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Saturday, January 20, 2001
Section: LIFESTYLE
Edition: FIVE STAR LIFT
Page: 12
Memo: WEDDING GUIDE
WEDDINGS - PLANNING LONG-DISTANCE
FOR A ROMANTIC DESTINATION WEDDING, GO TO THE INTERNET
By Becky Homan
Of the Post-Dispatch
WHEN BETH Stewart started to plan her wedding, she made a familiar stop -- the Internet.
The former St. Louisan, now an advertising executive in Tampa, Fla., surfed for weeks to gather ideas on wedding locales and honeymoon getaways.
And then she found (now) www.italian-weddings.com.
A year, plus two gondola rides, a five-course Venetian wedding supper, several four-star hotels and two weeks of offbeat, guided Tuscan tours later, she's very glad she did.
Like a growing number of computer-savvy brides, Stewart, the former Beth Dzengolewski, booked everything for her Italian wedding and honeymoon over the Internet.
"I never spoke on the phone to a soul in Italy," she says.
"My friends were like, 'What are you, nuts?'
"But I was so pleased at the way it turned out," she says. "I'd recommend it to anyone."
Here, in a bit more detail, is how the wedding of Beth and Ken Stewart worked its way through cyberspace.
First, there was the wedding premise.
"Ken and I really wanted it to be private and romantic," she says. "It's all about us. A wedding is the time to be selfish. Most people understood."
In any event, there was to be a big reception for friends and family -- including her brother and his family from Lebanon, Ill., her father and his family from Belleville and her mother from Marion, Ill. -- in Tampa after the honeymoon.
Also, as busy professionals, the bride and groom wanted the convenience that they hoped to find by shopping, via computer, from home and office.
"I don't have the time to plan a whole big wedding," she said, "though I wanted to do something really different and romantic."
France was her first thought.
She typed a general phrase, "destination weddings," into her favorite search engine and found a long list of sites, from "A" (Alaska) to "Z" (New Zealand), with everything European in between.
Weddingsinitaly.com caught her eye. "I thought the name was hilarious," she says. "It was so generic."
But after looking at its wedding and honeymoon packages, she decided to check out its hotels on the Internet. She asked the wedding Web site for references, got 15, including one from this area, and e-mailed them all.
"They all raved," she said. But she added, "Of course, the service is not going to give me names of people with miserable experiences."
She made her decision, spending a total of $2,975 for two nights in a four-star hotel near Venice's St. Mark's Square, flowers, champagne, gondola rides to and from the church, a priest's services, wedding photography, wedding coordinators, assistance with paperwork and bureaucratic procedures and a five-course dinner on the wedding night.
The couple used their own frequent-flyer miles to get to and from Italy. Her gown came from New York (by Reem Acra). His tux was by Dolce & Gabbana.
And using the same Web site, they booked a 15-day honeymoon with train travel, plus car with guide, through the Tuscan hills.
Doubts crept into the long-distance planning, here and there.
"What if she's skimped on anything?" the bride remembers thinking about her chief wedding coordinator. "I'll be bummed."
A big bout of "freaking out" in Tampa even led her to a week of local calls. The dates she needed were booked. She decided to put her faith in all things Internet.
Her only complaint now? A Venice hotel with "a magnificent lobby, but the rooms were small," she says. "I've since found out that's how Venice is."
On the other hand, the couple's Tuscan honeymoon hotels, she says dreamily, were ones "I could not rave enough about."
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