An Elegant Italian Lakeside Celebration: The Destination Wedding of Suzy Guttler and Juan Castillo

After matching on Bumble in 2019, Suzy and Juan bonded on their first date by talking about their multicultural upbringings. Visiting the ancient city of Petra was on both of their bucket lists and is near the place they shot the movie Aladdin in southwest Jordan. While there, Juan asked their tour guide to take them to a secluded part of the Wadi Desert to watch the sunset. They shared and intimate moment in each other's arms as the sun descended toward the horizon. "Just moments before the sun descended behind the dramatic desert, Juan got down on one knee and proposed. It was magical!" Suzy gushes.

 

The first thing Suzy and Juan did after getting engaged was to reflect on what their vision was and what was important for their big day before jumping into planning. They decided that a destination wedding would best fit both their multicultural upbringings and love of travel. Once they had their sights set, Suzy and Juan used the venue to draw their theme together. "We wanted to create an elegant and vibrant summer theme that matched the elevated elegance of Lake Como’s glitzy shores and the grandeur of our iconic venue," Suzy explains. 
 

Since both Suzy and Juan have family that lives in foreign countries, the idea of a destination wedding was perfect for them. They wanted to find some place that was a middle ground for their families, so no one had to travel too far to attend. "We chose Italy because geographically, it was central for our guests traveling from all over Asia, the Americas and Europe. Italy is also rich in art, music, history and certainly cuisine," Suzy raves. From there, they found the perfect venue to host their vision of a romantic and elegant wedding that also had a team that would be able to help the couple plan their wedding from abroad
 

The venue that Suzy and Juan selected came with preferred vendors that the venue requires couples to choose from. While this may seem limiting, Suzy and Juan didn't mind. Suzy shares, "In the end, we could not have been happier with the vendors we selected. Everyone exceeded our expectations and helped bring our vision of our special day to life!" Not only were the vendors amazing at what they did, they were incredibly familiar with the venue, which allowed their day to be better than Suzy and Juan even imagined.
 

 

What We Love

Instead of the stereotypical first dance, Suzy and Juan wanted their friends to join them on the dance floor as a flash mob. To accomplish this required some additional efforts by their closest friends and the right song. Their friends showed up to numerous practices to get the steps down for the flash mob, and Suzy and Juan chose "Love Story" by Taylor Swift, which is perfect. "Our guests went nuts! They were beyond surprised, cheering joyfully and loving the performance," Suzy recalls. To reflect Suzy's boat-making family members, they also opted to take a boat ride around Lake Como instead of a first look before their ceremony.
 

 

Advice from the Couple

Suzy and Juan advise, "Cherish every moment of the journey. All the venue tours, vendor meetings, dress fittings, mood boarding and cake tastings is half the fun. This is the most magical time for you and your fiancé to explore your creativity, share in self-discovery and work together on bringing the vision of your big day to life. You’ll miss it when it’s over. We sure did!"
 

 

 

 

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