A Winter Beach Wedding in Marbella

Spain, in particular Marbella, is a wonderful blend of cultures from all over the world that have chosen to settle in this very Cosmopolitan part of Europe.

Our bride and groom here were no exception, Marina and Juan both speak completely fluent English, probably better than me, completely fluent Spanish and yet Marina is Russian and Juan is Argentinian (OK they speak Spanish but I was impressed with Marina!)

Marina and Juan met whilst working in Madrid, and contacted us to help them organise the final details for their dream wedding here in Marbella.

They had already booked most of the details, the venue, the entertainment, photography, etc and just wanted flowers, decorations, a cake and a minister.

I have to admit that I was flat out when Marina first contacted me working 24/7 as we do here in the wedding season. Marina almost threw the towel in with me :) but I managed to win her back, thank goodness as the light at the end of the tunnel was emerging, and we finished off the details for the wedding, created the bridal flowers and some fabulous groups of large candles dotted around the beach bar to set off a beautiful evening. Carla organised the spanish speaking minister and a fabulous dulce de leche wedding cake.

How beautiful it was, how lucky were we all with the weather, it was a perfect November Mediterranean evening and the wedding ceremony was set on the beach at Poco Loco as the sun set, it was stunning and a beautiful ceremony conducted by our new charming spanish speaking minister. The winter sunsets here in Marbella are stunning and this was no exception. The temperature this day was 24 degrees. It is a lottery though as today it has chucked it down for over 17 hours and now we have clear skies :)

Marina and Juan having tied the knot officially in Gibraltar the day before the blessing on the beach, had the most romantic setting and ceremony under a fabulous sunset. Fairy lights and candles then twinkled as the ceremony finished and a fabulous party and dancing was had by all. We recently blogged our wonderful testimonial from Marina and Juan

http://theweddingdecorator.blogspot.com/2010/11/lovely-testimonial-received-this.html

Thank you Marina for bearing with me! Watch this space as Marina might be joining us as our Russian wedding coordinator, we hope so and 2011 is looking very exciting, it is lovely to meet brides who then become good friends!

Having received the photos this weekend I am was rather alarmed at the empty dress hanging up after the ceremony! But I have since heard it was the day before!! This could be a step up from our trash the dress wedding!

Images courtesy of Mar at Las Madrinas

Stylish Wedding Websites from Jo Jo

We love Wedding Jo Jo, you have to check out this site to see their gorgeous wedding websites and even more exciting is that they all include a blog :)! 

Being an avid fan of blogging, I think keeping a diary of events leading up to your wedding day is a fabulous idea, as well of course updating all your guests without having to contact them all individually. 

Wish lists, sharing photos, travel and hotel suggestions and guestbooks are all included on Jo Jo's websites as well as the blog :)  Perfect especially for couples planning to marry abroad to keep all their guests up to date with the latest news.

Jo Jo have a free site called the Taster, which is brilliant, however if you wish to upgrade to the full slice it is only $14.99 a month, which is about 11 euros.

You must check out their site it is so easy to use.

Wedding Jo Jo has offered a really great deal for our Reviva readers, simply enter the code elizabeth and your first month is free.  Hurry though this offer does not last forever.

I love this as my little daughter's name is Elizabeth :)!

Click here to find out more

Lilacs and Sage Green Wedding at Hacienda San Jose

As we draw to the end of our fabulous year, I have the pleasure of sharing one of our favourite weddings here in October with so many delightful details and the A team rolled into one day!

How lucky we were with the weather it was one of Spain's gloriously sunny autumn days with the temperature still in the 20's and a cloudless sky.   Alma and John had put a lot of thought into their wedding and have children so this played an integral role in how the wedding was going to be designed and decorated and to include the family.

A beautiful ceremony was conducted  by Andrew Hunter incorporating the sand ceremony for the whole family and we also provided some silver arras coins, a spanish tradition, symbolising sharing wealth.

We will create a post about sand ceremonies and different ideas shortly to give our readers more information on how these can be incorporated into your day.

The delightful voices of Tres Divos serendaded the guests during the ceremony and cocktail as Alma and John stood under a decorated arch shaded with our Bali Umbrellas, I so love these, they do look fabulous in photos.

Alma had chosen a relaxed style for her wedding decor, using sage greens and lilacs.  Alma and her daughter's bouquets were created with ivory roses with a touch of delicate foliage in sage with a hint of purple.  We dressed the tables with our floaty pale green and white covers and the chairs with our olive sashes.  The table centrepieces were delightful white shabby chic buckets, tied with lilac grosgrain ribbons and filled with a beautiful combination of sage and lilac flowers, sadly we do not seem to have photos of these but we also created some vintage style silver glassware simply filled with sage and purple hydrangea heads which were used to decorate the cocktail area and the sweetheart table.

A clever idea Alma had was to use their surname as the table seating plan, so each initial was a table, from this we created ribbons with the initial at the top and the guests names attached to the ribbon, these were hung in the cocktail area.  We used silver frames to place the table initial in.

As this was a family orientated day, we had a childrens area with the bouncy castle and decorated the children's table with lots of colourful chair sashes, balloons and of course party bags and goodies to keep them amused!  The food and catering was provided by the fabulous Fiestasol with Heather overseeing the wedding day.

There is a lovely bar and chill out area at this venue, with so many props already to hand, we found some terracotta jugs, filled these with local flowers from the garden and my girls set up a really cute display on the bar with blue glassware they found, I love this detail and it was completely random!

As the sunset came the venue looked stunning, the gardens were lit with our lanterns and candles and a romantic serene setting enveloped the evening's festivities.

I don't like being photographed but I am caught in action here!  Perhaps I should start a spot the me competition!!

Our thanks to Jeremy and Jenni from Jeremy Standley for sharing these beautiful photos with us.