Choosing my Wedding Abroad

Kardamena, Kos.

When I first got engaged six years ago I went straight to the travel agents and picked up three of the 'Weddings Abroad' brochures.

I looked at the beautiful outdoor settings and thought about how lovely it would be to know that the weather would be amazing on your wedding day.

The brochures were filled with gorgeous hotels and I researched different areas of Europe, including Italy, Greece and Cyprus.

I loved looking at the beautiful outdoor ceremony locations and knew it would be the type of wedding I wanted. The blue sky & sunshine always looks amazing!

 

Photos liked this inspired me.

 

For me, places like the Caribbean were a little too far from home. I thought it might be a bit much to expect people to pay lots of money for a long haul holiday. But I really enjoyed researching the amazing places that you can get married in America, such as Central Park in New York, beautiful areas of Florida and Las Vegas. Some people say a Vegas wedding is "tacky" blah blah, but I personally would have loved to get married out there!

The fact that I also couldn't think of anything worse than hundreds of people looking at me pushed me to go ahead and book the wedding abroad. I wanted it to be as fuss free as possible. I couldn't find many people who felt like me but I just wanted to be married! Without the big wedding...

We decided on the Greek island of Kos - the place where we met. I booked through a private wedding planner who is British but lives on the island.

We had a small group of twelve guests which was great. Out of personal choice we decided to stay in our hotel alone, and most of the guests chose to stay in the sister hotel next door. It was going to be our honeymoon too so this meant a good balance between spending some time alone and time with family. We met up with them every night for drinks and sometimes saw them in the day. My auntie had got married abroad a few years before and had done the same thing, so we followed in her footsteps. 

Our hotel.

Some of the swimming pools at the hotel.

Everything was how I had imagined - very relaxed, nice photos, gorgeous weather...

The Ceremony location.

A hotel worker drove me, my mum, my auntie and my sister through the hotel grounds to the ceremony in a golf buggy. We had the ceremony outside at the hotel chapel courtyard, then went into the village for a very chilled out afternoon reception at a bar called The Garden. We had the back garden area to ourselves and they put out the most gorgeous buffet for us - it was delicious. 

Reception location.


Later we had an evening meal else where at a restaurant by the harbour. When we walked through the village the locals were so friendly, congratulating us, beeping car horns and some even came out of their house to throw confetti rice. I changed my dress at about 7pm - the wedding was at 1. I never thought I would last that long in my princess dress but I didn't feel as hot as I thought I would. I was quite pleased with myself!  

Back at home we had an evening reception party at a hotel. I ordered a wedding cake and lots of decorations to make it feel as 'weddingy' as possible for those who didn't come away with us. A family friend took photos for us.

I'm so happy that I went for a small day - I knew it was what I needed even though I'm soo obsessed with all things wedding. To be honest I wanted to just run off and get married just the two of us, but it seems lots of people don't like that idea.. In the end it was a small but perfect day.

Rachel x