The Coppolas and the Ecclestones: two very different Italian weddings

Sofia Coppola and Petra Ecclestone, held weddings in Italy over the weekend, one low-key and the other over-the-top.

Filmmaker Coppola and her longtime musician boyfriend, Phoenix frontman Thomas Mars, were married on Saturday in the Italian village that was home to Coppola's grandparents.

On the same day, British heiress Ecclestone tied the knot with businessman James Stunt outside Rome, capping a three-day event with a reported price tag that ranged widely from $2 million to $8 million.

The Ecclestone-Stunt wedding took place at the same castle where Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes married, and featured fireworks as well as performances by Eric Clapton and the Black Eyed Peas.

By contrast, Coppola and Mars were wed in a civil ceremony before 80 guests at the Coppola family's villa in the southern Italian town of Bernalda.

Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.