Diary Of Real Bride

The side to planning a wedding the pretty Pinterest boards don’t tell you about …

Many expat brides reading the real bride diary entry below will relate to today’s topic. I know I do. After choosing to marry in Dubai, I had to come to terms with the fact that many of our family and friends abroad wouldn’t be able to attend.

Deciding whether to have your wedding here in the UAE, back home or in another location altogether can be a difficult choice, and more often than not, someone close to you won’t be able to make the journey. Here, our gorgeous real bride B brings us her latest wedding planning update … Over to you B!

It’s supposed to be the biggest day of your life. You’re committing to someone, agreeing to share your life with him, start a new family, and love him and cherish him until he’s old, wrinkly and snoring like a pneumatic drill. It’s a big deal.

Everyone asks you all the ‘pretty’ questions: What colour scheme will you have? How many bridesmaids? Will you make your own dress?’ These are easy to answer. The hardest question when you’re an expat couple is: Where will you have your wedding?

Thom and myself have lived in the Middle East for nearly seven years now. I spent three years in China before that, so it’s been almost a decade since we permanently lived in the UK. I hail from Lancashire. Thom is a Yorkshire man. We both love our hometowns, our friends and our families. But when it came to making a decision about where we would have our wedding, Dubai or the UK, it wasn’t an easy choice.

Above: Yorkshire VS Dubai

If we’d picked the UK, we would have hit logistical problems planning it. I have a 22 month old and run my own business; it’s a struggle to organise simple tasks such as food shopping at the best of times. So the prospect of doing everything over the phone or online did not fill me with excitement. On the other hand, a wedding in Dubai meant risking not having important people there.

A lot of soul searching followed, and in the end we made the decision based on what was best for us as a family. We chose Dubai.

We’ve built a life for ourselves here over the past three and a half years, and a lot of our family and friends haven’t been able to visit. This will probably be our only occasion when we can get everyone together and share our lives with them. 

Above: Photography by Maria Sundin

If I’m totally honest, I haven’t enjoyed the process up until now. We sent out the Save the Dates nervously. I’ve stressed over flight prices, hotel accommodation, friends and family not coming. And there was the inevitable disappointment when people replied saying they couldn’t attend. But we made a decision knowing this could happen, and we have to accept it and deal with it. A good friend said to me amid my anguish: “You, Thom and Ellis will be there, everyone else is a bonus.”

We are celebrating the family we have become and, by having our wedding in Dubai, we are staying true to that. I know the people who can come will be there, and the people who can’t have a very good reason – we’ll just miss them.

Above: RSVP print by Oh So Beautiful Paper

I think what’s important is including people as much as possible in the plans. I’ve set up Whatsapp groups as points of contacts with friends and, of course, with my bridesmaids. It’s a great way to keep everyone in the loop without having to sit down and write long emails when short of time. I want to involve people as much as possible so I’ll be starting to delegate wedding jobs – beware folks!

As I type this, I’ve received a couple of messages from loved ones back home saying they’ve booked their flights. So you see, I just need to have a little faith.

x B x

Don’t forget to log on next month to see B’s latest bridal diary post!