A Sunny Destination Wedding in Spain

Names: Amelia & Mark Tinsley

Length of engagement: 18 months

Wedding Date: 30th May 2018

Wedding location: Cabo Roig – Spain

Photographer: Paco & Aga

We met… at college during in our final year. I had been in love with Mark from the moment I saw him which was long before we got together. Mark finally got plucked up the courage to talk to me on a night out, we have been together ever since.

Our proposal… was on a beach in Turkey. We aren’t the sought of people that like too much attention so it was very low key. Mark asked me to close my eyes & put the box in my hand. My first words were ‘Are you sure?!’. We had been together for 9 years so it was about time. I remember it was about a 15minute walk from our hotel room to the beach, & he proposed just as we got there, after about 5 mins, I asked if we would couple go back to the room so I could ring my mum.

Our wedding theme/colours… Mixture of golds, white, blush pink were our colours. We are less is more people, well Amelia is & we wanted muted colours which make an impact when altogether but aren’t too in your face. We had rose gold sequin table clothes on both the Donut & entry table. We had a mix of gold’s throughout the venue from candle holders to photo frames. We tied in the blush pink in the flowers & table favours, whenever we ever saw anything that matched our colour palette we bought it. Amelia was very specific with the sweet table, the sweets had to be pink or white, & they look perfect on top of the table cloth. There was no real theme to the wedding. We just went with what we liked.

Things we DIY’d/made ourselves… we made a lot of things ourselves. we are lucky to have a lot of creative friends & family who helped us with a lot of things. Amelia’s Step Dad made a doughnut wall, which we had pinned on pin interest from the moment we got engaged. Amelia’s Auntie owns a personalising business & they created signs, menus, order of service & table plans, they all had the same theme & colours.

My dress… The first dress I chose was pink. It had lots of detail & sparkle. Looking back at the photos of myself it wasn’t me at all. I ended up with a simple, strapless ball gown from Essence of Australia. To match the simple dress I had simple diamond necklace & my best friend had bought be single studded Ted Baker earrings. My shoes were by Carvella & I got them on sale for from £130 to £32, 12 months before the wedding.
Mark was completely surprised to see my dress, he thought I would be wearing a mermaid style with lots of lace & bling. From the time I chose the dress to the wedding I unintentionally dropped a dress size, so I only had my last fitting a day before I flew to Spain. Luckily it was a perfect fit & I couldn’t have pictured myself in anything else.

My hair and makeup… I don’t wear a lot of make up on a daily basis & I’m a big fan of less is more. This is something I didn’t want to change on my wedding day, I’m lucky that my Auntie is a professional makeup artist who understands my love of natural make up. We went with Bare Minerals base & used By Terry Shadow for my eyes. I only chose how I wanted my hair a few days before the wedding, it was between half up, or all down. When I had my hair trial we tried an ‘Up Do’ & I fell in love with it. I had 4 pink roses along the top of the bun.

His suit… It took many months to find the perfect suit, either they weren’t the right colour or they didn’t fit right. In the end Mark chose a Navy Tux with a blush pink tie.

What our bridal party wore… As we only had 25 guests, Mark’s 2 best men wore the same colour or everyone would have been dressed the same. The Maid of Honour & Chief Bridesmaid wore rose gold Sequin dresses by Essence of Australia in different styles. 2 bridesmaids wore blush pink dresses from ASOS, all 4 dresses looked gorgeous together.

Our ceremony… We knew we wanted something personal & centred around our families. We asked Amelia’s Uncle to conduct the ceremony & we couldn’t have chosen a better person for the job. We wrote our own vows & Josh conducted a hand fasting ceremony with both our family crest’s embroidered on the cloth. The hand fasting represented 2 people becoming 1 & also 2 families becoming 1. We didn’t want anything too long as it was a hot day, so 30 mins was the perfect time. Mark’s mum wrote a poem for us both which was incredibly funny & Amelia sister sang ‘Song Bird’. The song Amelia walked down the aisle to was ‘I get to love you’ by Ruelle, & we walked back up the aisle to ‘This will be’ by Natalie Cole.

We chose our photographer because… We wanted a photographer who saw the small moments in the day & captured the memories you didn’t know you had missed. Paco & Aga were the perfect couple to take our photos, from the moment we saw their work we knew they needed to be our photographers. On the day it was like they were part of the family, the photos are better than we thought they would be.

We chose our wedding coordinator because… Being in England & getting married in Spain we knew we couldn’t be as hands on as we would have liked. We had been to a few different venues that had wedding planners, but they weren’t very flexible & couldn’t see our vision. When we met Louise she made sure that everything would be perfect & reassured us that anything we wanted, could be possible. We were in constant contact for 18months making sure every single detail was arranged, & on the day we didn’t have to worry about a thing. Louise was the perfect choice, we couldn’t have done it without her.

We chose our venue because… Before we even got engaged we knew we wanted to have a small wedding & it must have a sea view. We knew we wanted to have a destination wedding & when Amelia’s parents moved to Spain, it was the perfect place. The perfect wedding venue was not so easy to find, we looked for a good couple of months before we found the ‘One’. When we arrived at Restaurante Cabo Roig it had the most stunning sea views, we knew this would be our venue before we had even looked inside. We chose not to have a wedding cake, instead we opted for a Donut Wall will simple sugar donuts, these were everyone’s pudding.

Our menu… As our wedding was in Spain we wanted Tapas for a starter, we had Chorizo in Honey, Traditional Salads, Ham & Cheese. We had these in the middle of each table so everyone could help themselves. For main we opted for Steak, as we know both families love this.

Our honeymoon… Amelia is a Travel Agent, you would have thought it would be easy to find a honeymoon destination. We knew we wanted to have a solid week of chill time after a busy few weeks in Spain, as it was early June the weather would be best in Europe. We finally picked the Adult Only Sentido Ixian All Suites with an upgrade to a private pool, it was incredible. We had the most amazing week just the 2 of us & got to catch up on some much needed sleep.

My favourite part of the wedding day… Amelia’s favourite part of the wedding day was just after the first dance when ‘Can’t stop the feeling’ by Justin Timberlake (Our 5 year old Nieces favourite song) started and everyone was on the dance floor having the time of their lives. Mark’s Favourite part was just after the ceremony when everyone got to enjoy the sunshine & celebrate. It had been raining in the morning & we weren’t sure if we were going to have the sunshine wedding we had been dreaming of.

My piece of advice for other couples… Trust your gut & always go with what you want, not what everyone is telling you to do. We had lots of options on our day & we only went with what matters to us, in the end everything was exactly how we had wanted.