Good morning lovelies! We are onto a winner here this morning with this beautiful wedding abroad in Portugal. Ana and Chris planned their wedding from the UK but with the help of a wedding planner, a beautiful historic venue where Ana’s parents wed 35 years previous and one incredible view of the Atlantic Ocean, it was all smooth sailing.
Ana filled us in on all the great details, and as always, we wanted to know how they got together!
From Ana; “We met in the UK at a party whilst I was completing my PhD and during the summer festivals, Chris charmed me with picnics during my lunch breaks, waffles for breakfast and weekend escapes to the peak district and beyond.”
“My parents got married in Sintra 35 years ago. It’s a beautiful place that combines the fresh air of the mountains with a view of the Atlantic sea. It is located about 30km away from Lisbon. For me it has always been a lovely place to escape the city on the weekends and it was where I took my husband when he arrived in Portugal for the first time. We both fell in love with its natural beauty and historical sites.
We chose Quinta do Pe da Serra as our venue due to its historical building set within a natural and secluded environment. We wanted my husband’s family to be introduced to Portugal’s history. It is a beautiful Manor house on the Sintra mountain slopes that have belonged to the same family since the XVIII century.”
“The ceremony and most of the day was spent on the balcony overlooking the seaside and we served dinner inside after the sunset. We wanted an intimate and informal wedding which focused more on a lovely and relaxed environment for the guests. The venue ensured all our needs were met: food, alcohol and ambiance.”
“It was clear to both my husband and I that we wanted a very intimate wedding capturing the essence of both our backgrounds. In a Chinese wedding, the colour red is very important as it promotes luck and prosperity, and red was our running theme. As it is a tradition in China, the guests were asked to sign and leave messages on a red cloth. Our wedding rings were carried in a silver platter that has been in my family for 4 generations. It was very special to know that my great grandmother’s rings were also once on that platter.
After the civil ceremony, we performed the Chinese tea ceremony which allows the children to show deference for their parents and the in-laws; and essentially symbolises the merging of two families. In both Portuguese and Asian culture, food is essential – this was a big focal point in our wedding.”
“We took a very informal approach to the wedding. We had bespoke invites and menus with drawings made by our friend who is a children’s book illustrator and we had personal readings from friends during the ceremony.”
“We had a clear vision of the wedding and chose to do almost everything by ourselves. But we had to hire a wedding planner in Portugal in order to find a celebrant to perform the ceremony in both languages. This was probably the hardest challenge as my husband and I live and work in the UK and had limited time to visit Lisbon to search for a bilingual celebrant.
The service provided by our wedding planner (Joana Silveira from Portugal Wedding Planners) was fantastic. She offered a bespoke package which meant you could decide how much you wanted them to do for you. No job was really too small or too big for them. And in the end we accepted her suggestion of having a shuttle bus service for guests to and from the venue back to their hotels.”
“As part of our fusion wedding, our wedding favours where Chinese take-away boxes filled with a traditional portuguese sweet and a fortune cookie. As in Portuguese tradition at the end of the meal you go around the tables and present each guest with their wedding favour giving you a chance to talk and thank all of them personally. At the end of the evening, I changed into a modern interpretation of the chinese qipao dress (from Shanghai Tang). Photographic slides of our family, childhood and closest friends to narrate our lives were projected onto the wall of the dining room. The cake was provided by the venue and we chose a Sylvanian family collectable to represent the bride and the groom. Our choice illustrates my husband’s passion for motorcycles, my childhood memories of collecting Sylvanian families and our passion for travel “We both chose to give short speeches in each other’s native languages. This was a very emotional and fun moment where everyone was extremely engaged and surprised.”
“My advice to future brides who would like to have a wedding in Portugal and are not familiar with the country would be to find a wedding planner. They have a wonderful list of venues and photographers and all the necessary contacts for transportation, bridal accessories such as flowers, celebrants etc.”
Thanks so much to Ana and Chris for sharing their wedding story with us and to their FAB photographer Pedro Vilela for the images. It’s always great to learn of others’ destination wedding experiences especially when the couples are trying to capture their different cultures and backgrounds to include in their day so that it reflects everything that is important to them. Not always easy to do but a great job done here we think! See you tomorrow for some more of our favourite things.
