Italian Theme Wedding: Christina and Chad in Menlo Park, California
One does not usually associate cherries with Italian theme wedding ideas, but for the wedding of Christina and Chad that was the case. The motif was inspired by Christina’s childhood trips to local cherry stands around Menlo Park, California.
After Chad, an instructor at West Point Academy, proposed, the new bride-to-be immediately booked the same church for the wedding ceremony in Menlo Park and the same park in nearby Atherton for the reception that her parents had used nearly 35 years earlier. It was a little girl’s dream come true for Christina. And since both bride and groom have an Italian background, an Italian theme wedding with a cherry motif was the order of the day.
For her attire, the bride skipped cherries and stuck with a traditional white wedding dress; specifically a white floor-length train-less Amsale wedding dress with an A-line cut fitted through the waist and softly flaring away from the body, a square neckline that drew the eyes up, and a lacy petal sleeves that provided a sweet detail. Adorning the bride’s blond hair was a white elbow-length veil. Christina carried a nosegay bouquet of yellow and pink roses, to which were tied the beautiful diamond wedding ring sets of her late grandmothers and great-grandmothers.
The seven bridesmaids for this Italian theme wedding wore rather whimsical Lilly Pulitzer frocks. The upper parts of the dresses were tailored from cloth featuring a typical summery multi-colored multi-floral pattern. Around the hips, the cloth changed to white polka-dots and lilies on a pink background. The bottom featured a skirt of yellow floral-patterned lace. White lace was used to create dividing lines covering the transitions from one fabric to the next.
Holbrook-Palmer Park in Atherton was the reception site. It is a former arboretum that has been turned into a wedding-estate, featuring large old oak trees. The 180 guests who had gathered to celebrate the happy occasion were alerted to the newlyweds’ arrival by Italian vocalist Pasquale Esposito, who then proceeded to serenade the crowd throughout the evening with classic and contemporary tunes. Ensuring a more markedly Italian wedding theme, gondolier-dressed Italian musicians strolled through the reception. Those two great Italian theme wedding ideas left little doubt as to the couple’s heritage.
To ensure that her female guests would be comfortable dancing, Christina ordered something else one would not normally associate with an Italian wedding – Chinese slippers, in various colors and sizes. The 100 pairs of Chinese slippers were put out for guests in small square metal buckets decorated with cherry infused graphics.
As guests of this Italian theme wedding seated themselves under a group of those large old oak trees, with branches sporting large pink rose pomander wedding decor, at long farmhouse tables to partake of the family style reception dinner, they were treated to an imaginative first course – cherry soup. Then they moved on to heaping platters of antipasto and meatballs prepared from Chad’s grandmother’s recipe.
Later, everyone had the choice of two cakes. The bride’s cake was slathered with green icing and decorated with pink fondant pansies between which were pink outlines that delivered a rippling water effect. The groom’s cake was crafted in the image of a tank, providing a bit of military wedding decor in honor of Chad’s military career.