they want someone who speaks their language, literally and culturally. I grew up in Milan and have lived in Italy my entire life, but my father ran a company in the United States, so I was traveling back and forth from childhood. America became a second home early on, and years of closeness with Americans shaped the rest. I think first in English, then Italian. My couples get American clarity, proactive communication, and a process built around how they actually make decisions. They also get real access to Italy, the villas and artisans that rarely open to outsiders. Every conversation and contract is handled in both languages, so nothing gets lost and nothing moves slowly. They hire me to translate, in every sense of the word.

It started almost as a game. I was 10, and in the '90s a McDonald's birthday party was a major event. I called the restaurant myself to organize mine. The manager asked, "Is your mom there?" "She is. Why?" "Wouldn't it be better if I spoke with her?" "Why? It's my birthday." In the years that followed, I kept planning. My birthdays, my family's, my friends'. Trips too, including one month across the United States on Route 66. In a tent. I should have known from that first birthday that I was meant for this work. Somehow, I kept minimizing it. Even when the feedback was clear. "You exceeded our expectations." "This wedding wouldn't have existed without you." And my answer was always "ma siiiii", the Italian version of "yeah, no big deal." Then came a night in Toronto, after I won a wedding industry award. Something shifted. What came back to me was that ten-year-old girl negotiating with a McDonald's manager. She already knew. Planning was never a pastime. It was my language, the one I had been speaking since I was ten. Maybe it took me a while to take myself seriously. Now I do. And when someone tells me it's a big deal, I say it plainly. This is exactly my deal.

Reading between the lines. Most of what matters in a wedding is never said out loud. A silence where there should be a question, a detail mentioned once and never again. I listen to all of it, and I act on it before the couple has to ask. The same skill applies to working across two cultures. American couples and Italian vendors often mean different things with the same words, and they leave different things unsaid. An American "sounds good" can mean three different answers depending on the tone. An Italian "vediamo" (we'll see) almost never means what it literally says. I sit in the middle of that, catching what each side assumes the other understands. That's the real work. Hearing what isn't spoken, on both sides, and delivering it anyway.