Celebrations worth traveling for.
There is a certain kind of destination wedding weekend happening right now that we find ourselves returning to, months later, still thinking about. Not the ceremony specifically, or even the flowers. The feeling of the whole weekend. The way guests never quite wanted it to end.
After spending time this spring visiting properties across Italy and Spain this season, something became very clear.
A Divine Wedding Weekend
The destination wedding has quietly shifted. The formality has loosened. The intention has deepened. Couples still want beautiful design and exceptional hospitality, of course they do, but what they want most now is for everything to feel like it could only have happened exactly where it did.
Our newlyweds want guests to settle in. Long dinners that drift outside. Music arriving before anyone thought to turn it on. Venues with so much character already built into them that the weekend never feels produced.
Italy and Spain are where that is happening most beautifully right now.
Italy, Feeling Less Traditional and Far More Personal
For years, destination weddings in Italy followed a fairly recognizable script. Grand villas. Formal gardens. Tuscany. And those settings are timeless for real reasons; we still love them deeply. But something has shifted in what couples are looking for, and the most interesting work we’re seeing right now is happening in places that feel slightly less expected and much more alive.
Giardini del Fuenti is a perfect example of why. The venue doesn’t sit beside the coastline so much as it becomes part of it. Terraces open over the water. Cocktail hour drifts naturally into dinner.
The whole atmosphere is social in that effortless way you can’t choreograph. It either exists or it doesn’t, and here it absolutely does. Elevated without a single stiff moment. Perfect for a wedding weekend that beckons connection.
Sicily is attracting a similar crowd for entirely different reasons. There is something about the island that slows people down almost immediately. The light, the food, the stone all feel layered, romantic, and slightly moodier, in a way that couples are deeply responding to right now.
At Braccialieri, the setting becomes the wedding itself. Candlelit dinners in warm stone rooms. Evenings that stretch longer than anyone planned. The kind of nights guests describe for years afterward, and never quite with the right words.
Mallorca, Quietly and Completely Chic
Mallorca has such a beautiful ease about it. Nothing feels overly polished or performed. The luxury is quieter there, which is exactly what makes it feel so genuinely chic.
Can Ferrereta, Finca Binissatí, and The Lodge Mallorca each offer something entirely different aesthetically, but they share the same underlying quality: warmth. Thoughtful design. A wedding weekend that feels genuinely welcoming from the first moment guests arrive, rather than impressive at them.
People settle into Mallorca quickly. Mornings slow down on their own. Dinners feel intimate even at scale. And because many of the properties feel residential, houses that happen to hold weddings rather than venues that pretend to be homes, the weekends carry a natural sense of intimacy that no amount of styling can manufacture.
It photographs beautifully in a way that feels very current: warm stone, olive trees, indoor-outdoor light. Editorial, without looking like it tried.
Choosing Atmosphere Over Convenience
One of the most interesting things happening in destination weddings right now is that couples are becoming far less concerned with choosing the easiest possible location. They are looking instead for places that feel genuinely memorable once guests arrive, and they’re willing to ask a little more of people to get there.
That is a large part of what makes The Ritz-Carlton Tenerife, Abama so compelling right now. The volcanic landscape feels wholly unlike any classic European wedding backdrop.
The property has scale, coastline views that stop people mid-sentence, and an atmosphere that becomes more immersive the longer you stay. Because it takes a little more effort to get there, guests commit more fully once they do. They disconnect. They stay longer.
The weekend slows down in the very best way.
Masia Cabellut, Castell de Sant Marçal, and Castell de Ben Viure each have a completely different personality. Some grand and architectural, others softer and more enveloping. But all of them offer the same essential thing: the feeling of having arrived somewhere, rather than simply arrived.
That distinction matters more than it might seem.
The Art of Slowing Down
The strongest destination wedding weekends we’ve seen all share one quality that is very hard to name and very easy to feel: pacing. The celebrations are full and exciting, but never rushed. Guests have enough time to actually be somewhere, to notice where they are, and let it sink in, rather than moving from one scheduled moment to the next.
One detail we’ve especially loved lately is couples building in a softer close to the trip before heading home. A short stay at O.C. Hotel Roma after the wedding is such a considered way to end it. One final dinner, a slower morning, a little space to absorb the weekend’s entirety before the world rushes back in.
The venues may all look different. But the ones we find ourselves thinking about long after we’ve left have one thing in common: people never quite want to leave.
Saluti!
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