An affair to remember...

As a wedding planner with over two decades of experience with brides and grooms, I've come across some amazingly unforgettable and fabulous moments which have defined what a wedding is all about.   In short, commitment.  To each other, to your futures and to your close family and friends.  

There have been some weddings that I really hold dear to me through the years.  Laura and Simon who were one of my very first couples and who discovered they were expecting a baby on the day they were getting married!  Or the 82 year old grandmother who could not fly to Gibraltar due to ill health and who contacted me privately to organize an emotional surprise for the bride. She sent me a beautiful locket bearing her late husband's photo which was to be given to the bride so that she could carry it and would still be walking down the aisle with her dear grandfather.   The overwhelmed bride attached the locket to her shoe as she proudly walked down the aisle in the Alameda Gardens.  Not a dry eye in sight! 

Another wonderful couple is Paul and Dawn, who got married at the Open Air Theatre and have returned every year for the past 5 years to commemorate their anniversary.   They have stayed at the same hotel each year to relive their fairytale wedding.  Their words, not mine :)

Then there are those weddings that have stuck with me through the years but not for the right reasons!  For example, there was K and D's wedding where the groom paid for 50 of his closest family and friends to spend a fantastic week at the Rock Hotel in Gibraltar.  He paid attention to the smallest of details to ensure his guests were going to feel pampered and spoilt.  He arranged welcome and farewell dinners, a beach bbq, a pool party, not one, not two but three wedding cakes and he even asked me to go shopping to choose a wedding gift for his beautiful bride to be because, in his words, 'he's rubbish at that kind of thing'! 

After much deliberation, he settled on a silver Tiffany, personalized bracelet and a Louis Vuitton bag from the 2009 cruise collection. The latter gift inspired him to book his 17 night honeymoon aboard the QEII from Southampton to New York and he asked me to make all the arrangements for this huge surprise for his bride.   

Meticulous planning and almost £100,000 later, it was time for the actual wedding.  Unfortunately, the groom didn't quite make it to his own wedding as he had had too much fun the previous night and was nowhere to be found.  The bride was, naturally, distraught.  The registrar could not wait around any longer and had to leave at which time, a rather sheepish looking, dishevelled groom appeared wearing dark sunglasses.  So no marriage later, the rather sombre wedding party continued to the bar to commence the drinks reception....only an argument broke out between the bride's and groom's families and lets' just say that furniture was hurled out of a window facing the Mediterranean and bar stools were broken and used as weapons!  

There was a happy ending though.  The unmarried couple still sailed off on honeymoon on the QEII and got married by the Captain on board the boat!  K did get in touch upon his return to not only apologise to all the staff at the hotel but he also sent a whopping cheque to tip them or was that to make them forget it ever happened!  

Such are affairs to remember and whether they make you laugh or cry when you look back, one thing is for sure....the wedding album never lies!

Bride Gibraltar does not just do weddings.  We also arrange honeymoons whether it is in Gibraltar, neighbouring Spain or Morocco, Portugal and beyond, the Maldives or even the QEII....

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