My dream royal ancient wedding...

Since I was a little girl, I have always been dreaming of a big 3-day-wedding in Sri Lanka. Making my dream wedding become reality was unfortunately not as easy I thought. Definitely keep on reading if you are planning your own big wedding, maybe you'd love some of my ideas! 

 

Wedding abroad 

Most of my and my husband's family members are currently living in Sri Lanka, so that was our main reason to hold our wedding there. And of course Sri Lanka is known for the good weather (during summer), gorgeous nature and delicious food. 

The Wedding Style 

It's almost impossible to choose just one style, that's why I decided to combine three different styles to our wedding. 

1. Traditional Sri Lankan style for the legal marriage

2. Western-style for the ceremony

3. Indian themed reception

Thinking about the wedding styles I had in mind... I wonder why I did not choose a tamil style for one of our functions, as most of our family is tamil.

As we got married in the summer season in Sri Lanka, the weather usually is pretty predictable and sunny during the spring and summer months. We would have loved to have one of the functions outside, but due to the weather (rain in august 😭), it was not possible. If the weather was nice we would have wanted to have the legal function early in the morning outside for close family members including a traditional breakfast. 

 

The Color Palette

All three parts of our wedding would be almost a completely different style, which would make it also interesting for our guests to stay around and have fun. 

1. Sri Lankan legal marriage, gold-toned decoration and white and dusty/light pink flowers

2. Western ceremony white fabric and lace

3. Indian reception, gold, and colorful

The Wedding Outfits

With three different themes goes three different dresses. The dresses I had on my wedding day were perfect and I wouldn't change a thing. 

 

1. At first, I wanted to have a golden saree with pearls and/or gems (saree = Sri Lankan/ Indian dress), but then I fell in love with a design that was only available in a nude color (looks more pinkish on the pictures). 

2. For the western part of the wedding I have always dreamt of a white lace cinderella dress, but with (3/4) sleeves, because I do dress modestly and did not want to show too much skin. With that, I always wanted a long veil with also a piece to cover my face before I would be "given away". I ended up not getting the long veil as it didn't add anything to my dress. About the dress I found and wore on my wedding day I can say, is my dream dress!

3. For my Indian themed outfit, I wanted something more traditional with the colors red and gold. As for the embroidery, I did have some ideas, but as it was not my ceremony dress I did not need it to be exactly the way I would have wanted it (unless the budget allowed it). 

Even though the dresses, accessories, and shoes should look pretty, it has always been important that I felt comfortable (as much as possible) in what I was wearing. When anything is itchy, too tight, or painful it's an unnecessary distraction of enjoying your big day. 

    

The Wedding Location

The nicest way of making all the functions I wanted/needed for the wedding work, was to spread it over two days. As it would also double the costs of the wedding, we decided we would make it work in one day.

 

Because of the time restriction it was important to me that we'd have to traveling as less as possible. For the wedding venue we needed it to be possible to use outside and inside and to have enough space for taking pictures and hold our events. To me the venue we chose was actually everything that I had invisioned. 

 

We booked the Grand Mountain Hotel in Matale. This city is pretty much in the middle of Sri Lanka, to me it seemed that it would be the most practical for our guests to travel to. We already had connections in this hotel, as a few of my family members were acquaintances of the manager. The hotel has marble floors and golden and fancy details all over the place, plus the garden was huge and free for us to use. 

 

My husband on the other hand wanted the venue to be in the capital city Colombo, west-coast of the country, as that is easier to travel to. But as he is the most darling man I have ever met, he gave in to what I wanted... (thanks babes, you're the best, I love you). 

About the hotel we booked I have to add that this hotel did their work so so so well and that I could not have asked for any better services.

 

Wedding Cake 

For the wedding cake, I did not really have a lot of wishes except for it to be three layers and with white and gold details. My husband really wanted a small fountain under the cake, so we made sure we had that.

Besides the fountain, we actually did NOT have a cake, find out in one of my next posts what happened to the cake...

I would have loved to have an actual cake and also a cake topper. Before our wedding I did look into it but forgot about the caketopper. If I think about it now I would want a personalized cake topper with either our names or with a couple that looks like us, and we would be able to keep as a memory.

Wedding favors

Because our wedding would take a whole day I wanted to welcome our guests by giving them a (small) goodie bag that they could use during the day. The goodie bag would contain a bottle of water, hand cream, a hand fan, tissues, and some mints or something like that. 

To remember our wedding my mother-in-law came up with the idea to give away a plant so our love could grow in the gardens of our guests. It was a beautiful idea and we actually had the plants at our wedding, I'm just not sure if any of our guests got to take one.

Entertainment

For entertainment, I did not want the kids to be left out, so I wanted to at least give every child a goodie bag or arrange a kids-table where there would be special activities to keep them busy.  

 

For the waiting time in between events, I would have loved a traditional band, a traditional dance group, and/or a comedian to perform for about 15-30 minutes. 

 

To top it all off the hotel came with the idea of having fireworks at the end of the wedding and provided us with a water show which we were be able to watch from the rooftop! 

 

All in all..

As it would have been nice to see my dreams come true, I had to accept the fact that it didn't, as you may have read in my last post. Focussing on everything I wanted to have for and on our wedding, actually made me forget at moments what it really was about. And it was supposed to be about the celebration of the love my husband an I have for each other. 

 

Your wedding should be an unforgettable joyful day and not a misserable one. Do please learn from my mistakes if you're still planning your wedding, I'm here to help!

 

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to comment or to contact me so I can write you about it.