Natalia&Urban, the birth of Bouquets Up

Well, this day had to come. Is curious how usually you always leave your personal projects as the last thing to do.

As I already explained on the blog, my wish to become a wedding planner was born on the time I had to organice my own wedding. It was more a need, due to the huge lack of options in Slovenia, although it is a country with some of the most beautiful and romantic landscapes that you will ever find.
There is a lot of things that right now I will probably do better or change, but when you are planning your own wedding there is always the problem that you are the bride, and the Big Day you won't be able to be there to set up everything. In my case I added two extra difficulties: one, the language barrier. On that time my slovene was not enough to make a conversation, and I had to leave in the hands of my husband to try to explain the lady that was in charge of the venue decoration my vision. Of course, she didn't understood it even when I gave everything made to her.
The second difficulty was that having so many people coming from abroad, I had the last week before the date completely booked. We organiced a small excursion with our guests through Slovenia so they would enjoy the country and at the same time meet. It was crazy for me and my husband but it was an amazing experience for our guests and we don't regret it at all!

The thing that I definetely regret is not paying a bit more to the photographers so they would cover the whole day. We had so many details prepared through the celebration and no good photos from them (or no photos at all). That is why now I always recommend to my clients or friends that they should not spare money on good photography!

The wedding invitation was a old page of a newspaper, "The Weddign Post". I designed it and wrote it in three different languages (slovene, english and spanish) as we had guests from the 3 different languages. There was interviews with the couple, information about the location, quiz, puzzles, horoscope... everything writen on a very funny way. The best were the costs. We printed everything in black and white and then aged the paper with coffee, so all of the invitations came under 30 Euros!

So, we got married at the end of may 2012. We had the luck of a bright sunny day in the middle of a rainy week, with a nice temperature of around 20º.
The slovene tradition (specially on the countryside) requires that the wedding day, the groom goes to pick the bride at her home, where all her relatives and friends are waiting to "test" if he is worth of her. This is called "Šranga". When Urban came to pick me, he had to cut wood, grind corn, collect money to pay me... It was really funny and it made everyone to start the day with a lot of laughs.

Of course, we are geek!!!

After the "show" ended and he earned the right to marry me, all of the guests went to the venue of the wedding (we rented a bus for them). They had some appetisers and drinks to welcome them. On that time, Urban and me went down to the city center to make some beautiful photos. This was my desire, as I love wedding photos in urban scapes and Maribor has such a beautiful old town... it was an obligation. Pity that we didn't had more time for it, we had so much fun! Some people can be surprised that we made the photo session before the ceremony. We had everything in the same location: civil and religious wedding and feast, so we thought it would be rude to leave the guests for two hours in the middle of the day. It was the right decision!

The wedding bouquet I made myself out of satin ribbons. It took me a looong time to do it (more than a month), specially because I never did anything like that before and I had to find my way. Around the bouquet I had the hankerchief of my greatgrandmother as the "something old" (and very special).

I didn't throw the bouquet at the end. It was too special for that. I gave it to my best friend, because I know no one will take care of it like she will. 

The boutonnieres I crafted with the help of my mother-in-law, out of feathers, ribbon and burlap strings, adding some pearls and details. 

The venue was a small island in a small lake. In the island there is just a fisher's club, with a restaurant where the feast took place. Both ceremonies were outside, so the whole island was ours just for that one day. 

I crossed the wooden bridge with the intro of "Nothing else matters" from Metallica, played on the guitar by some friend. What an entrance!

The wedding ring pillow was not a pillow at all. It was my first novel, Los hijos de Gea I, opened on a page where it was shown one of the illustrations that Urban made. It was working together on that illustrated edition when we spent the time together and we discovered each other, so it had to be there!

The cone rices we made ourselves out of the pages of a very old book. 

The priest had the nice detail of bringing a violinist with him that made the religious ceremony much more romantic (even more than standing over the water).

From here on, the photos aren't the best, but enough to show you a bit of the party. 

The feast was divided into 3 parts: lunch, barbecue dinner and midnight supper-cake (slovene tradition). 

When the guests came to their sit (seating plan was writen in a mirror), they found their names, with a quote chosen just for them and a different card from poker or the spanish  baraja. It was a great idea to "break the ice". The guests were so curious that everyone started commenting immediately the quotes or the card that they got, so there was not any tense moment to see how or who would start the conversation at the table. 

The menues were handwriten and framed so every table had one frame on the language that was spoken (we had guest from around 5 different countries). As part of the decoration, we set baskets with fresh strawberries. I love the idea of having something eadible as part of the decoration!

As a gift for our guests we gave a small bottle of sweet slovene wine with a custom made label. For the women, my mother and ant also prepared a small chest with candies and a lip balm vaseline from Perfumerias Gal (they have such awesome Art Noveu packaging). 

The food was traditional slovene and from the land. There was a lot of different meats, fishes and garnishes that were served in big plates so everyone could serve themselves, as we had some vegetarian and alergic guests. 

And now the "details". We organiced a contest, which was informed on the wedding invitation. We gave a price to the most original tie for the guys and the most original hand fun for the girls. The result was... awesome!

We also gave a par of boiled eggs to those men who are on a relation for a long time (some 10 years) and still haven't proposed yet. (In this two years two of them already used the eggs hehe)

The dinner was a barbecue served outside, so people could seat in the wooden picnic tables and enjoy the sunset, between dance and dance. 

At midnight a sour soup it was served (slovenes say that it helps the digestion), and right after, the Wedding cake. This was another surprise for our guests. We designed it ourselves, and the masters of Pohorska Kavarna made it exactly as it was on the drawing. I could complain about how it was presented but... it is my new challenge to improve the slovene taste about presentations hehe. 

The cake was made in the shape of three books (I am a writer, of course!). Every book represented one of our years together, and it had a different title that sums up the events of that year. "Destination, Nordeney" (the trip that changed everything for us), "Skype, Naty and me" (the year that we were appart), and "Home, sweet home" (the year that we lived together).

The dolls were hand made by my cousin with felt, and they really looked like us! =)

It was a great day. When ever in my life will I have all of my people from so many different places together? Never!

The best day ever! (The most intense was of course, the birth of Bran)