The Wedding
Part Brit, part Spaniard Juan Manuel met Reyes 10 years ago and have spontaneously decided to marry in January 2018. Within five months, they had done what most couples take a year or more to do – they had made their vows and tied the knot. Their Spanish wedding planner, tells us how they did it…
The Lowdown
Where: El Cortijo El Gallinero, Madrid
Theme: Turquoise and Gold
Photographer: El Primer Plano Fotografía
Wedding Planner: Carolina Cazorla Gavin of Vámonos de Bodorrio
Wedding Designer: Patricia Artieda of Dream Adapt
Part Brit, part Spaniard Juan Manuel (JM) met Reyes (R) 10 years ago and have spontaneously decided to marry in January 2018. Within five months, they had done what most couples take a year or more to do – they had made their vows and tied the knot. Their wedding planner, Carolina Cazorla Gavin of Vámonos de Bodorrio, tells us how they did it…
“JM is a typical English gentleman; R is like a walking party! When they told me they wanted to marry in five months, we rolled up our sleeves and set to work. Initially, all they knew was that they wanted their wedding favours to be ‘Sal de Ibiza’, a salt collected exclusively in the Natural Reserve of the Parc Natural de Ses Salines d'Eivissa, which is considered a delicacy of the region, but also served to remind them of where the country in which they met."
“The packaging was so beautiful, we ended up focusing the styling around the gold and turquoise of this little bottle of precious salt."
The next step was organising an Ibizan wedding in Madrid, with the nearest beach is 360km away.
“JM and R had booked a venue in haste because they were worried about timescales, but the place they booked - the Cortijo El Gallinero, in Collado Villalba, North West of Madrid was beautiful. It was originally owned by the Marquis of Pelayo and is surrounded by beautiful gardens, mountains, centuries-old oaks. My job was to to Ibiza it, and incorporate the little surprises JM and R had secretly planned for each other. It was a lot of fun!
“We decorated the ceremony space with white Balinese parasols, turquoise ribbons, golden lanterns, daisies and placed a 10-metre-long bamboo aisle right in the centre. The forecast wasn’t great, but in the end we only had a few drops of rain.
"In Spain there is a saying "Novia mojada, novia afortunada" that translated and applied to this happy couple would be "Wet groom, lucky groom", so a few drops were welcome!
On R’s wishlist was to buy their initials carved in one piece of wood, and standing at 1.5m tall.
“It’s quite common to hire this kind of thing, but not to buy them. R wanted them so they could use them again for parties in their garden at home. It was quite hard to track some down, and I ended up going to Caldas de Reis in Galicia to order them!"
“The wedding day went fantastically well. It was an amazing party with surprises, a performer and even a flashmob. It’s a day JM and R and their guests will always remember.”
