80 Guests
15th June 2024
‘We had the best day ever and the wedding of our dreams and can’t express into words how grateful we are to you for making this happen.’
We both decided we wanted a destination wedding as we wanted guaranteed sunny weather which is sometimes not always a given in the U.K. even for a summer wedding. We also felt it would extend our wedding celebrations as we were interested in hosting a welcome party the day before too.
My partner spent a lot of time in different parts of Greece when he was younger on family holidays and the country held a special place in his heart.
We didn’t know where to choose but knew we wanted this abroad. We were sat on one evening looking at destinations and seeing the beautiful caldera in Santorini online sealed our destination choice.
We invited 135 with 80 actually attending. We were blown away with this as we had guests travel in from America, Australia, the UK, and Ireland just to be there with us. We managed communication via a wedding website ‘Getting Married’ and also had a travel theme for the wedding. We sourced travel destination save the dates and passport and boarding pass invites via ‘Etsy’.
I tried on my first ever dress at High Society which was ‘Harley’ by Sophia Tolli. I tried on a few more and was encouraged to visit other dress shops to get a feel for the dress I wanted. Even though I tried the other dresses I felt an urge to go back to the first dress I had tried on, but didn’t think it could be ‘as easy as that’. A few weeks went back and I kept thinking about the first dress, I returned to High Society and said yes to the dress to the first Sophia Tolli dress.
My mum and I went on a shopping trip to London where we purchased white ‘Kate’ Louboutin heels. I also bought pearl drop earrings and a matching necklace from Lily & Roo. I also purchased a Justin Alexander veil and a silver hairpiece made by Richard Designs, these were both from High Society.
I wore the veil down the aisle for the ceremony and the photoshoot and then had the veil taken out where more of my hairpiece could be seen for the reception, my make up artist also changed my lip colour so it was a bit different for the reception.
The groom surprised me on the day with a wedding gift which was a silver Gucci bracelet with had a blue circle embellishment being my something blue and a flower charm which resembled our beloved dog who was at home, Daisy.
We knew we didn’t want a formal suit however we didn’t want something too casual. We settled on matching waistcoats from Mark Darcy for the Groom, his 8 Groomsman and the father of the bride and groom. We purchased the Grooms off white coloured trousers and blue blazer from a local tailors, Revue in Abergavenny.
His shoes were from Louis Vuitton and he wore his Rolex watch
I purchased the bridesmaid dresses from Azazie and chose 3 styles I liked. I asked the girls to choose out of those 3 styles which was nice as they were all in the same colour but different styles.
As we had a lot of people travelling from lots of different places, and with us having a destination wedding, we knew we wanted some sort of travel theme. For wedding favours we gifted our guests luggage tags, and had travel themed tables for places Gareth and I had visited together during our relationship.
We opted for local white fresh flowers and wanted the theme to look clean with white and gold accents placed throughout the reception. I wanted a floral arch however wasn’t aware of how costly this could be, Lisa was fantastic with given us a slight alternative to this without breaking the bank too much. We had flowers placed on top of the arch instead of all around, which still looked breathtaking.
I had a custom flower piece made for my bridal bouquet which was a photo of my late sister wrapped around the bouquet so she could be with me when I walked down the aisle.
We arrived for a pre wedding meeting a few days before the wedding at the Gem where we had a few laughs as I had a huge bag with all the decorative items in there. Our planner out there, Kristina was fantastic, I gave her instructions on where to place these and she laid all of these on the day of the wedding.
I had a Polaroid camera with a guestbook for guests to take selfies and place in there, I had a dog ornament made of our dog Daisy to place on the cake, personalised edible drinks toppers, wedding newspapers and fans for the guests to have.
That’s a tough one as we loved the whole day from start to finish but I think as soon as the saxophonist and dancing started, we could really relax and enjoy.
Although Lisa made this whole process as stress free as possible, as soon as I sat on the plane to fly to Santorini I felt completely de stressed and excited. We enjoyed the build up with friends flying in on different days, and could count down to the wedding while sunbathing in the glorious weather (although I made sure to avoid tan lines for the wedding). We had a wedding event on the day before in Capri which Lisa organised. This was amazing as all the guests had the chance to mingle before the big day. I also made wedding weekend bags with haribo love hearts, chocolate and various sweets, wipes, suncream, Yorkshire tea bags (a must), electrolyte powder, and vitamin C powder, water and painkillers for hangovers. I had a table set aside in Capri and the guests had the opportunity to take these for themselves. We were shocked as all 80 guests for the wedding turned up to this extra event.
This made us even more excited for the next day.. the wedding!! I would 100% recommend getting married abroad as this extends celebrations and guarantees the weather.
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Photography by the incredible https://benjwyatt.com/
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