Yesterday I blogged all about the planning. Today I’m going to share our big day!
We’d booked our wedding for 4pm, so we had the whole day to relax before hand. We had breakfast as usual, then chilled out on the beach. We decided to have lunch at about 1pm, and then go and get ready. I’d been extremely relaxed and calm through the whole run up, but by lunchtime I was starting to feel a little weird! Not having doubts or anything like that. I think the enormity of the situation had just hit me.
We were offered separate rooms to get ready, but we decided we’d prefer to be together. We could see the preparations happening from our window; palm fronds being laid down for an aisle, a white covered table at the waters edge with beautiful flowers. We had a couple of drinks, and laughed and smiled a lot and then hubby-to-be disappeared downstairs while I added the finishing touches and put my dress on. My planned hairstyle didn’t work out because of the heat so I had a bit of a panicky wobble, but just improvised and actually it worked out all the better for it – much more laid back.
Then the wedding co-ordinator came to collect me, and brought me my bouquet which I was wowed by (I hadn’t seen it up until that point, apart from in photos). It was a stunning mix of lillies and birds of paradise flowers. It was truly amazing.
Our main wedding flowers were orange and white gerbera daisies with gypsophilia.
From there, it all went by in a whirl. We’d agreed that I would walk down the “aisle” and meet husband at the end, but when he saw me he forgot our plans and walked up to meet me! And we kissed and held hands and literally ran down the aisle; the photographer had to tell us to slow down so he could get some shots!
As it was just the two of us the hotel had said they could provide witnesses, but we’d made friends with one of the barmen (Kevin, very Mauritian name, ha!) so we requested him and he was allowed some time off from his bar shift. They stood to the side while the official ran through our vows. The sea was blue and the sand was white and there was a very slight breeze and it was one of the most perfect experiences of my life – in truth made all the better by it being just the two of us. It was so intimate and special, and all about us.
Then we sat, and drank cocktails, and had wedding cake…
…and literally just mooned at each other (not the bottom flashing type, the in love type) for a while, and then the photographer took us to lots of different places for pretty shots (getting in and out of a hammock was fun – NOT!) and people clapped and smiled and wished us well and it was just AMAZING!
And then we went back to our room, as husband and wife, and there was chilled champagne.
And we sat on the balcony and mooned some more (still no bottoms!) and we phoned home to share our joy and I managed to rack up a £200 mobile phone bill (oops, that was nice to get home to) and it was all quite overwhelming and lovely. I have a great picture of the husband looking out over the balcony and it looks like he’s thinking “oh crap, now I can’t escape”, or wondering if he’s strong enough to swim out to sea to get away from me.
In the evening we’d arranged to have dinner on the beach, just the two of us. The table was set with wedding flowers and we were waited on at our table with wine and food.
It gets dark at around 7pm in Mauritius so we couldn’t see anything apart from each other, and the sound of the sea lapping at the shore was idyllic.
Ah, writing this has brought back so many fantastic memories! I want to do it all again!
