Suellen Fernandes Weddings & Celebrations plans destination weddings in Italy for couples who live elsewhere, many of them from Brazil, the United States and Australia. Suellen Fernandes was born in Vitória in Brazil, moved to Italy with her family at fourteen and began planning weddings here in 2012. The practice is based in Treviso, half an hour from Venice, and she says it has run more than 200 celebrations, at an average of about twelve weddings a year.
She leads each wedding herself, with her husband and co-founder Nicholas as financial manager and co-coordinator on the day, and a permanent team of four. On the day at least two planners run the event from set-up to breakdown, rising to ten or more people for larger weddings. The team works in Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and English, and Suellen describes part of her role as a cultural go-between for couples marrying across two cultures.
“Celebrating love has become much more than a profession, it's part of who I am.”
Suellen Fernandes, founder
Her published weddings run from Lake Como villas and a Renaissance garden in Verona to Tuscany, Florence, Siena, Rome, Capri, Ravello, Positano and Amalfi, with one in Stintino in Sardinia. She also takes weddings in Switzerland, France and Spain. Ceremonies cover civil, Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, Hindu, interfaith and symbolic rites, and she handles the paperwork with consulates, churches and town halls.
She is certified by FAC (2016, registry seal no. 7) and UNITER (2021), both accredited through ACCREDIA, and was named best destination wedding planner in Veneto at the Italian Wedding Awards 2020, then a national finalist in 2021. In June 2022 she represented AIOM at the UNI working table on regulating the wedding planner profession in Italy. She also officiates symbolic ceremonies herself, in two languages where needed, under the name Bene-detto Celebrante.
Her design work leans on the setting: white flowers, long tables and candlelight, built around the house or garden rather than over it. She takes complete weddings only, not day-of coordination, and prefers a small number of events each year.
