A ‘Purple’ wedding with a dash of Scottish and Arabic Charm | Goldfish Photography
Written by on June 9, 2013.
Tagged under: Dubai Weddings, Goldfish Photography, Purple wedding, Real Wedding, Scottish Wedding, The Address Montgomerie
A ‘Purple’ wedding with a dash of Scottish & Arabic Charm
The lovely team over at Goldfish photography and video, sent us these heart-warming images from the downright adorable ‘purple’ inspired wedding of Dubai residents Suzanne (from London) and Stewart (from Scotland.) Suzanne has so many wise words of wisdom, that we are considering offering her a role as BCME agony aunt (we’re serious). Enjoy!
The proposal…
Our wedding journey began in a hot air balloon over the Masai Mara in Kenya. Our safari trip was already fast becoming one of the best holidays we had ever had, and the site of Stuart with a small black box certainly propelled it into the number one spot. I was, for once quite speechless and left him hanging for a few moments as I said I would think it over. It’s a good job I did say yes fairly quickly as there is nowhere to go in a balloon basket. The trip was finished off with a champagne breakfast on the savannah, complete with chefs making pancakes under the wary eye of some lions, thankfully not too close.
My dress came from the UK, not intentionally but my mum saw a dress in the local wedding shop and arranged for me to try it on when I was back visiting. It was a Stevie, Mon Cheri dress from the US and I loved the way it hung and the simplicity of the design. Having ordered a dress from the Internet for the legal ceremony the comparison of having a dress made to measure is night and day. Just make sure you have enough time as dresses normally have 6-9 months order time.
My bridesmaids were a standard size so I ordered these from Coast. My friend Lydia owns her own salon called Essa Beauty in JLT, she did all my make-up and hair and her team did a great job with the pre wedding pampering of facials, eyelashes and nails.
The venue and theme…
My husband is from Aberdeen and I am from London so wherever we decided meant some people would need to travel. As we met in Dubai when I was on holiday, and have lived here for 5 years, we decided our adopted home would be a good choice. We have a lot of close friends who are teachers in the UK, so were restricted to school holidays. We decided on April as Easter was early and the weather was likely to be good. We knew we would be organising the whole wedding, but were lucky as lots of friends were getting married around the same time so we could ask for advice and recommendations.
We wanted to incorporate our background with some Arabic touches, as many of our friends were coming to Dubai for the first time. We did this with small touches rather than an overall theme. The colours were chosen to match my husband’s kilt, we had a choice of black, purple or green, but I have always liked purple. In hindsight I am glad we did, as it stood out really well on the bridesmaids and in the photos.
In terms of the venue, we liked the Park Hyatt as it’s so tranquil there, but in the end the Montgomerie was the winner. We were sold on the exclusivity of the outdoor venue, they didn’t charge extra for a blessing as many venues did, and the wedding co-ordinators were very professional, so good in fact we did not need to employ any additional event planners. With the venue in place we moved on to the photographers and cake. We chose Goldfish as our photographers, they had worked at a number of events we had attended so we had met the team before and felt very relaxed with them. They offered a pre-wedding shoot as part of the package, which is a great idea, it means you get comfortable with the photographer and they get to find your best side!
To bring a bit of Scotland to the wedding we found Toffee Princess, Suzanne is from Scotland and makes Tablets, that’s sweet fudge to us non Scots – though my husband will probably shot me for describing it like that. Suzanne made one of the tablets with camel milk to add a little Arabian flavour. She individually gift wrapped each bag and delivered them all on the day. We also included Shisha in the evening for our guests.
The cake…
The cake came from Chocolat Chic which is a small French patisserie in the marina. We live in Dorrabay, where they are located so we knew how good their cakes tasted. We chose a two layer cake as we knew there would be a huge amount of food, we cut the cake before desert was served and included it on the desert selection.
The most enjoyable part of the planning process…
The was trials and trying all the food, drinks and tasting the cakes we found most enjoyable. I did also develop a bad habit of Ebay shopping and the arrival of parcels was the highlight of my day. EBay is great for the small touches and if you are visiting or have people visiting from a country where they deliver to, it very cost effective. Items such a love hearts, fans for the heat, place names, signs, confetti, can all be found in abundance on EBay.
The most testing part of the planning process…
Biggest challenges were getting the wedding dress back in one piece on an aircraft, this is a good reason to buy the dress in Dubai and finding the time to fit all the planning in while still trying to enjoy the great life we have here.
The day itself was amazing, we had 30 guests travel over from the UK and Switzerland, to join 40 from Dubai. Just walking down the aisle and seeing all your friends and family there for you is a fantastic feeling. We had taken all our guests with some friends from Dubai on a boat trip a few days before so everyone was chatting and the atmosphere was very friendly. The day went very smoothly and everything happened seamlessly. We dance the night away, and even had a guest appearance from Lionel Ritchie was staying at the Montgomerie..though he didn’t sing.
What are your top tips for our readers…
- For the build-up make sure you have hair and make-up trials, you want to look perfect, remember it’s likely to be warm so think about your hair, long hair can get hot when down.
- Share the tasks and make joint decisions, my husband was great at taking responsibility for booking some elements of the day. If some of your guests have not met before thing about getting them together a night or two before, it makes a better atmosphere when they know each other.
- A smaller number of wedding guests allows you to spend more time with everyone, you always hear people say the day goes so fast and you didn’t have a chance to speak to everyone, especially if guest are travelling from abroad.
- Have 2-3 days to yourself after the wedding, you will want to spend time with your friend and family but you will also need some time just to relax , recover and take it all in. If you don’t go away, check-in to a local hotel and pamper yourself
The brides little pink book (Wedding suppliers used)…
Venue: The Address Montgomerie // Photographer: Goldfish Photography & Video // Wedding Dress: Purchased in the UK // Bridesmaids Dresses: Coast // Florist: Bliss Flowers //Hair & Make Up: Essa Beauty in JLT // Wedding Cake: Chocolat Chic //Edible favors: The Toffee Princess
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