After 10 years together and a proposal in Paris, we started the exciting task of planning our wedding. My wedding story is honest and highlights the good and the bad with wedding planning.

I had always dreamt of a huge Church wedding in our hometown of Cambridge but after looking at venues, the ever increasing guest list and our quite low budget, we decided that an intimate ceremony followed by a large reception would be perfect.

We wanted the wedding to focus on us, a reflection of our love and life together. As we planned to hold an intimate wedding, we looked at the possibility of a destination wedding – Santorini, Paris, Tuscany and the South of France were all options. After endless internet searches, we fell in love with Chateau Riveneuve du Bosc, situated in southwestern France. I found the chateau on www.homeaway.co.uk where you can search for holiday homes to hire, whether you are looking for a chateau or a castle to a modern, contemporary villa. This way means you have complete control over vendors but it is a lot of work and searching for credible suppliers in another country takes time. And patience. Quite often the pace of life is much slower and you may need to wait a week or so for a reply to an email.

Suppliers: Booking vendors was surprisingly easy but also a risk. We didn’t visit France prior to the wedding so I was extra vigilant when reading through contracts, sending money and looking at testimonials. If you pay suppliers through international bank transfer, you will need to pay fees so keep this in account when looking at your budget. It is also worth asking for an English version of the contract in addition to the original language copy.

We booked Alexis Frespuech as our photographer, who is based in Toulouse but works throughout France and further afield. I initially paid the deposit at the start of the year and we didn’t meet him until we arrived at the airport in France only a few days before our wedding.  It the best decision we made. His style of photography reflected our vision for the wedding and we ended up with natural, journalistic style photos showcasing the fun emotional side of our wedding. What’s more, Alexis speaks fluent English and while I felt his presence, he was never in the way and simply observed. Your photos, memories and rings are the items that will last a lifetime – focus on these and invest in them wisely. It is no good spending thousands of pounds on a wedding with mediocre photos to show for it. Likewise, memories last a lifetime. You won’t remember how much you spent on X, Y, Z in twenty years time, you will remember how you felt, the love and laughter.

For the food, catering companies were providing extortionate quotes, so I took a different route. I hired Chef Marc Berger to cook our wedding day dinner and worked with him to create our perfect menu. This was much more cost-effective and meant that we had full control of the wine, rather than paying a high corkage fee. Unfortunately we only hired one waitress and in hindsight, with the budget, we could have used one or two more. If you do opt for a dry-hire venue, factor this in when hiring a chef and ensure the kitchen has adequate crockery, cutlery and cooking facilities.

A religious ceremony was particularly important. To start with this was a difficult process due to the French marriage laws but after emailing over ten churches, I found a priest who went out of his way to make our dream a reality. He designed the most beautiful ceremony and recommended hymns, readings and prayers.

The dress. I fell in love with dresses from incredible Israeli designers priced way over our budget. As fate would have it I found a dressmaker, Rae from Ashley Sims, who happens to live behind my house. Rae patiently listened to my long list of requirements and created a dress fit for a princess. Layers of chantilly lace and tulle combined with a long train and a mantilla cathedral length veil made this my dream dress. It was perfect and my husband was speechless when he saw me walk down the aisle. I wrote a more detailed blog post here. One thing I will mention is that the dress was FAR too big for me. The dress fit perfectly when I received it but unfortunately I had gone through a very difficult few weeks prior to the wedding and lost a lot of weight. Thankfully I had a long veil to cover the back as the dress was a few inches too big.

I also recommend that you select a dress appropriate for the weather if you hold a destination wedding. Mine was a dream dress but it was far too heavy and hot in the late afternoon sun. Likewise, think of items that you will need in the heat – a lace parasol became very useful for our photos and I had a fan in my hand pretty much all afternoon.

For bridesmaid dresses I had paid to have them made, which turned out to be a disaster. Unfortunately the dressmaker made them at the last minute and while I know her sewing skills were excellent, my bridesmaid dresses had been rushed. I had a week before I left for France to find an alternative (with no budget left) and settled for bargain ASOS dresses. I wanted silver but the blush pink worked perfectly and despite moaning from some of the girls, they actually looked lovely.

Guest list: Planning an intimate ceremony in a different country meant that we could only invite 28 of our closest family and friends. Our guests would also be staying in the chateau with us for up to 5 days which meant it was particularly important for our guests to know each other. Ensure that you invite those who are happy to help out (important if it is a DIY wedding) and truly appreciate what you are offering them. I am not talking about monetary items like food and accommodation, although this is generous, but an invitation to share your special day with you. There are a few people I probably should have invited who turned out to be absolutely amazing helping me with other wedding tasks but I didn’t realise this when planning. On the other hand, a few of our guests really helped out to make our day special and for this we are forever grateful.

Holding an intimate destination wedding means you can’t invite everyone so be prepared for a few upset family and friends.

We also held a reception party back home the week after the wedding which was primarily at the wish of my partners family. It offers all those who didn’t attend the wedding ceremony a chance to celebrate with you. When sending out invitations for the reception at home, make them aware that the wedding ceremony is abroad with wording along the lines of: Following their wedding ceremony in [insert location] on [insert date], X and X wish to invite you to a celebratory reception on [insert date]. Followed by further details. We held this in a marquee and offered traditional Caribbean food with a crepe van (unlimited crepes went down well), a bouncy castle for the kids and dancing. If you do hold a reception back home, this is essentially a second wedding and will take a lot of hard work. Not to mention budget. Ours was again a DIY affair – exhausting but completely worth while.

Writing your guest list can be incredibly complicated and driven by the opinions of others. My advice is to stand your ground, this is your wedding. We had a lot of people who I didn’t know at our reception and admittedly, it wasn’t my choice. Weddings are expensive and the last thing you want is to be paying ridiculous amounts of money for people you have never met and will never see again. Especially when it is at the expense of inviting others.

Working in events I knew how to plan the logistics of the wedding seamlessly but it was managing the expectations of others that I found difficult. It was a learning process and looking back, I wish I had said No to the wishes of others more. Always listen to your own instinct and follow your heart as a wedding is essentially about two people only; you and your partner. People will most definitely make comments about the bridesmaid dresses, the food, the venue and everything in-between. And that is ok. Accept all criticism without judgement. Weddings are intense, emotional and can be very stressful.

DIY: Our wedding was also very much centred on a DIY approach, from decor to flowers. I had pinned over 800 ideas to my secret wedding Pinterest board for inspiration but without the time to actually fulfil the majority of them, I had to be selective when deciding on the decor. I collected jars throughout the year and tied ribbon for candle holders and as part of the shabby chic theme, we decorated a garden altar with flowers for the ceremony. I found our favour boxes on eBay and these were an absolute bargain!

I had dreamt of peonies for my bridal bouquet but as they were not in season, I used silk peonies mixed with fresh gypsopilia and covered the stems in white lace and pearl pins. Buying flowers was quite a last minute task and unfortunately I couldn’t find what I envisaged for the bridesmaids – my husband had come back with hot pink roses instead of the pale pink I requested so we made do. Looking at the photos, I wish I took out the roses and just had gypsophila! Flowers are expensive but if they are important to you and you are holding a destination wedding, I recommend you order them through a local florist as if you don’t know the local area, you may struggle to find the flowers you want at the last minute. And flowers are generally last minute as you will be making them a day or two before the big day. I also had floral hair garlands for the bridesmaids which looked beautiful and rose petals for the flower girls.

I had planned on macaroons for the favours but again, with little time to find these we settled with an alternative.

Planning a destination wedding was easier than I expected and actually much more straightforward than planning the reception at home. If you can visit the venue beforehand, do it, do it, do it.

Theme: Set in a quintessentially French chateau, the theme was Rustic Romance with a few shabby chic elements. I wanted it to be elegant and romantic with simple but chic decor made up of flowers, candelabras, perfume bottle vases and lace. We combined hues of soft blush pink and grey with peonies, roses and gypsophila.

The Wedding Day: Our ceremony was scheduled for 3.30pm, therefore we had quite a few hours to prepare. I was exhausted but excited. In fact, so much so, that when I noticed quite a few things were not as I instructed or planned, I just didn’t care. I kind of took a laissez faire attitude that it was our wedding day and the little things that I would notice as wrong, others wouldn’t even be aware of. I tried to eat but only managed half of a croissant – the excitement was just too much!

Having my brothers, sister, mum and nan around me was so special. Take a few moments to remember why you are getting married and really to take it all in. The wedding day goes by so fast.

Preparing a ‘chateau guide’ was so important and I highly recommend you do something similar with a general outline of the day, timings etc. With this, I was still ready to walk down the aisle and waiting for my mother in law to get ready! Much to my husbands amusement now. And finally at 3.40pm my brother walked my to the top of the aisle. There were tears. A lot of tears.

In front of my our page boys held a ‘here comes your bride sign’ which is just adorable! Our religious ceremony was incredibly personal and emotional. Afterwards we took photos outside of the chateau, portraits and some fun shots.

We then ate in the stone brick reception hall, starting with a prayer and ending with the speeches. The best man speech was amazing and made us all laugh and cry! I didn’t have a Father of the Bride speech but the best man more than made up for this with an account of both myself and my husband, including funny anecdotes and happy wishes.

My little brother who sat next to me accidentally spilt his whole dessert plate (including chocolate and raspberry items) on my dress. Surprisingly, I didn’t care, it was actually quite hilarious and I suppose good luck.

My favourite part of the entire wedding was the first dance. I actually didn’t plan this and rather spontaneously we went to the courtyard to dance to Andrea Bocelli. I had no shoes on and no bra (it was too hot) which meant my feet were on stones and my dress was completely falling down. BUT, this was incredibly romantic and the most magical time of my life. We could not stop smiling and to this date I remember how I felt at that exact moment in time. That memory will last a lifetime.

We all then jumped in the pool to enjoy the late afternoon sunshine, adults and children. You definitely can’t do that in England! We had been blessed with a beautiful, warm day filled with plenty of love, laughter and tears of joy.

The following day we hosted a white pool party with wine, charcuterie, cheese, bread and a BBQ – the epitome of French outdoor dining.

My husband knew very little about our wedding beforehand and the whole day was very much a surprise. He still talks about our wedding day in amazement; it was truly magical, our Fairytale.

I hope if anyone stumbles across this blog post that it inspires you to hold a destination wedding.