Mike and Markus wanted an easy-going wedding. To them, that meant shunning a lot of tradition and having only friends there, no relatives at all. They chose Chelsea as their location as Markus’ parents got married there and because it’s one of the favourite neighbourhoods in London.
“It sounds like a cliché, but honestly I would say that all the people that came together on our day made our wedding what it was, “Mike explained. “Many of our guests had never met each other before or even spoke the same language (since they came from many different countries just to be with us). There was only 40 guests but 14 different languages all together and they all came from eight different countries! As we are an international couple, I would say that our wedding was an urban modern multicultural event and a reflection of the current society that we live in.”
They spent £8000 on their day and avoiding many of the usual trappings of a traditional wedding kept the costs down. “Three of our lovelies friends, Elysee, Alex and Debbie, took charge of the flowers and centrepieces”, he said. “They got the flowers the night before and on the morning we all had breakfast together at Blake’s Hotel where we were staying. After breakfast they went to the venue to arrange all the flowers for us. They did an amazing job. We also took advantage of the summer sales and got really good suits for great prices. I love both our suits because they reflected our individuality but at the same time complemented each other very well.”
They found finding a venues the hardest (and most expensive!) part of planning the wedding but in the end they were really happy with their choices of Chelsea Old Town Hall for the ceremony and Beaufort House for the reception. “Besides of course the main act of our ceremony, for the both of us the best moment was when we came out of the town hall and saw all our friends standing right there, then loud bangs of confetti canons all over us. Seeing their faces, huge smiles and also pedestrians and people on the buses stopping and taking our pictures. It was just brilliant. There was soooo much confetti everywhere. The faces of pure happiness will stay with me forever.”
“Our advice to others is to just enjoy every moment. Get a wedding planner or a good friend who perhaps have better knowledge of venues and things like that. It helped us a lot having someone guiding us in every step. It is OK to delegate to your partner. Even if you think that they wouldn’t do it as good as you (that was me LOL!) Get a good photographer and have a meeting with them in advance. It really put you at ease and will guarantee amazing memories forever. Finally ENJOY, because after all that will be YOUR day. Everybody else will be fine and they will have fun if you relax and have fun too.”
