Nicola and Joe were married at Mountain View Farm in Cape Town which is a five minute drive from where the bride’s parent’s live. The couple now live in Abu Dhabi but wanted to return to the bride’s home for their wedding.
“Our wedding was loving, full and chilled”, the bride explained. “We live in the UAE so this was a destination wedding for us, even though my family still lives in South Africa. Joe is from England and so we had a big crowd of our friends from the UK and Abu Dhabi too. As Joe is a firefighter we had to do some photos in the local fire station!”
The bride wanted something unusual and colourful for her dress, which she initially found quite tricky in the UAE. “There’s not many places that cater for western wedding dresses – Dubai, maybeeeee, but not in Abu Dhabi. I did some serious research and bought quite a few dresses but after one that was very poorly made, another that I ordered online and when it showed up it wasn’t remotely like the picture, I eventually found out about the only boutique in Abu Dhabi. It was really hidden, on the mezzanine floor of a small building near a pizza joint. The staff were great and very excited! I tried on about 15 dresses and took photos of every one on me, but I instantly fell in love with this one. However, it was all white and I wanted some colour so I went to a material shop and got the perfect turquoise lace. The boutique offered to add it for me. It wasn’t cheap in the end but it was perfect!”
“The best part of the wedding planning was all the online shopping!” she laughed, “and on the actual day my favourite moment was dancing with my dad. Joe said his highlight was seeing my walking down the aisle.”
“My advice to other couples would be to give yourselves lots of time. We had just over a year and that was perfect. Also plan your timeline of the day and make lots of lists!”
