The ANNOTICO Report

Frances May's 1996 bestseller, "Under the Tuscan Sun," and the subsequent
2003 hit movie starring Diane Lane, has prompted Americans to long for all
things Italian, including Italian Weddings.

"Americans are yearning for a place where beauty and art matter, where time
is not the enemy, where the day feels like a Pablo Neruda poem, where you
have time to savor family and good friends and good wine,"  Chandi Wyant,
wedding planner says,  "Italy epitomizes all of that."

Wyant's own love affair with Italy began more than 20 years ago when,she
went to Rome and Florence, and was just absolutely stunned with the history
that was alive and around me. I had never been anywhere as aesthetically
pleasing as Italy," she says. "I was in love from day one."

Chandi spent a year there learning the language, and thereafter traveled
all over the world, including India, Siberia and Poland. Years later she
returned to the states, joined the corporate world, working for four years
in Silicon Valley as an event planner.

But Italy kept calling her back.

She planned her own small wedding there in September 1998, saying vows at a
picturesque stone church in the countryside and dining at an "elbows on the
table" Italian eatery where the wine flowed freely. When she sent a
first-person account of it to the San Jose Mercury News, they printed it.
And by day's end, she was shocked to find her inbox full of inquiries.

Chandi finds that frequently the Italian villagers, tend to get caught up
in the romanticism.  Wyant's client Susan Taylor, and her husband wed in a
circa AD 903 church in the Florentine Hills, and the highlight of the day,
was when the newlyweds walked out of the church to find a crowd of local
villagers looking on. Outside the church door, they'd fashioned a giant
heart out of rose petals.

Chandi Wyant runs "Sogni Italiani", a wedding planning service that
specializes in Weddings in Italy.
Boulder wedding planner puts couples under the Tuscan sun.

The Daily Camera
Boulder, Colorado
By Lisa Marshall,
Camera Staff Writer
February 24, 2005

"To see the sun sink down, drowned in its pink and purple and golden
floods, and overwhelm Florence with tides of color that make all the sharp
lines dim and faint and turn the solid city to a city of dreams, is a sight
to stir the coldest nature and make a sympathetic one drunk with ecstasy."
— Mark Twain

It was a gray, bitter cold day in Boulder and the icy roads were crawling
with time-crunched commuters on their way to work. But within the fresco
orange walls of Chandi Wyant's home office, you could almost feel the
Tuscan sun shining down.

Around her desk hung framed pictures of newlyweds embracing in Florentine
castles or sipping wine among rows of olive trees in the countryside —
images so romantic they'd leave even the coldest cynic longing for Italy.

It was Wyant who — from her perch at her computer 6,000 miles away — helped
create those images.

For the past five years, since she left the furious pace of the high-tech
world behind, the 40-year-old Louisville woman has made a comfortable
living helping brides and grooms-to-be plan the Italian wedding of their
dreams.

At first, it seemed too narrow a niche for a business, but Wyant has since
learned it's not so narrow: Inspired by the publication of Frances May's
1996 bestseller, "Under the Tuscan Sun," and the subsequent 2003 hit movie
starring Diane Lane, it appears Americans are longing for all things
Italian.

"Americans are yearning for a place where beauty and art matter, where time
is not the enemy, where the day feels like a Pablo Neruda poem, where you
have time to savor family and good friends and good wine," Wyant says.
"Italy epitomizes all of that."

Wyant's own love affair with Italy began more than 20 years ago when, at
the urging of her grandmother, she set out to travel the world after she
graduated from high school.

"When I went to Rome and Florence I was just absolutely stunned with the
history that was alive and around me. I had never been anywhere as
aesthetically pleasing as Italy," she says. "I was in love from day one."

She spent a year there learning the language, but then her travels took her
elsewhere, including India, Siberia and Poland, where she worked as a peace
activist, helped coordinate study abroad programs and did other odd jobs.
Years later she returned to the states and, "out of desperation," joined
the corporate world, working for four years in Silicon Valley as an event
planner.

But Italy kept calling her back.

She planned her own small wedding there in September 1998, saying vows at a
picturesque stone church in the countryside and dining at an "elbows on the
table" Italian eatery where the wine flowed freely. When she sent a
first-person account of it to the San Jose Mercury News, they printed it.
And by day's end, she was shocked to find her inbox full of inquiries.

"The e-mails just kept coming in," she says. "People were saying, 'That is
the wedding I want. You've got to help me.'"

So she did.

Today, Wyant plans about 12 weddings per year, handling everything from
overseas paperwork hassles (and there are many) to flowers, photography and
lodging plans, depending on the clients. Because some of the vendors she
works with in Tuscany have yet to embrace the Internet, she has Italian
assistants there who can print out her e-mails — with pictures of things
like flowers and bridesmaids' dresses attached — and deliver them via
moped, if necessary.

Wyant has handled weddings ranging from $4,000 to tens of thousands, from
quaint casual gatherings to painstakingly planned productions complete with
opera singers and the couple's own private label wine.

One couple arrived at a castle by boat, greeted by a crowd of friends and
family members. Another said their vows in a Catholic church, then gathered
at a candle-lit castle, where an Italian tenor provided the background
music.

But most clients, Wyant says, want simplicity.

"In a way they are trying to escape this overwhelming thing that happens in
the United States where they have to invite 200 people because they don't
want to leave anyone out."

After Susan Taylor, 27, of Alberta, Canada, got engaged, she began scouring
the Internet looking for a wedding planner, and was struck by Wyant's
personal touch. With Wyant looking on this summer, Taylor and her husband
wed in a circa AD 903 church in the Florentine Hills.

The highlight of the day, recalls Taylor, was when the newlyweds walked out
of the church to find a crowd of local villagers looking on. Outside the
church door, they'd fashioned a giant heart out of rose petals.

"I hate to think of people who start off their marriage and all they have
to remember is 'my mother-in-law was doing this,' or 'the weather was doing
that,'" Taylor says. "For us, everything was perfect, and everything was
perfect because of Chandi."

Wyant lived in Florence for an 18-month stint, but came back to Boulder in
September when her husband got a job here. She now does the majority of her
work via the Internet, with occasional visits to Italy to attend client
weddings. Make no mistake, her job is not all roses. Like anything else, it
comes with drudgery, she says. But the payoff is tremendous.

"When I hear the tenor singing 'Ave Maria' in this timeless, beautiful
church in the Tuscan countryside and I see the smile on the bride's face,
the last year of stress is over," she says. "It's all worth it."