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The Engagement Party

As with most couples our parents weren’t going to let this moment pass without a party and what a day we had. Friends, family, work colleagues (of both of us) were all in attendance for what (possibly inevitably) turned out to be an all day party. Fortunately the weather held for us (not guaranteed in the UK at the end of August) and we were able to use not only the house but overflowed into the garden until the early hours. Thankfully neither of us had to work on the Sunday as only a couple of hours sleep doesn’t do anyone any good on a “school night”!

The Wedding Planning

With the party out of the way it’s time to get organised… I don’t know if my fiancée is just ultra organised or if other people just make a huge ordeal out of this but this planning lark is easy!

Within 2 weeks of setting the wheels in motion, we had:

1. Confirmed the date
2. Booked the Church
3. Booked the venue
4. Booked the cars
5. Interviewed, assessed and dismissed several photographers (booked one too!)
6. Organised the DJ
7. Set up a meeting with the florist

We’d also been able to speak to friends who agreed to be Best Man and Bridesmaid (they also happen to be our best friends and coincidentally actually married to each other). Like I said… easy!!!

The Honeymoon Planning

And now for the bit that I’d been looking forward to… The Honeymoon. Now if ever there was a time that a travel agent would prove to be useful in organising a wedding now would be it! My remit:

1. “Get me somewhere nice”
2. “It has to be 5*”
3. “I don’t want any kids running around”

Well for me there was only ever going to be 1 choice. I’d been fortunate enough to have travelled to Mexico before and stayed at the fantastic Excellence Riviera Cancun and after taking Liz to its sister hotel 18 months ago it was time to share this one with her. With 440 luxurious Junior Suites this 5* Spa Resort is not too big but still manages to provide a great selection of food and drink options (and with 8 A La Carte restaurants this is going to ensure the perfect finale to our honeymoon)! Each time I’ve visited the hotel the staff have been phenomenal and the service incredible so I’m really intrigued to see how they’re going to top this for us “Honeymooners”. Despite having been out to Mexico before we’ve never done much of the “tourist stuff” so this time it was important to get a location that would give us access to all of the sights.

The Excellence Riviera Cancun is in a perfect location about 25 minutes south of the airport and near to all the major day-tours like Xcaret, Xplor and Xel-Ha Eco-Theme Parks and also the ruins at Akumal, Coba, Tulum and Chichen Itza (that we will make it to this time). It’s fair to say that after I told Liz where I’d managed to book that she was a little excited (huge understatement on my part that) about the trip and the 10 days we’re going to have there is going to be the perfect finale to all the hard work leading up to “The Wedding”.

Stay tuned for part three, coming soon…

The Proposal

OK, so let me set the picture for you…

It’s a beautiful warm summer’s day in rural Staffordshire, Liz and I are on our first weekend off together for 6 weeks and we’re sat in the garden of a spa retreat with a couple of ice cold beers waiting for lunch to arrive, and then it happened, 2 simple sentences that would ensure that the next 12 months were going to be some of the most complicated of my life…

After over 14 years together I never thought I’d hear the words “I can see us having our Wedding Reception here” coming from Liz’s lips, especially out of the blue like this, but there they were all the same. I admit that it took a few seconds for me to register what she’d just said and the romantic “eh?” I replied with may not have been the response she’d expected. “I can see us having our Wedding Reception here” she repeated (probably looking for a bit more from me by way of a response this time) “shall we go and have a look around the venue?” was as much as I could muster, so after lunch off we went to have a look at the separate venue. I admit it was absolutely stunning and everything we were both looking for, so after a brief enquiry about the dates that were available the following year we pencilled in a date with the Wedding Coordinator and went shopping to look for an engagement ring.

So that was it, done, no huge romantic gestures, no white doves, no ring on the top of the Empire State Building (that in hindsight may have been an option since we were there in January 2011)… we were engaged to be married, and just 2 questions remained:

1. How do we tell Liz’s parents?
2. How do we tell my parents?

The Ring

I cannot be the first fella to be confused by the amount of jewellery that is out there that looks the same but is very different in costs! Over the following weekend I learnt words that I never imagined that I’d need relating to precious stones and metals, and in true style the ring Liz picked out was one we saw in the 2^nd shop we visited that Saturday! So there it was, the date had been set, the venue agreed on and the ring had been bought, we just had to wait for a week until Liz’s parents were back from their holidays before we could tell anyone…

The Reactions

It had been a week since Liz and I had “officially” got engaged and the only other person that knew was Ruby (our dog)! So here we were in our dining room on a Saturday evening, we’d invited Liz’s parents and brother round for dinner with an ulterior motive… The reaction from both sets of parents was great, after us being together for so long it was pretty clear that nobody was expecting us to get round to actually getting married and certainly not getting engaged on a random Saturday afternoon just because it was a good time to do it.

Click here to read Part 2: The Aftermath

St James’s Club

Marie & Steph

After a scrumptious breakfast in the Virgin lounge and a few glasses of bubbly we set on our way to board our Virgin flight to Antigua which was very comfortable and gave us all a chance to get to know each other. We landed in Antigua and had a short journey to the St James’s Club where we were greeted by Prince, the Guest Service manager, who was very pleasant and offered us rum punch which was very strong and went down well. We were taken to our rooms in a golf buggy which was a new thing to me and gave us a few laughs.

I was very impressed with the Beachfront room which had direct access to the beach from the patio area which; it was lovely hearing the ocean from the room. The rooms themselves were lovely and spacious and decorated very nicely; they also had a lovely big bathroom. After a quick shower and change we all meet at Piccolo Monodo restaurant which had a very romantic and beautiful ambience and had a very varied menu, including Italian dishes and Caribbean dishes. We were joined by Prince the Guest Service Manager, who hosted our dinner and gave us a feel for the hotel and Antigua. After dinner we retired to the docksider bar for a few drinks and dance, we then head off to bed after an exhausting day. continue reading…

Click here to book Buccament Bay from only £1479pp

Club World Flight

Barbados from the Air (South coast)

Well how excited was I (more than a child waiting for Santa I think!). Myself and Jaclyn were travelling out to St Vincent with the SVG Tourist Board, Harlequin Hotels & Resorts and British Airways. We arrived at Gatwick and stayed overnight in the Sofitel which meant that as we were on terminal we could have a little bit of a lie in (it’s possible to walk into the north terminal without having to go outside, so we were at the check in desk 10 minutes after leaving our room). We got up around 7.30 and met with the group and checked in. We were lucky enough to be travelling British Airways in Club World to Barbados.

Neither I nor Jaclyn had flown Club World before, although both of us have walked past these seats often enough on our way to economy! We were able to use the Clubworld lounge where we rubbed shoulders with Nigel Mansell. Upon boarding, our flat bed seats were just amazing and we couldn’t stop laughing at each other whilst choosing our meal from an extensive menu and of course our Kir Royale champagne cocktails! A few cocktails and a nice meal later it was time to settle down and watch a film or two. To be honest, for once, the flight was over too soon.

At Barbados we passed the time at the bar before the 25 minute flight to St. Vincent. Buccament Bay was around half an hour by road and we were greeted by the management team and a cool drink. continue reading…

Dreams Riviera Cancun

5th – 7th September

Steph at Dreams Riviera Cancun

After a long but pleasant flight with Thomas Cook we arrived at Cancun airport at 2pm, we were greeted by Jumbo Tours and were taken to our first resort, Dreams Riviera Cancun. Upon arrival our luggage was taken care of and we went to the reception area to check in. The reception was breathtaking and we were amazed at the outlook all the way down to the sea.

We were directed to our room, which had a very authentic & stylish feel with an inside Jacuzzi and a balcony with an amazing view of the garden and sea.

Once at the room we rested for an hour then decided to have a walk around the hotel. We had a look around the pool and ended up on the beach; everywhere was immaculately clean, the white sand beach and the turquoise blue sea were beautiful. When the sun had gone down we retired to our room to shower and dress to dine out.

continue reading…