How to get there
The ceremony will be at the church Chiesa Madre, in Maruggio at 11 am, the reception will be at Masseria la Grottella, about 20 mins from the Church some time around 1 pm.
The closest airports are Brindisi and Bari. Brindisi is about 1h 15 mins drive from Maruggio while Bari is about 2 h drive.
From Bari or Brindisi you could rent a car and drive to Maruggio (or wherever you are staying near Maruggio) and that way be independent the whole time. Driving will be easy (provided you have a GPS), not the stereotypical craziness of Southern Italy. However, if you prefer to not rent a car we are happy to come pick you up.
If you do a flight search from anywhere abroad to Brindisi or Bari you might end up with ridiculously expensive tariffs. The way around it is to fly into Rome or Milan and then from there you have the following options:
- Get a separate flight from Rome, Milan or Naples to Bari or Brindisi, which can be found using any general flight search engine, several airlines operate between those cities. However, you need to make sure you pick the right airport in Milan and Rome: low cost airlines tend to fly from secondary airports not the main ones. You will presumably arrive in Fiumicino if you fly into Rome and Malpensa or Linate if you fly into Milan: make sure your flight to Bari or Brindisi is from the airport you arrive in because connections between different airports are long and not very reliable.
- Take the train to either Brindisi or Taranto, this is really an option only from Rome (5-6 hour ride) or Naples (4-5 hour ride) because Milan is quite distant (10-12 hour ride). Look at: http://www.trenitalia.com/tcom-en. Trains are easy and cheap, the only downside would be that, if you want to rent a car, it would be very difficult to do so once you arrive at the train station (which is usually in the city centre) rather than at the airport.
- Rent a car in Milan or Rome (or Naples) and drive all the way. Same considerations as above: 5 hour drive from Naples, 6 hours from Rome, about 10-12 hour drive from Milan.
We are more than happy to advise each one of you individually once you have a few options to choose between 🙂
Where to stay
Maruggio is a quite small village but there are some B&Bs. We have put together a list of places that have a website in English (see below). But there are more, only the others that are not on the list don’t have a website in English. If you have trouble finding a place to stay, contact Dada and she’ll be able to help further.
In addition to B&Bs in and near Maruggio there are a few hotels and there is also the place where the reception will be, which has reasonable tariffs and the advantage that you can drink as much as you want at the reception if you are driving, which is a convenient option since we’ll have open bar for as long as we like after the reception 🙂
Bed & Breakfast in Maruggio
Marilú: http://www.bbmarilu.it/
Casa Biasco: http://www.casabiasco.com/?lang=en
Luví: http://www.bbluvi.it/en/
Nu suennu (website only in Italian): http://www.nusuennu.it/ita/index.php
Bed & Breakfast near Maruggio
Le Vele: http://www.bblevele.com/en/ (only 5 mins drive from the church where the ceremony is)
Hotel where the reception is (20 mins from Maruggio)
Masseria la Grottella: http://www.masseriagrottella.com/hotel/tariffe
Other hotels near Maruggio
Le Fabbriche: http://www.lefabriche.it/eng/
Grand Hotel dei Cavalieri: http://www.grandhoteldeicavalieri.it/it/home/
Masseria Bagnara: http://english.masseriabagnara.it/
How does the whole ceremony-reception thing work?
We decided to follow the traditional local plan of having the church ceremony in the morning and the reception afterwards at lunch time. The place where we are having the reception is about 20 minutes from the church. If you don’t have your own car don’t worry, we will put you with someone else, just let us know in advance that you need a ride.
The reception will be a long lunch that will alternate sections of buffet (beginning and end) with a core of main courses, which is a sit-down-and-be-served type of thing. However, this main section might end up being not very much of a sit down after all, since there will be a band playing and we really hope that in between courses people will feel like getting up and dancing 😉 The bride definitely wants to dance (and got shoes specifically thinking about that), the groom hasn’t quite decided how much dancing he wants to undertake, we will see 🙂
There will be no separate dancing party after the reception, all the dancing is done during the reception. However, at the end of the reception, meaning after the wedding cake, we can hang out there as much as we like and keep drinking from the open bar, which is all included.
Speeches: there will not be the traditional (sometimes awkward or too long) speeches, however we encourage everyone to stand up any time during the reception with a toast or a short speech. It will be fun to see what people have to say, especially after a few glasses of Southern Italian wine 🙂
Dress code: there is no dress code whatsoever, dress any way you like and be yourself 😉
Dada & Phil 