2021 wedding abroad

I'm getting married in Kos at the end of October. I am hoping it will go ahead as planned. I'm just keeping an eye on the news and crossing everything that all will be well by summer.

xx

I'm getting married in Santorini in July 2021, postponed from July 2020. We have already postponed once and I really don't want to be postponing again into 2022. We have booked our venue back in May 2019, so it's been a long wait! I'm 50/50 that our wedding will go ahead in July, therefore we will be preparing plan B. I was very optimistic at the beginning of this year with vaccinations being rolled out and the fact that our venue is large enough to accommodate for social distancing (if needed), with everything being outside (including dance floor and dinning area) and of course nearly guaranteed summer weather in July! But on the other hand I'm worried that travel restrictions will be in place well into 2022. With this being destination wedding we have guests arriving from the UK, US, Spain and Poland. Now I'm worried that different countries will be faced with different restrictions or even refused entry. As not everyone will get access to the vaccine by then, some guests may not be keen on travelling or attending events etc.
I was super excited to plan our wedding back in 2019 and by February 2020 most of planning was sorted, including my dress, wedding rings, even shoes! I never expected that pandemic will be something to worry about! If I'm honest now I just want the wedding to be done and dusted as I feel all the joy is now replaced with worries and stress of not knowing what will happen next. I decided not to re-book my hen and just see what happens closer to the date, we may end up doing something random with just very few of my friends.
Not sure if anyone is feeling the same? How are you coping with this situation?

View quoted message I am so sorry that you have already postponed once and now having to potentially do it again. I am in a very similar situation to you with regards to family and guests travelling from other countries. I am yet to go and collect my dress and other things including hen do but feel like I can't do any of that so the build up and excitement has been non existent and full of stress and the unknown. How has your venue been with you having to make changes?? X

Hi Victoria,


It is very stressful, isn't it? Almost all the joy of planning event has been replaced with worries. I collected my dress back in September, currently in my wardrobe waiting for alterations which are scheduled for May. Luckily everyone has been super helpful with changes. Our venue transfered our deposit to the new date without issues, that was approximately 2 months before the original date when we have decided to postpone. Same with our hotel, and wedding planner. It was such a difficult decision to make but luckily everyone was very supportive and we had no additional issues to deal with!We will probably wait till May again before making any final decisions and just watch out for some good news. In the meantime we are talking with our wedding planner as she is based in Santorini and so far she has been quite optimistic. So far, they only had 2 cancellation one for April and one for May 2021.

Hi all we were July 2020 for Cyprus and rearranged for May 2021 and now as off today June 2022. Im gutted but just couldn’t handle the unknown and restrictions that hotels were likely to have ?‍♀️

Hi, we are due to get married in July 2022 in Jamaica. After cancelling our wedding at a venue here in the UK because of the restrictions the venue had. We are now going for a small wedding abroad, with just us and our parents. I’m 80% sure we will be going and because there will be only 6 of us I’m optimistic but still worried in the back of my mind! My fiancé, on the other hand is 100% optimistic. Good luck to you all!

Hi, I am getting married on the 28th August near Bari, Italy and dont plan on postponing yet.

I am optimistic things will be possible then but I am thinking of reducing the guest list to 30 to make it more realistic. Will just have to follow news and keep in contact with our wedding planner over there. Good luck to everyone getting married abroad

I’m supposed to be getting married on 15th July in Malta. After having 3 different dates I really don’t want to do it a 4th time! But I’m not totally convinced

Hi Victoria, we were supposed to be married in September 2020 in Ibiza but have moved it to the end of July 2021. The same as everyone else finding it difficult to be excited and just want it done. It's becoming a strain as we legally married here in September but the blessing was booked in Ibiza with the dress and party etc. Men are much more positive and optimistic but I'm starting to doubt it will happen this year now. I'm reluctant to move it again and expect people to rebook especially as we are already legally married now it is becoming even more difficult as no family know, we only had 2 friends as witnesses. I don't really know what to do for the best anymore. The Government list is being reviewed every 3 weeks so if Ibiza is green or amber we still plan to go but currently Spain won't let UK residents in so it is so uncertain. We all have the make the right decision for us at the time but for brides that have already moved their wedding once; the thought of doing it again is not appealing!

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Hello Girls

I am getting married in Cyprus June 2022!

I dont think i've ever felt so stressed, its been a nightmare with things being fully booked, cancellations. Guests changing there minds. Maid of honour drama!

Anyone else a Cyprus bride?

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Hi Karolina, we just got engaged and Santorini is where we hope to get married too! Would you mind sharing any details of your wedding and whether you are using a planner? It's quite overwhelming when you begin trying to organise a wedding abroad so I would love to hear from someone who has experience! Thanks a mil!

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Hi Susan,

First of all congratulations on your engagement! This is very exciting time for both of you so enjoy it!
I got married in Santorini 9 weeks ago and it was just perfect, wouldn't change a thing (well... maybe the fact that Covid was in picture). It can be a bit overwhelming at first but it will be worth it! Just take it step by step and everything will fall into place. Happy to share my journey.

I started contacting wedding planners on the island, as well as doing my own venue research around March of 2019. Late April we have decided on wedding planner that we wish to book (I used Elena and her lovely team at https://www.weddings-in-santorini.com they are organizing weddings on the island for many years) and we travelled to Santorini in May 2019 to meet the planners as well as visit the venues that we have shortlisted. We also wanted to see the island (as we never visited before) just to make sure there are things to see and do, as most of guests will be staying few days. Our wedding planner picked us up from the hotel and drove us around the island to see all the venues. Santorini is a small island, so that took less than half day. After visiting all the venues we have shortlisted 2 of them and agreed we will decide by the end of the month and get date booked in. So, at the end of May 2019 we booked 4th July 2020, just a little more than year in advance. We have decided to go with Santorini Gem https://santorinigem.com. We also looked at LaMaltese Estate, LaCiel, Santo Vinery, Rocabella Hotel and Oceandis Estate. Many hotels are also able to hold small weddings, all depending on how many guests you are looking to have. We have stayed at Dana Villas for our wedding and they also have a great set up for intimate wedding there (I think up to 20 guests? ). If you are planning on smaller wedding having it in boutique hotel will be more budget friendly option. Santorini is very popular with weddings so some venues are quite pricey. When we visited in 2019 there was a wedding almost every night, in 2021 it was different story as many couples postponed till 2022. We have sent save the date year in advance so guests could make all arrangements and take advantage of lower prices, rather than booking last minute. We didn't do much more planning apart from having secured the date and venue, until November 2019. Our planner explained that they usually concentrate on weddings taking place in that year and after the current wedding season is done (in Santorini this is from April till late October) they are starting to plan for next year. So for us around 8 months in advance we started planning things like cake, flowers, order of the day, musicians etc. Most wedding planners will have different packages to choose from depending on what you want on the day and they will book all suppliers including Dj, musicians, photographer, make up artists etc. At about 8 months to go they only thing you will need to focus on is legal paperwork as this may take a while to sort out/legalize/translate. We definitely left this way to late and caused us unnecessary stress, don't make the same mistake.
After most of our wedding planning was done in March 2020 we all now what happened! Long story short we have decided in May 2020 to postpone till 5th July 2021. No more planning took place in 2020 we reassumed in April 2021. We kept most of our planning unchanged from what we did so far and added few more bits before getting married in July 2021! I do recommend using local make up artist and hairdresser (I used service included in a package with wedding planner) .They will be able to advise you on what will last the whole night in hot and windy weather. Also, worth paying extra hour for photographer to catch sunset hour. That is what Santorini is famous for after all!

Start with choosing wedding planner, venue and date. I do recommend using local wedding planner as if you don't speak Greek it will be very challenging to sort out legal side of your wedding. For example, you are not able to book appointments at local Town Hall and they will see you when they will see you . Also to marry in Greece you have to state your intent to marry in local newspaper or Town Hall at least 8 days prior to marriage. If you use planner they will take care of small but painful things like that for you. Local wedding planners are well connected and they will handle a lot of stress for you with booking vendors (a lot of suppliers don't actually live on the islands full time, some of them will be coming from mainland only for wedding season or they will choose to go to different island depending on demand our photographer for example was from Corfu, make up artist from Athens etc.), handling legal paperwork and translation of all documents for before and after the wedding. Most of actual planning will probably take 12-8 months in advance, with quite a bit of things being sorted quite last minute in wedding world of course! (like 4-2 months ahead) but that how island time works.

I hope me sharing my experience helped a bit, hope you will have fun planning your wedding

Good luck and feel free to ask anything!

Glad to see your wedding went ahead and congratulations to you!