As we enter our eighth year in destination wedding planning here in the Cinque Terre, Italy, helping almost 100 couples tie the knot, by golly this award: Bespoke Wedding Company of the Year for Italy, is sure to make our day, month, year!

You see the Luxury Travel Guide Wedding Awards program recognises consistent performance in the wedding industry. Nominees are put forward by industry experts, readers and satisfied customers. Then the in-house professionals and celebrity guest judges pick those most deserving of recognition.

Throughout the past 12 months, Luxury Travel Guide Wedding Awards received a whopping 9,456 nominations from 16 countries and winners were chosen for specialism, creativity, reliability and most importantly, service excellence.

What’s more – now this part makes us rather giddy – along with the in-house team at Luxury Travel Guide, the judges of our work included TV beauties Claire Newell (Travel Expert) who reaches 5.5 million viewers weekly and regularly appears on the Today Show, the Travel Channel’s Marianela Pereyra (Resident Beach Expert) who speaks Spanish, French and our language of love, Italian, while visiting the best beaches in the world – horrid job, that one – and creator of photos that make you want to go “ooh ahh”, luxury hospitality photographer Antonio Cuellar.

So what did the Luxury Travel Guide judges say about our win, you wonder? Why, we can tell you exactly what they said,

“Cinque Terre Wedding has shown a great passion for wedding services in Italy. They work with local suppliers and provide couples with an authentic Italian wedding experience.”

Now that’s pretty ace, if we do say so ourselves.

So big shout out to all the “I’m so lucky to work with you” Cinque Terre Wedding Team and all our local suppliers who help make the magic happen. And a kiss on both cheeks to all who voted for us.

Be sure to watch out for news of Cinque Terre Wedding’s win in the Luxury Travel Guide Wedding publication found in airport lounges around the world. Or simply keep your eyes peeled for news from us as we are sure to keep harping on about the awesomeness of this award for some time to come.

Eg: if you would like to have your destination wedding planned by the Travel Luxury Guide Bespoke Wedding Company of the Year for Italy contact us here at Cinque Terre Wedding – see what we did there? – awesomeness!

Written by Melina Nicholson

The post Luxury Travel Guide Wedding Awards Winners appeared first on Cinque Terre Wedding.

The International Academy of Wedding and Event Planning is a global leader in the area of wedding and event planning, styling and design education. Operating in Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, USA and the United Arab Emirates it also publishes the Wedding Business Magazine – one of our favourite wedding planning tools here in the Cinque Terre Wedding office in Italy.

As members of the Academy we get all the inside tips and tricks of the trade along with finding out the latest wedding styles and trends before they’ve even hit the aisles!

The International Academy is also one of the largest educators in the wedding industry holding the bar way up high to encourage exceptional quality, standards and qualifications that are recognised internationally for those looking to or already working in the wedding industry.

It’s a big part of the movement to certify wedding professionals quashing the idea that just anyone can be a wedding planner. This may have been the case in the past when weddings were often paid for by parents and the more private and intimate celebrations were regularly planned by family members. However today couples are more likely to be paying for their own wedding, footing an average bill of €35,000 US, according to international wedding blog the Knot – an amount not to be sneezed at. On top of that time-pressed couples face the task of coordinating an average of 15 different suppliers to execute their day so it makes sense to call in a professional wedding planner to take care of it all and make sure they get the best out of their investment.

As a big advocate for up skilling we like to dive in at every opportunity to submerge ourselves more and more in the beautiful world of destination wedding planning and styling. So our latest qualification will be the Certificate in Event Design which we hope to share news of at the end of the year. Big thanks to tutor Zoe McKeown and the Academy’s CEO Kylie Carlson. 

To read the full article by Martha Tobyn on destination wedding planning at Cinque Terre Wedding see the International Academy of Wedding and Event Planning here.

Written by Melina Nicholson

Photo above by Pure Wedding Photography.

The post Why we love destination wedding planning: Wedding Academy story out now appeared first on Cinque Terre Wedding.