You might expect your wedding day to go off perfectly with no hitches whatsoever.  You may feel confident that you will not get stood up at the altar. You have no psychopathic ex who will gatecrash your wedding.   Whatever you do - do not forget wedding insurance as part of your wedding package. 

My heart bleeds for the accident that happened to two childhood sweet hearts who understandably then called off their wedding.  

This month in in the village of Altofonte, near Palermo in Sicily, Italy a wedding photographer was shot dead after one of the hunting rifles he asked the bride and groom to pose with accidentally went off.  Calogero Scimea, 45, had stepped in at the last minute after the couple’s official photographer felt ill.  The stand in wedding photographer was accidentally shot in the head as former teenage sweethearts Valentina Anitra, 22, and Ignazio Licodia, 25, were having their photographs taken at the groom’s parents’ home in Sicily just before the wedding party attended the church.

“From what we have been able to establish, the photographer asked the parents of the bride and groom if they had any guns to use as props in a picture,” Palermo police spokesman Colonel Teo Luzi said.  “One went off, hitting him in the head, killing him in front of the horrified bride and groom, and their parents. We are trying to establish if the gun went off as it was being handled by the photographer.

“The firearms were legally held but they should all be kept safe and not be handled by people who are not used to them and have no experience.”

Police were continuing to investigate the incident today and said the groom’s parents could be prosecuted as the death occurred on their property.

In southern Italy, and especially on the isle of Sicily, it is traditional for guns to be fired at special family events and also festivals.   Prosecutors said the groom’s parents rail worker Mario, 56, and his wife Rita, face possible charges of negligence leading to manslaughter, as the tragedy happened at their house. Officers said the bride’s parents, who live nearby, were also asked if they had any guns and went home to bring one of their own. 

Police officers said they were struggling to establish exactly how the accident happened because most witnesses had been extremely reluctant to talk, in a region of Italy in which ‘omerta’ – the code of silence – still reigns. 

The wedding was immediately cancelled, with the bride and groom and their guests said to be “distraught”.

Please please please take out wedding insurance as part of your wedding package.  If something horrible happens and I pray it does not where you need to cancel your wedding, it is bad enough having to deal with the grief of the tragedy let alone then having to figure out where you can raise a second lot of wedding budget.  Wedding insurance needs to be an essential element of your wedding package.