How I Found Planning A Destination Wedding!

Yay, I can finally officially announce that I’m now MARRIED!!!! Wow, it has been a super crazy year from changing the destination where we originally decided to get married, which was South Africa, to finding the perfect wedding venue in Greece and planning every single detail of what turned out to be our dream wedding and such a beautiful day overall.

If you haven’t read my Wedding Diaries blogs, make sure you do as you will find out how we found our venue, my wedding dress shopping experience and how Gareth and I initially got engaged. This blog just basically touches on how I found the overall experience over this past year and how it all came together in the end.

First of all, I need to say a huge thanks to my wedding planner Niki for really being there every single step of the way. She is so incredible and if you’re looking for a wedding planner in Crete, let me know and I will be more than happy to pass on her details to you if you’re thinking about planning a destination wedding. I was very skeptical when I first visited Crete as I wasn’t sure if the venue would be for us or what the island experience would be like. Honestly, when I first saw our venue I was blown away. I was super happy with the wedding planner, the managers of the venue, the island and most importantly the people. I have never come across such a friendly bunch of people and they literally can’t do enough for you.

When we returned to the UK, we got cracking with wedding planning and to be honest, it was quite a stress-free and chilled from the start. A lot of emails back and forth to Niki about what we wanted, our budget, hair and makeup artist etc. It was only in January this year that it all started to really sink in that we were getting married and we were desperate to receive all the RSVPs etc as soon as we could as the venue needed to know as soon as possible.

The last few weeks before heading out to Greece was the most stressful, anxious and nervous time of my life. I went to collect my wedding dress which Ava Rose packed away in a carry-on suitcase which my Sister kindly gifted to me for the trip. The reason I was a little worried was that everything was packed in tissue paper and you can’t triple check that everything was in there. I was told that I would have a dress bag which I assumed would be in the case but when I got to Greece and opened it up, it wasn’t there. Luckily my wedding planner, Niki, had one that she lent to me, but for the first day my beautiful dress had to stay packed away in the wardrobe so Gareth couldn’t see it. I was a little disappointed in the store, but I emailed them to make them aware of this and they apologized and are now sending a dress bag to my apartment – which is great but I really needed it a few weeks ago (for my wedding).

Wedding Advice

Choose a wedding planner that you get on with, understands your style and what you’re after for your big day.
Research makeup artists and hairdressers – I will do a separate post on this for you guys.
Triple check that your wedding store has packed all the essentials that you’ve agreed on and that you’ll need on the day.
Choose a hotel that feels like a home away from home.
Something which I wished that I should have done more, was to take my time and relax. Looking back, I don’t know how I could have done this, but I would recommend that you try and relax as much as you possibly can and enjoy every single second. It goes super fast and you don’t want to forget any details from your big day.

I know many of you are also very eager to see the wedding photos and as soon as I get them, trust me when I say that it will be wedding spam for days! We had an amazing photographer and videographer for the day and I am so excited to see the end result.

I hope you enjoyed this destination wedding blog post today as I will be blogging a lot more about the wedding, so I hope this is something you will be interested in over the coming months. If you have any questions about the wedding at all, then please feel free to message me and I will be more than happy to help.

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