How it all started...
Warren & I got engaged in November 2014 after dating only about a year, so straight away we knew we would not be rushing into planning anything. Couple of months after our engagement we have decided on our date - 16th of June 2017 and in January 2016 I really started planning.
I started off slowly as every "perfect" wife to be I bought a Wedding Planner in one of those fancy covers, with spaces to fill out your details of every little thing. Safe to say it was the biggest waste of money! Whoever came up with this particular wedding planner is definitely not married! With social media developing on daily basis, nobody has the time to fill out countless details on pieces of paper and mostly irrelevant anyway! I'd rather put my money to a better use, e.g. buying cute decorations in Penneys :-)
Once we picked a date, we considered where to get married. We both knew straight away it will not be Ireland! I simply refused to get married in the rain and Warren never even considered getting married here anyway. Naturally next place we considered was Poland, my country. We would definitely save a ton of money with currency exchange etc. however with living here for the last 12 years I have more friends/family here and there's the language barrier in which case most of our guests would not understand the ceremony etc. and I would not be happy with that.
In the meantime, Warren's brother got engaged and himself and his fiancée decided on getting married in Spain. We decided to see how they get on with their wedding to see if getting married abroad would be something that would interest us, and it was! When you have a guaranteed weather everything seems to be more appealing. When we came back from the wedding, I bought tickets for the upcoming Wedding Journal Show in City West Hotel and that's how we met Patricia & Carin from Glamour Weddings in Algarve, Portugal.
We instantly clicked and 2 weeks later we were on our way to Portugal to view venues!
Patricia & Carin showed us 3 beautiful and unique venues. Our 1st choice fell through, however I am delighted it did, as in the end we picked a private restaurant on top of a cliff overlooking beautiful Praia Verde.
To date, we have secured our venue & church, photographer, Music for the Church as well as the DJ and recently I bought my wedding dress from smart brides in Portlaoise.
Ladies, it is never too early to start planning or booking your suppliers, as best suppliers often get booked out 18 months in advance!
I will be doing a detailed post when it comes to booking suppliers etc.
That's all for now.
Joanna xo xo