We started planning a fall trip to Italy, sometime in the spring of 2025. We bought our tickets, and then a few months later, we started talking about maybe getting married. Once we decided to do get married, Shannon said “well if we’re gonna do it – we should do it somewhere cool!” We also decided to keep it a secret from everyone except our parents and my daughters. It was a special time just for us, and it turned out perfectly. We have had a blast getting to tell our family and loved ones !

We had a great time in Matera! It is without question, one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. (I’m going to do a separate post about it). It was the most fun going around town, taking photos late at night. There were a lot of people out and about during the day, so this was a better option for our purposes. It was a special night, just us, and it was one of the best nights of my life!

Knowing we were going to be in Italy for 2 weeks, we knew we had a lot of places to choose from to both get married and to take some cool pictures. Honestly, most of the pictures we have of us before this are in camping and hiking gear. It was fun to be able to get dressed up a few times, and get some nice pictures of us. Shannon worked hard to find some truly amazing places for us to take memorable wedding photos. He got a tripod for the iPhone, and a little blue tooth “clicker” the size of a quarter that he used to take the pictures. (I was so relieved that I didn’t have to figure out a photographer!!)

On 10/27, we traveled on to the town of Otronto (separate post to come about this town as well). We spent a few hours, in our wedding clothes, visiting some of the places Shannon found for us to take some wedding pictures. I had talked about visiting a florist to get a bouquet to hold, but decided to see what was growing in the fields around the places. I loved this, as it’s memorable to me – and I also love wildflowers. I picked a few of the white wildflowers that were growing everywhere. Google says they’re called White Rocket https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplotaxis_erucoides found all around this area.

The first location for wedding pictures was the Masseria Cippano. There’s not a lot about it online, except that it’s an old abandoned home that looks like a castle.

Next, we drove about 15 minutes to a beautiful, archaic stone chapel known as Santa Maria di Constantinople O Madonna. This is another place that I cannot imagine HOW he found it. It’s not google-able for this post to share anything about it. It was in the middle of nowhere, we drove up a driveway that dead ended, and hiked down through some olive trees to a field to this charming, old, beautiful little chapel.

Last but not least, we drove to our last photo stop, that ended up being one of our most favorite experiences of our 2 weeks in Italy – Torre Pinta

Torre Pinta , “From the link “ Located a short distance from the sea and the historic center of Otranto, Torrre Pinta is an early medieval building that, in an intact and evocative historical atmosphere, welcomes guests in elegant and comfortable accommodation, furnished with traditional Salento furniture. In the restaurant are served dishes of local organic cuisine and it’s simple but tasty peasant dishes”

Shannon was interested in visiting this place, and thought it may be a neat place for photos. (He was right!) He heard that you had to first visit the proprietor, a woman, to request the key to enter. Turns out – this was true! The structure above, is a “great messapian hypogeum dug in the rock, once used as an early Christian place of worship and then a dovecote (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dovecote).The hypogeum is in fact composed of rooms perforated by hundreds of small niches, arranged according to the Latin cross plan. The central room was originally covered by a dome that collapsed in the 18th century” This is something we both wanted to see!

At the first photo stop, the Masseria Cippano, there was a couple camping in a van about 300 yards away, near the dirt road, and at the Santa Maria di Constantinople o Madonna chapel, there were no other people anywhere. When we arrived at Torre Pinta, we were greeted by a middle-aged woman. We somehow communicated that we were interested in the key to the hypogeum, she said “ will you stay for lunch? We looked at each other and said “sure!” It was lunchtime after all. She said “I will prepare a table!”

When we returned from the hypogeum and taking photos, she led us to our table.

Maria laid a beautiful table for us, beside a pretty little fire in the hearth. It was warm, inviting, and we were the only ones there!

Maria started bringing out dish, after dish, after dish. We were hungry, and ready to eat. The only question she asked us about our meal was if we wanted red, white, or rose’. We ordered red – and were surprised when she brought us a bottle. In the video above, Shannon is munching on the first thing she brought out – fried balls of dough with chopped up black olives and tomatoes.

Next, she brought some thin sliced zucchini, marinated in something vinegary. There were 3 rolled up in the middle with something delicious on the inside – we think she said “tuna carpaccio”

After the zucchini, she brought out a plate of grilled eggplant wrapped around beef carpaccio, a plate of crusty bread, and fried rice and Mac and cheese balls (something like arancini ). Then, the panne cotta, which she said was made from milk from her own goats. After all of this, I was stuffed. Since we didn’t have a menu and didn’t make any orders, we were not sure what to expect. I said “it’s lunch – I bet this is all”. Wrong. I tried, through my broken Italian (4 months of daily Duolingo) and Google translate, to tell her that I was stuffed with delicious food and couldn’t eat another bite. She said “parmigiana! I bring small one”.

What she arrived with was a plate of absolutely delicious eggplant parmasean! Shannon knew how full I was and made a video of me begging to not have to eat another bite:

It started to make us giggle that she kept bring out food and we were stuffed to the gills. She would not hear of us being finished eating. After the eggplant parm, which we somehow managed to finish entirely, she brought a plate of chocolate dessert.

Next, she came in, reached behind Shannon and got 2 cordial glasses out of the cabinet behind him, and poured us each a glass of the “Amarro di Torre Pinta”. I was in so much pain at this point that I wanted to cry – or something. But we had fallen completely in love with Maria Giovani and could not disappoint her by refusing anything she offered.

Eventually, there was the lemon….

After she’d stuffed us completely, she wanted to show us the rooms available in her bed and breakfast. She was proud to show us some lace that her mother had made, and also some embroidery on the sheets that I understood her to say was done by her family. We were staying close by in Otronto, but next time you can be sure we’ll stay here with Maria. Here’s the rooms tour:

The cost of this amazing meal? 35 Euro each. I don’t know about you, but that seems extremely reasonable to us. We were expecting a much steeper bill, especially with an entire bottle of wine and the after-dinner Amarro. I wish we could have explained to her that she was the first one to celebrate our marriage with us!

Married life so far is pretty great. This trip certainly gave us a memorable start, and I can’t say enough about how much I appreciate all of the hard work and planning that Shannon put into making it so. He’s pretty amazing at it, and for this reason among many others, I’m proud and honored to be his wife.

I’ll tell you more about the amazing city of Matera next!