24

Jan

2013

Older Wiser Married – My Ibiza Wedding

older wiser married

Today I am starting a new feature called Older Wiser Married, where I share with you different wedding supplier’s weddings and look into the decisions they made, what they would have changed, what they learnt from their wedding and where they are now.
As a wedding blogger I talk to you every day about planning your wedding, giving you ideas and inspiration for your big day and guiding you through the whole planning process. But what happens after the wedding when you come out of your wedding bubble? What happens when you step back and readdress the wedding day?

Older Wiser Married intends to delve deep into the decisions each featured supplier made, and find what valuable lessons they have learnt in the process, not only about the wedding day but amount the marriage itself!
So before I ask any other suppliers to open themselves up to the Blog I thought it only fair that I talk to you about my wedding! So here goes!

 

Date: 16th June 2009
Location: Private Villa in San Augustin Ibiza
Number of Guests: 35
Time to plan: nearly 2 years

 

older wiser married

older wiser married

Nik and I decided to get married in Ibiza after completely scrapping an already planned wedding for 100 guests in Cornwall. We had originally planned a church wedding in my local church (where I was brought up) with a marquee reception next to a lake, catering, photographer, flowers, transport, dress, all sorted but 6 months into the planning we suddenly took a step back and realised that the day we had planned just wasn’t us. We had a guest list of people we had only invited because we felt we should, a church wedding when neither of us were religious and a budget that had spiralled out of control. So we stopped took a step back and re assed!
We have been big clubbers for years and had enjoyed going to Ibiza together on holiday, we had both planned to have our stag and hen do’s in Ibiza, so we decided why not get married out there as well. So with the Cornwall wedding scrapped and deposits back from most of the suppliers we went ahead and booked our Ibiza wedding.

We went to Ibiza a few days before the wedding to sort out all the wedding stuff that we couldn’t do in the UK, met with the planner and all the suppliers and then chilled out in our amazing Villa. We were there for 2 weeks, a week with our friends and a week on our own.

 

First Some Photos of the Day……….

older wiser married older wiser married Ibiza  order  of the day Ibiza  groom me and my mum me and Nik at our ibiza wedding ceremony ibiza wedding ceremony ibiza wedding ceremony ibiza wedding ceremony ibiza wedding ceremony ibiza wedding ceremony me and Nik Ibiza Bride and groom Ibiza wedding guests Ibiza wedding Ibiza bride Ibiza wedding guests wedding speeches wedding speeches Ibiza wedding wedding food Ibiza wedding Ibiza wedding Ibiza wedding Ibiza wedding Ibiza wedding Ibiza wedding

 

 

Best Decision

Boho-Arrow-up

Changing our original wedding

 

Brian the DJ

 

Paper Fans

 

Personal Vows

 

Hiring a Wedding Planner

 

 

 

 

 

Changing our original wedding
Having the 2 weeks in Ibiza meant our wedding lasted so much longer, instead of just having one day we had a full week with our friends and a week on our own.

location

Brian the DJ
Brian was a very last minute decision, literally the night before. We had already hired our sound system from him and I had spent a month putting together the perfect playlist for the wedding breakfast and the evening reception. BUT Brian rang me the night before the wedding to say he was free if we wanted him to DJ. It was a no brainer, I had to pass it by Nik (via my bridesmaid) but he agreed. Brian was AMAZING!! Nik still tells people that we had a DJ from Space nightclub play at our wedding, he kept our guests dancing all night, even my mum was dancing! Awesome!

beezwax

Fans
we had fans as wedding favours and thank God we did as we had a heat wave while we there. June should really be 25-30 degrees in Ibiza but instead we had around 35 degrees, so the fans really helped keep our guests cool. Our ceremony was going to be by the pool but we had to find a shaded area instead, even though we got married at 6pm

older wiser married

Vows
writing our own vows was a great decision and really added to the personal element of the ceremony. Something I advise everyone to do, even if you’re not great at writing, saying something from the heart is so much better than reading something someone had already written for you.

wedding vows

Hiring a wedding planner
I couldn’t have done it without my planner Sharon. She became my best friend while planning the wedding. She found me the venue and made sure that everything ran smoothly and was always at the other end of an email to calm my Bridzilla moments (and yes I had quite a few)

 

What would you change?

Boho-Arrow-down

 

Photography

 

Flowers

 

Cake

 

Details

 

Hair

 

 

 

 

Photography
I’ll be honest with you up until a month before the wedding my friend Sarah was our official photographer. Sarah isn’t a professional, but she does take a good photo, I hadn’t even considered getting anyone else to do it as she had photographed so many of my friend’s weddings. But a month before the wedding I had a wobble and suddenly realised that she would be taking her 15 month old baby with her to the wedding and how was she going to lock after the a baby and take the photos. So I contacted my wedding planner and she gave me the names of a couple of photographers in Ibiza.
As lovely as our photographer was, and I really did love our wedding photos when we got home, I now know so much more about photography and know so many fantastic photographers I would be spoilt for choice!
I also now realise the importance of a good photographer and would have allocated more of the budget towards this.
I would also make sure I booked a photographer to stay for the whole day and night. I booked 6 hours which took us up to the speeches, so the whole of the evening reception was missed. There was so much dancing, and later on we all ended up in the pool, which was totally missed. Luckily our guests did take a few of the dancing shots but as you can see the quality isn’t great!
I’d also make sure we got more couple shouts. Nik hates having his photo taken so we rushed through our portrait shots mainly because it was so hot, but I would go back and leave the Villa and make the most of the Ibiza scenery.

Flowers
Gerberas…really! What was I thinking?? (Sorry if you are having gerberas at your wedding) I knew I wanted Phalianopsis orchids as the main flower to go with the white and yellow theme but for some reason I decided that yellow gerberas would also go, which they didn’t!
Our caterer was also in charge of the flowers and actually got it partly wrong. Giving us gerberas as button holes instead of the Phalianopsis orchids which I had originally asked for..
If I could go back I would have booked a florist myself and gone and had a consolation with them instead of leaving it up to the caterer.

bouquet flowers

Cake
We decided to have the wedding cake served as our dessert, so ordered a 2 tier cheesecake (Nik’s favourite) Again we left this to the caterer to sort out. Unfortunately when the cake was brought out for us to cut it was covered in strawberries which Nik is allergic to (even though we had told the caterer this) so unfortunately Nik didn’t get to eat any.

cake

Details
Looking back all weddings tend to date, I guess I could have done more with the detailing of the wedding added more things, but back then details weren’t massive, plus I believed then (and still do) the villa was so pretty the natural setting, the trees , the flowers were really all we needed! But yes maybe a few more pretty things, lanterns maybe, plus I would have loved a photo booth!

Hair
I also look back and think my hair looks dated. At the time it was fine but now I can think of a million other styles I could have had. Plus a headpiece instead of the slide things in my hair

hair

 

What I learnt

  • Have the wedding you want, don’t be led by tradition and do what feels right for you. If we had gone ahead and had our Cornwall wedding, yes it would have been perfectly lovely, but it just wouldn’t have been us!
  • The wedding is just the beginning, the marriage is the most important thing and something that people often forget when planning the wedding.
  • Guests will be the route of your problems. No matter what you do you will never please everyone no matter how hard you try!
  • Hire a wedding planner. I was SO relaxed on my wedding day because I knew that someone else was in charge
  • Your wedding day really is the best day of your life!

 

Does marriage change things in your relationship?

Yes it does. Marriage is hard! As are relationships in general. I spent so much time before the wedding planning it all that I didn’t give much thought to the actual marriage itself and what would happen with me and Nik once we were married. Our first year of marriage was pretty tough; part of this was down to our personal situation changing (I lost my job) but part of it was down to me just not giving the actual marriage much thought.
Nik kept reminding me while I was swallowed up with the planning ‘don’t forget we are actually getting married, there is life after the wedding you know!’ well I completely ignored him!
Marriage is about compromise, it is no longer just you and your partner with you making decisions for you and you alone. Suddenly you have another person to take into consideration,
But I love being married, I love the security that it has brought me, It’s me and Nik against the world now, I know what ever happens Nik will always have my back and I will always have his. As well as all that it has really brought us closer in our relationship, it has made ‘us’ that bit more special.
Now that is something I was not expecting! And has to be the best bit about getting married!

 

How you wedding business came about?

Well as you know I now write this blog as well as planning weddings. Before I was married I was in fashion recruitment and planning charity events I my spare time. 6 months before the wedding our office was getting smaller and smaller due to the recession most people were being made redundant. I started to think what would happen if I lost my job and decided that I would love to get into wedding planning.
On the last day of our honeymoon my boss called me and told me my job was no more and that was it!
It was bloody hard for a while; Nik took a lot of convincing that starting my own business was the way to go. Going from a full time job to nothing was pretty tough but it made me even more determined to make a real go of it! I literally had nothing so I HAD to make it work.
I used the same ethos from my wedding and pushed that forward into my wedding planning, making sure that couples have the wedding they want, not the wedding that is expected of them, and that has in turn translated to the blog.

 

So what do you think? are you married, does any of this ring true for you? Do you think about what you would do differently? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

 

If you are a wedding supplier who would like to get involved in this new feature then please get in contact I’d love to hear from you. xx

 

 

Supplier Shout Outs

 

Why not visit our Supplier Directory

Comments

    Charley | London Bride

    Love this Kelly! I’ve often thought about people’s weddings after a few years and after the dust has settled what they remembered, what was worth splurging on and what they could have done without! The gerbera inclusion has made me giggle, but what a shame that the caterer seemed to let you down on these things (cannot believe they put strawberries on the cake after being told Nik was allergic, hope you didn’t get charged!!). I still think it looks like a fun and gorgeous day :) x

    Reply
      boho

      Thanks Charley! yes it’s been good to reflect on the day and really think about what i thought worked and what didn’t.
      We didn’t even mention the cake to the caterer, on the day you don’t want to bring up any negative points, I wish we had now!
      xxx

      Reply
    Kelly Hodgson (museums Sheffield )

    Well done Kelly. I love your honesty and I hope it inspires others to do what they want and speak out when suppliers disappoint. X

    Reply
    Becki

    I love this feature!
    Gorgeous couple, gorgeous wedding!

    It’s interesting to hear from the people in the industry as you must get to see and to know about so much more that’s available than you would as a bride, so i’ve often wondered if people could do their wedding again, knowing what they know now, would they change anything or everything?
    It’s amazing how much changes and how fast. Looking back at wedding photo’s where I was a bridesmaid about 7 years ago, it looks unbelievably dated, including blingtastic tiara’s.. Cringe!! It was everything that was expected of a wedding and I dont know if thats because they were specifically choosing what was considered normal for a wedding or if it was just that there wasnt as much choice back then?
    In my own planning I keep wondering will I love it as much in 10 years time as I do now? Who knows, but i’m making sure we pick the things that reflect us now, not what someone expects from a wedding and that’s all we can do I suppose.
    I keep having to remind my mum that times have changed.. she’s still in the land of sugared almonds as wedding favours though so god help me!!

    Becki xx

    Reply
    Kirsten Mavric

    I love what you said about the photographer ;) It’s soooo much more important than people
    realise at the time.
    You looked gorgeous and I love your dress, Kelly x

    Reply
      boho

      Thank you Kirsten, pity I don’t look like that any more!
      But yes the importance of a good photographer is something I feel very strongly about now and something I always like to promote.
      Not that my photographer didn’t do a good job, but i just wish I had put more of the budget away for photography! and I wish I knew more about styles and what I liked and what I wanted out of the service before the wedding.

      Reply
    Nicola Thompson

    Great feature Kelly! Read the whole thing i was engrossed! Id love to do this too if you need anymore volunteers! Have lots of pro’s and cons to share! x

    Reply
      boho

      Thanks Nicola, glad you liked it, so much more I could have written but I would have been going on forever!
      yes I would love to feature your wedding, will send a form out as soon as I’ve put it together. xxx

      Reply
    Linda Dixon

    Just to say enjoyed reading this article and really takes me back there it was an awesome experience and we have a fabulous time …. Can we go back in time and do it again? Good feature too although I thought the day was perfect but you are now armed with lots of wedding day knowledge so guess you pick the spots where others don’t! Well done and thanks for inviting us! X

    Reply
      boho

      Oh Linda, I’d love to go back and do it all again, it was the best two weeks of my life! Thank you for being there to share it with me! we will always have the memories xxxx

      Reply
    Jo

    Kelly I think this is going to quickly turn into my favourite feature on the blog.

    It makes such a refreshing read and it is also reassuring to read that even if some things aren’t perfect, it will all be ok because at the end of it I’ll be married to my best friend. With 6 months to go I am all of a sudden terrified and have no idea why (I do know though it IS only about the wedding and IS NOT about the marriage)….your words are extremely comforting to me.

    Thank you! Xx

    Reply
    Kelly

    This is a brilliant post Kelly. You both look fab. Nik has the biggest smile ever in these pictures. Your dress is lovely.

    Reply
    Dominique Shaw

    Loving this post Kelly, I think it’s great and really insightful for new brides and grooms! Matt and I would love to share our day sometime if you fancy it! : ) x

    Reply

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