Just like any other couples who scrambled to push through with their weddings amid the pandemic, Nico and Caroline almost caved in to the hurdles of planning their special day. As an overseas bride, Caroline's vision for her dream wedding was to hold it in their home country along with their loved ones, all the while relishing their favorite Filipino dishes. "This was my vision ever since my now husband, Nico, proposed to me in June 2019," she recounted in her piece on Bride and Breakfast.
The pandemic hampered the couple's plan of traveling back to the Philippines. This, in turn, prompted them to go through rounds of queries and uncertainty whether to carry on with their wedding plans or not. Caroline shared with Bride and Breakfast their journey towards overcoming the challenges brought about by the ongoing health crisis and eventually saying their "I Dos."
Our story is no different from other modern-day couples planning a wedding during the pandemic. As an overseas bride, I always envisioned myself getting married in a charming, Catholic Church back home, enjoying delicious authentic Filipino food, while sharing good conversations with family and friends. This was my vision ever since my now husband, Nico, proposed to me in June 2019.
Because of the uncertainty of the world these days, all the planning and hype for our dream wedding in the Philippines would come to a halt every time a lockdown was declared. The difficulty of traveling back home hindered us from achieving our vision. It was emotional torture for the two of us—individually and as a couple.
Days and weeks went by, we realized what was truly essential—us. We had to drop our past ideas of a grand wedding, create new dreams and plans that were possible for the time being. We also learned to focus more on our why — to be together forever. Thus, an elopement was the perfect way to achieve that, and so we did it.
Photos from brideandbreakfast.ph
Discuss the type of wedding you want
With an elopement, there are no rules—you can do whatever you want and however you want it (but of course, check the laws of your location first). While it’s good to have endless possibilities, it can also be a bit overwhelming. Take my word, planning can make you go insane with all the researching, budgeting, and pinning a lot of boards on Pinterest.
We agreed to push through with a simple, stress-free, but phenomenal bohemian-themed elopement. Believe it or not, sometimes, all we need to do is to sit down and have a quality conversation with our significant other.
Photos from brideandbreakfast.ph
Talk about your non-negotiables
Even for a sweet, intimate wedding like ours, we still wanted it to be epic. So, exchanging vows during sunset on a cliff was the way to go! We both love the outdoors and scenic views, so it was a no-brainer for us to have it at a cliff, with the skies and the sea as our backdrop.
Our amazing photographer recommended this “secret” trail that leads to a scenic location that ticks all the boxes, which we both fell in love with at first sight! We then put together a mood board, which helped us determine who our vendors would be for the day. We had a pretty awesome team and if we had to do it all over again, we would hire them all in a heartbeat!
Photos from brideandbreakfast.ph
Prepare for the logistics
Whether grand or intimate, there will always be things you need to arrange prior to the big day. In our case, we had to be as organized as possible since we hadn’t hired a wedding planner. Moreover, we also wanted to carry on with special traditions such as the cake cutting and champagne toast, even if it was just us. Why not, right? And oh, don’t forget the rings! We tried to plan a month ahead of the big day.
Being a Type A bride, I admit I was a bit stressed sitting in the make-up chair without any idea of what was going on outside of the room. Luckily, Nico stepped up and made sure everything in our running sheet went as planned.
Photos from brideandbreakfast.ph
Let go and ‘carpe diem’
In life, there are things that you cannot control—especially the weather! No matter how many times we checked the forecast to make sure it was going to be a nice day, strong winds and a bit of rain still poured, right in the middle of our ceremony. Bad luck or maybe blessings? We chose to see it as the latter! We ended up getting married on the rocks at the beach, as the winds were too strong to have it on the cliff.
Nevertheless, it was still equally as epic and we just moved up to the cliff after more photos. We decided to free ourselves from worries and not let anything ruin one of the most special days of our lives. We laughed about it and did our first dance under the spitting rain, amidst the strong winds. We even laid down and had a picnic. I personally think that it was one of the highlights of our wedding too. Despite the not-so-perfect weather, we still would not have had our day in any other way. For us, it was perfect.
Photos from brideandbreakfast.ph
This piece has been edited for length and clarity. The original version was published on May 18, 2021 at brideandbreakfast.ph.