My Wedding – Part one

18 Aug My Wedding – Part one

PERSONAL POST ALERT – As I said when I started this blog, I would talk about things that I’ve experienced both professionally and personally. Some of you may know that my long-term partner, Danielle, and I have been planning our wedding for about 18 months and so at the end of last month (July 2015) we went away to Spain with friends and family to get married in the sunshine!

Much of my family have roots in Gibraltar and I’ve always seen it as a bit of a home away from home, so it was a no-brainer to settle in that area. We did all the legal stuff in Gibraltar as it is governed by UK law and then drove up the coast in a van we hired from Agguire in La Linea to a place called Cala de Mijas.

For our wedding celebration, we rented a ten bedroom villa in the mountains called Hacienda San Jose. We found it online and met with the wedding planner responsible, Scott Gibbons of Sunshine Weddings Spain, booked a viewing and signed there and then! What a venue!

Scott and his team put us in touch with everyone we needed: florists, cake maker, photographer, videographer, caterers, drinks suppliers; the lot. It really took the pressure off – I should mention that Danielle did everything, my job was simply to say yes to things I liked, no to things I didn’t and on the day, turn up (which I nailed!).

So, 20 of us arrived at the Hacienda and I was immediately tasked with doing a food shop for things that wouldn’t be catered. The Hacienda is a self-catering venue, which suited us perfectly!

Now, the food shop may have been the most difficult thing I had to do during this whole wedding planning period. Those who know me, will know that I’m not particularly domesticated. Left to my own devices, I’d live on takeaways and instant noodles. I took with me in the van: the list (drawn up by my mum and Danielle), my best men Alex and James (my brother) and my dad – all of whom are equally inept at such tasks. The line between success and disaster has never been so closely walked.

Alex Fielding – making friends wherever he goes.

A few hours later we returned, €500 lighter and somewhat hotter (averaged 45deg everyday), but we had achieved our goal. Apart from tea, we forgot tea.

That evening we had arranged a beach party for all of our guests to meet up and get to know each other. Our hope was that, come the next day and the real party began, there’d be no strangers. The venue was La Familia Beach Club in Cala de Mijas and was perfect for what we needed. It was close to El Oceano Beach Hotel, where most of our guests were staying, this meant that it was really well attended and we ended up staying until closing time!

That night when we all returned to the Hacienda, my new brother in-law, best men and I decided to go and relax by the pool for a few late drinks and a cigar. We spent the night reminiscing about films, music and reciting scenes from Bottom. It got to around 2am and Alex took a long draw on his cigar, exhaled, looked at the cigar with a puzzled expression and said to us “errrr… guys… is anyone else seeing this?”. For a long second we all looked at each other, thinking that perhaps Alex was having an episode until, out of the corner of my eye (and in the direction in which Alex had been staring) I saw a white figure moving at speed across the garden. By the time I had turned to see what it was, it was sat next to Alex.

We spent the rest of the evening playing with the dog and finishing up our beers before finally turning in at 3am in preparation for the big day.

To be continued.