who have gotten a head start, according to the 2025 Global Wedding Market Report by Think Splendid, a wedding consulting firm. Among 53,493 newlyweds who were polled, 31% started looking at venues before getting engaged, while 32% and 18% started the same process with photographers and wedding planners, respectively. Jenny McDonough, a Colorado-based planner and founder of Stargazed Weddings, tells Yahoo that getting a call from a couple that isn't yet engaged isn't out of the ordinary. 'People want to make sure that they get their preferred date, their preferred venue and their preferred photographer. And they have friends telling them that it books up quickly,' she says. Hence, most of those who get a head start on planning are specific about what they want. With less time comes less choice, in most cases, which is exactly what Caroline, 30, (who asked to keep her last name private) from New Jersey wanted to avoid. She and her now-husband Brendan had a particular date in mind for their wedding long before he proposed. 'We wanted our wedding to be on my grandparents' anniversary,' says Caroline, who planned to honor her family by getting married in their native Ireland. 'I also wanted my other grandmother to be at our legal ceremony [in the United States]. She was older, so we were racing a bit against the clock. … She was able to be there to witness before she passed away, which I'm extremely grateful for. Planning ahead of time gave me that sentimental moment.' 'Where's the ring?' Morales calls herself an 'open book' with family and friends, so when she and Beqiri discussed their February 2026 wedding two years ahead (and 10 months before they were even engaged), she shared the news. Her family was skeptical. 'I don't see a ring on your finger,' was the response she got from relatives who were wary of Morales being hurt. 'I had previously been in a seven-year relationship that didn't end up in a marriage, so they didn't want me to go through that again.' She was confident that this was different. 'I knew it was going to happen, I didn't feel any trepidation about any of it,' says Morales. 'It was just a matter of when, not if.' She attended a few wedding-related pop-ups and spoke openly about wedding planning in front of co-workers. 'People would be like, 'Where's your ring?' So I would find myself saying, 'Oh, it's getting cleaned,' even though I didn't have it yet,' she says. 'It can be kind of embarrassing when you go somewhere talking about your wedding and they don't see a ring on your finger. That's the first place that your eyes go.' However, that hasn't been a problem since Beqiri pulled off a surprise proposal to Morales last December. 'I definitely was surprised, and that was important to him,' she says. 'Although I knew it was going to happen, I didn't know the circumstances, when it would happen or what the ring would look like.' And better yet, the couple feels that they've been better able to enjoy the start of their engagement era because their plans for next year are already set. 'Most couples are planning right after they get engaged, and we had already done that stuff,' she says. 'Despite people being skeptical, at the end of the day, I was right. It turned out exactly how I said it [would], and it gave me more faith in myself and us as a couple too.' No stress or ruined surprises Caroline also says that the surprise of her early 2024 engagement wasn't ruined by wedding planning for six months prior. 'I let him plan [the proposal] on his own time,' she says. And data suggests that proposals aren't quite the surprise they're built up to be, anyway. Zola found that 53% of couples getting married in 2025 have shopped for rings with their partners, while 70% have discussed when they would be getting engaged. Asking 'Will you marry me?' is more of a formality. 'Even with all the planning, Nick managed to surprise the f*** out of me when he eventually did propose,' says Short. 'So it was a win-win because I was prepared, but also caught off-guard.' She has nothing but good things to say about planning early for her big day. 'I didn't stress about not having anything done, I had all my choices or preferences for vendors. I felt so in control from start to finish,' she says. 'It was the best choice ever.'
Yahoo
18-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
They planned their wedding. They weren't even engaged yet.
"People would be like, 'Where's your ring?'" Katelin Morales and her partner, Jeff Beqiri, began wedding planning in February 2024. The Philadelphia-based couple booked flights to Peru to meet with a wedding planner, look at venues and start to lock in vendors for their destination wedding. Now there was just one thing left for Beqiri to do: propose. 'I knew that I needed a long runway for the type of wedding that I want. And my fiancé wanted more time to buy the ring that he wanted to buy me,' Morales, a 33-year-old lawyer, tells Yahoo. 'So we had the wedding planner, the venue, the photographer and also the videographer booked all before we got engaged.' The pair met on an app in May 2023, and their timeline quickly fell into place. 'We both said that we were dating with the intention of marriage,' Morales says. 'We were official two weeks after we met, and by July, we were saying, 'I love you.' Pretty organically, we were talking about marriage.' They decided to get a head start on wedding planning without waiting for the formality of Beqiri getting on one knee. They're in good company. Planning nuptials before an official proposal is a trend that's been gaining momentum over the last few years, now inching toward common practice. A 2024 survey by the wedding planning website Zola found that a majority of couples were doing some ideating about their wedding day, like creating a mood board or curating a registry, prior to a formal engagement. But the smaller percentage of those who went so far as to decide on a wedding date, book a venue and start a wedding website (where friends and family can check out wedding details) more than doubled by 2025. Here, couples discuss why they decided to tackle the 'I do' before the 'Will you marry me?' — and how it saved them from extra wedding stress. Why plan early A few factors played into Morales's decision to plan early. 'I knew it was going to be a destination wedding and I wanted to give people a full year's notice of when we were getting married,' she says. 'We also had a conversation about kids very early. … We would like to have our first kid when I'm 34, so we wanted the wedding in early 2026.' Then there's her job as a bankruptcy lawyer. 'The workload ebbs and flows a lot. There are months when I can't even go to a dinner,' she says. 'I wanted to make sure that there would be enough downtime in my job to take advantage of for planning, instead of having to do everything in the six months before my wedding when I can't control work.' Having ample time for wedding planning was her main concern. And with that under her control, she could leave the timing of her engagement up to Beqiri. Devin Short felt similarly. The 29-year-old, who lives in Westchester, N.Y., tells Yahoo that both she and her then-boyfriend Nick had already set their sights on a particular wedding venue in Florida, which she was anxious to secure. 'The venue is notoriously booked out in advance, and the place is special to us,' says Short. So, when she was sure by July 2022 that her partner was preparing a proposal — 'I knew he had asked my dad for his blessing and that the ring had been ordered' — she gave the place a call. 'I called to inquire about the next year, and they only had one date left in December,' she says. 'I really wanted a Florida-in-Christmas moment, so I asked for a contract.' Short and her mom immediately started working on getting more details of the big day together. Nick was aware of it, but not yet involved — he was busy putting together a proposal, after all. Once the venue was set, Short booked a wedding planner, as well as a photographer and videographer. 'I waited to pick our band because that was his one request,' she says. Both Short and Morales's priorities were in line with others who have gotten a head start, according to the 2025 Global Wedding Market Report by Think Splendid, a wedding consulting firm. Among 53,493 newlyweds who were polled, 31% started looking at venues before getting engaged, while 32% and 18% started the same process with photographers and wedding planners, respectively. Jenny McDonough, a Colorado-based planner and founder of Stargazed Weddings, tells Yahoo that getting a call from a couple that isn't yet engaged isn't out of the ordinary. 'People want to make sure that they get their preferred date, their preferred venue and their preferred photographer. And they have friends telling them that it books up quickly,' she says. Hence, most of those who get a head start on planning are specific about what they want. With less time comes less choice, in most cases, which is exactly what Caroline, 30, (who asked to keep her last name private) from New Jersey wanted to avoid. She and her now-husband Brendan had a particular date in mind for their wedding long before he proposed. 'We wanted our wedding to be on my grandparents' anniversary,' says Caroline, who planned to honor her family by getting married in their native Ireland. 'I also wanted my other grandmother to be at our legal ceremony [in the United States]. She was older, so we were racing a bit against the clock. … She was able to be there to witness before she passed away, which I'm extremely grateful for. Planning ahead of time gave me that sentimental moment.' 'Where's the ring?' Morales calls herself an 'open book' with family and friends, so when she and Beqiri discussed their February 2026 wedding two years ahead (and 10 months before they were even engaged), she shared the news. Her family was skeptical. 'I don't see a ring on your finger,' was the response she got from relatives who were wary of Morales being hurt. 'I had previously been in a seven-year relationship that didn't end up in a marriage, so they didn't want me to go through that again.' She was confident that this was different. 'I knew it was going to happen, I didn't feel any trepidation about any of it,' says Morales. 'It was just a matter of when, not if.' She attended a few wedding-related pop-ups and spoke openly about wedding planning in front of co-workers. 'People would be like, 'Where's your ring?' So I would find myself saying, 'Oh, it's getting cleaned,' even though I didn't have it yet,' she says. 'It can be kind of embarrassing when you go somewhere talking about your wedding and they don't see a ring on your finger. That's the first place that your eyes go.' However, that hasn't been a problem since Beqiri pulled off a surprise proposal to Morales last December. 'I definitely was surprised, and that was important to him,' she says. 'Although I knew it was going to happen, I didn't know the circumstances, when it would happen or what the ring would look like.' And better yet, the couple feels that they've been better able to enjoy the start of their engagement era because their plans for next year are already set. 'Most couples are planning right after they get engaged, and we had already done that stuff,' she says. 'Despite people being skeptical, at the end of the day, I was right. It turned out exactly how I said it [would], and it gave me more faith in myself and us as a couple too.' No stress or ruined surprises Caroline also says that the surprise of her early 2024 engagement wasn't ruined by wedding planning for six months prior. 'I let him plan [the proposal] on his own time,' she says. And data suggests that proposals aren't quite the surprise they're built up to be, anyway. Zola found that 53% of couples getting married in 2025 have shopped for rings with their partners, while 70% have discussed when they would be getting engaged. Asking 'Will you marry me?' is more of a formality. 'Even with all the planning, Nick managed to surprise the f*** out of me when he eventually did propose,' says Short. 'So it was a win-win because I was prepared, but also caught off-guard.' She has nothing but good things to say about planning early for her big day. 'I didn't stress about not having anything done, I had all my choices or preferences for vendors. I felt so in control from start to finish,' she says. 'It was the best choice ever.' Solve the daily Crossword
