I have finally received my wedding photos, and so I can finally do a proper post on our fabulous destination wedding. Because Toby and I live in Dubai, we very seldomly get to see many of our close friends and family. When I was proposed to in the Maldives (amazing right?) once I got over the mesmerizing beauty of the bling, my mind immediately started ticking overtime into wedding plans. Before we had landed in back Dubai we had both decided a destination wedding would be the the best way for us to get to spend time with all the people we love, and selfishly yes, it was a way for us to have the small wedding we both so desperately wanted but had no idea how to do it without offending about 70 people!
While researching beach weddings style and design, I saw that every beach wedding had a shell set attached, or some sort of nautical theme. While that may be many peoples ideas of exactly what they want, it wasn't mine. We were getting married in Thailand. We were doing something different just by getting married where we were, and I didn't want to be limited to to the designs I found online, and there really is nothing like this sort of thing here in Dubai .
This wedding was a major DIY event. I wanted as much as possible to give the day a custom, unique feel. I designed a basic save the date - something simple and then spent ages trying to come up with a special unique design. After many many attempts at perfectly lovely invites that were dumped in the trash, late one night after a few cups of coffee I started again... except this time I loved it. It was Toby and I perfectly. It matched us and our personalities to the T. 
In the end I designed a wedding logo for us, which we used across all the stationary, an illustration for the program and first page of the passport, and then a 16 page passport with calligraphy envelopes. Once we had a style I carried it through to programs (which were tied to the fans), menus, name cards (leaves on the limes), table numbers, welcome bags, guest notes, thank you cards, love notes etc etc.
It was held at the beautiful property of Faraway weddings, on Lipa Noi beach. The wedding was at sunset, on a private beach, which made for the most magical setting. I'm was all for a week-long wedding (yes I know its long, but it was a long flight!!) It was such a bonding experience for all involved, especially since we hadn't met quote a large amount of each others close friends. We spent a whole week together at the same resort, before the big day, and everyone had heaps of fun! It is beyond gorgeous!!