Lucca, as well as its surrounding regions, comes alive with summer festivals, concerts, and parades at this time of year, so definitely check with your wedding planner to see if you can schedule your wedding to coincide with one of the big summer festivals. Just last week, the San Paolino celebrations included a huge parade of people dressed in medieval costumes, followed by exhibitions of medieval war arts such as shooting with a cross bow, archery, and jousting! Pretty cool.

In addition, during the entire month of July, there are large musical concerts held in many of Lucca's main squares. For example, tomorrow night, Van Morrison is playing and at the end of the month James Brown will be the final act to end the concert series. One tip in this regard, if you want to have your ceremony or reception inside the city during this time period, particularly if you want to do an evening event, do check to make sure that your reception site or ceremony site are not on or too near the square where a concert will be held.

posted by gina, 2005-07-20