Michelle and Thomas met when they were both working in South Korea. “I was supposed to go with a friend who pulled out two weeks before”, she explained. “I decided to go anyway and it was the best decision I’ve ever made! I had never been outside of North America and I was terrified! However, if my friend actually came I would have never met Thomas. He ended up taking her position and lived next door to me.”
“We didn’t have a set theme to follow for our wedding, but we wanted it to be elegant, romantic and fun”. she continued. “We also wanted to weave in personal touches that represented us and infuse some pops of colour since the manor house was very white. I included some paintings because we love art and we decided to give our guests bookmarks as a wedding gift since we both love to read. I chose to wear some statement jewellery and accessories, which I changed throughout the evening.”
“It was a bit challenging to plan a wedding from abroad since my husband and I had been living in Korea for the past few years. We had a bit of trouble figuring out where to have our wedding considering I am Canadian, he is British, and we met and lived in Asia. However, we decided we wanted our wedding to take place in England since we both loved the English countryside and old manor houses. I loved the idea of having our wedding there since I had grown up reading Jane Austen and Shakespeare. However, we did have a Chinese wedding reception when we returned to Canada afterwards for family and friends who couldn’t make it.”
“We had a lot of family and friends fly in from Australia, Canada, and the U.S. and drive in from other parts of England so it felt a lot like a destination wedding. It was also lovely to have my Chinese/Canadian family come together with Tom’s British family. The culture differences were pretty apparent and funny at times, but it was a wonderful mix of both worlds under one roof. We were very grateful to all of our friends and family who came for our wedding, especially those who flew in. We had all of our closest family and friends stay the night before at the manor house to get acquainted, which was the best pre-wedding night I could have hoped for. It was so lovely to finally get everyone together.”
On the day, the couple put on lots of activities to keep their guests entertained. “We had beautiful weather with a lot of different things going on”, Michelle said. “The indoor swimming pool was open for anyone who wanted a dip, there were games on the lawn, and a photo guestbook. In the evening we played with sparklers and had a disco. I couldn’t have imagined a better day.”
“Our favourite part of the wedding was after the ceremony when Thomas and I had some time with each other”, she concluded. “We took pictures in a meadow on the manor grounds. It was extremely beautiful. We just loved looking out on the grounds with all of our family and guests laughing and playing games on one side and being surrounded by the countryside on the other. It was the best day of our lives and we are so happy that we got to spend it with the most important people to us in such a beautiful setting.”
