Wedding of design

Apulian wedding: from local products to modern design

The originality and innovative design of the settings are combined with local products and cultural and gastronomic traditions

In recent years, the tourism industry has given prestige to Puglia by transforming it into an icon of beauty well-known and esteemed all over the world.

We could say officially that Puglia has become a brand, a consolidated image made of landscapes, tradition, and cuisine.  Our region attracts the attention of global consumers and buyers every year, remaining firmly rooted in the local typical products and in the authenticity of uses and products that maintain a strong bond with activities linked to nature.

The roots of Puglia have not been distorted, on the contrary now they rise higher and higher meeting the interests of the market and of national and international consumption that have allowed the transformation of traditional activities into trades, overcoming regional borders even outside the times and dynamics tourism.

From a local and rural economy, Apulian products have entered the context of design, fashion, starred cuisine, and hospitality in luxury accommodating facilities.

Apulian weddings have also absorbed and benefited from these transformations, undergoing a profound evolution in recent years that has brought ceremonies from the artificial pomp of traditional reception rooms to a more intime and naturalistic dimension, without ever losing the sense of refinement. 

Such as tourism, also the wedding world has reshaped tradition by transforming local products into design experiences.

Wedding in Puglia: the ancient workplaces become modern locations

Beside the famous trulli, another building that characterizes the Apulian rurality is the masseria (massarì in Italian dialect). In some areas of Puglia, especially in the Itria Valley, these two types of structures are mixed together, to allow the coexistence of landowners, sharecroppers, and farmers engaged in land management and agricultural work.

After their original function, the life of the Apulian masseria has undergone a history of abandonment and another of modern rebirth and transformation. Today many masseria in Puglia are no longer site of agricultural works, but modern facilities for an excellent catering and receptive activity. This category also includes weddings that have found a new dimension in the renovated masserie, an alternative to the classic reception rooms.

In Puglia, the dominant trend of weddings is the country-chic one. And the masseria represents the perfect location of this style that gets back natural, popular, and traditional elements by reworking them with elegant and refined tones.

Appreciated for the rustic style and the stone walls, the masserie have converted the environments of the peasant work into places of celebration, transforming rusticity into a value.

Wedding in Puglia: wedding preparations made with material and natural elements

In the preparations of the ceremonies and wedding parties inspired by the country chic and rural style, typical Apulian craftmanship plays a fundamental role.

As happened for the masseria, also the local craftmanship has been recovered in order to be valorised and transformed in products of high design.

This rebirth began with the millennia-long tradition of pottery and terracotta tradition in Puglia, allowing the world to discover the creation of the city of Grottaglie and the province of Taranto.

However, Apulian craftsmanship is not just this. Extraordinarily strong is also the tradition of marquetry and wood carving, especially the olive tree.  Papier-mâché is another symbol of Apulian poor art, without forgetting the working of stone.

Craftsmanship also involves weddings because these expressions of Apulian poor art have become set-ups for wedding parties.

For example, ceramics are widely used as centrepiece and wedding favours. Wood is a material chosen for the making of the tableau marriage or place cards on the table. While stone sculptures are the furnishings of the most rustic and country chic locations where weddings are celebrated.

For Apulian craftsmanship, weddings are now a thriving market that has relaunched the figure of the craftsman to the point of creating new specialists in the wedding world.

Wedding in Puglia: getting married between the countryside and the sea

Puglia is a region particularly appreciated for the coexistence of quite different landscapes. The Apulian land in addition to its long coasts, also hosts the level ground overlooking the Gulf of Manfredonia, the Murge hills and hints of mountain in the territory that borders Basilicata and Campania.

Getting married in Puglia, therefore, means choosing between a party celebrated in the countryside, in the masserie surrounded by large expanses of olive trees, and a party organised on the beach or on the high cliffs bathed by Adriatic and Ionian Sea.

This variety of landscapes is increasingly involved in the organization and development of wedding parties until it becomes another of the characteristics sought by the spouses. There are always more couples that choose to get married in locations surrounded by natural landscapes that become the background and scenography of their photos. Especially those who celebrate the civil rite, choose a place where to celebrate the wedding, organise the party and set the photos, always thanks to a natural landscape symbol of that Puglia known and appreciated everywhere.

Wedding in Puglia: local food turns into a gourmet experience

The cuisine in Puglia is also inspired by tradition. It is said that Apulian cuisine has a peasant vocation and a poor essence.

It is cooked with local and fresh ingredients, at km 0, before this definition became inflated and in common use. Vegetables, meat, and fish: in Puglia everything offered by nature has become typical.

In recent years, our cuisine has lived two parallel dimensions: tourists are strongly attracted to the more rustic and homemade dishes, while on the other hand, a reinterpretation of tradition in a gourmet and modern key has begun, involving chefs and restaurants of excellence, and starred.

Considering these transformations, in weddings the menus indiscriminately host local dishes and modern reinterpretation of more traditional dishes, both rigorously prepared with local ingredients. During the wedding reception it is possible to eat roasted fish, panzerotti and mozzarella prepared on the moment and then move on to contemporary-inspired dishes.

Wedding in Puglia: even the wedding favours interpret the country-chic style

Wedding favours have also undergone numerous transformations. The habit to donate knick-knacks and trinkets has been replaced by radically opposite choices. Young couples of spouses are increasingly looking for wedding favours that can be useful for their guests, obsessed with the idea to giving away objects that may not like and only clutter up. 

In this context, Olivetta, our gastronomic wedding favour, fits in. Olivetta contains the symbol of the more traditional Puglia, the terracotta jar and extra virgin olive oil, and the need to donate something that can be useful to those who receive it.

As we mentioned in the article Useful Wedding Favours, there are at least five ways to reuse our favour. Olivetta was born from the idea of transforming the ancient terracotta jar into a design object, beautiful to look at, easy to combine with different wedding styles and then useful at home.

Conclusion

The success of tourist Puglia has relaunched the regional specialities in Italy and in the world. The region has become a brand by enhancing local specialties: landscapes, cuisine and craftsmanship.

This success has also involved and contaminated the wedding sector, even favouring the rise of new professions and products which, inspired by tradition, then entered the panorama of the chicest style.