Looking Back At 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here at Reviva Weddings we are looking forward to 2013 with much excitement.

 

2012 was a fabulous year for us and we love reflecting on our weddings.

 

We sigh and squeak with delight as we view our hugely talented photographers images and remember all the very special and happy times we shared with our couples and their families whilst helping them to organise, plan and design their special days here in Spain.

 

Our weddings, this past year, were wonderfully diverse, our locations and designs were all so different.  Each wedding was individually designed and created for our couples with so much of our renowned care and attention to details and style.

 

Our clients came from across the world, the US, Canada, Dubai, Jordan, UK, Ireland, Singapore, Spain, Gibraltar, Norway, Holland, France and Belgium

 

Reviva Weddings created rustic style weddings in rural haciendas, passionate flamenco style weddings in romantic Seville, glamorous affairs in glorious hotels in Marbella and very stylish and sophisticated soirees along our beautiful coast from Sotogrande to Nerja.

We designed some fabulous new ideas for our 2012 weddings including fairground attractions such as coconut shys and candy floss bars. We created signature cocktail bars, cigar bars and olive bars. 

Beautifully presented desert tables and candy bars were a big hit along with our dancing shoes baskets full of flip flops and our famous stylish chill outs. 

We introduced the show stopping giant Geronimo style balloons into our weddings this year along with our ever famous sparkle and twinkle lighting, Mamma Mia style :) 

Sparklers were a big hit for our 2012 weddings and we absolutely loved them as they were such fun and romantic.

Our beautiful range of stationery got better, offering personalised paddle fans, menus, invitations and table seating plans along with a variety of props such as vintage tables, mirrors and chairs.

Gorgeous favours complimented our weddings from personalised fans to individual ´light the way´ lantern tables, fresh olives and olive oils, spanish brandies and sherries, turron beautifully presented in favour boxes, personalised confetti cones and our new confetti bags filled with eco friendy petals or rice butterflies, the list of our new creations was endless and we thoroughly enjoyed it!
 

Many of our weddings involved creating not just one day, but organising an itinerary for the duration of their stay and making sure we offered a concierge service for all our hosts and their guests.

 

We organised pre wedding parties from rehearsal dinners, sophisticated cocktail parties, sherry and olive oil tastings, paella cooking competitions and of course the apres wedding hangover BBQ´s and beach chill outs!

 

We thought we would ring out the end of the year and enter the New Year by sharing some of our favourite weddings of 2012 with you. 

 

We are still (sadly) waiting for photographs of some of our other fabulous weddings.

 

We do hope we see them as so much work goes into every wedding and I am sure we are worse than our couples as we ooooh and aahhh over every photo and delight in such fabulous days and all our hard work!

 

Over the next few weeks as we get back to work and continue to design and create our 2013 weddings, we will share our inspirations and trend predictions with you.

 

We have some very exciting new decor products to share including, dare we say, much glitter and glamour :)!

 

Our thanks for these lovely images go to the following photographers

Jeremy Standley

Anna Gazda

Andreas Holms

David Toms

Nani De Perez

All the wonderful wedding cakes were created by Sweet Things by Fi.

 

As we enter a New Year, and our 6th year here at Reviva Weddings, we would like to thank all our wonderful couples, along with their families, that have allowed and trusted us to share their most precious moments with them. 

 

We are in touch and remain friends with many of our clients and are constantly delighted to hear news of their babies and meet their new families.

 

Many more new family members are expected in 2013 and some of our lovely brides have been so inspired by their weddings they have changed career paths, we love watching, and at times sharing advice, as they venture out on their very individual journeys into more creative careers.

Wishing Everyone A Happy New Year!

We would like to take this opportunity to wish all our past and future clients and our suppliers a very Happy New Year!

 

We are off to sparkle :)!

Our Best Ever Dressed Groom´s Tips!

 

 

We are currently working on our favourite weddings in 2012 to post, but in the meantime we are heading back to a gorgeous wedding we created in 2011 for Chris and Faye at the Finca de la Concepcion in Marbella.

 

 It seems that Chris is still taking the coveted title of best dressed groom and told me today he will hang onto this well earned title for his twilight years!

 

So many of our clients that read my blog are still asking me where Chris got his super stylish suit from :) 

 

I am sure I am now beginning to annoy Chris by constantly emailing him to ask him, so this time I have decided to publish his style file on our blog in order I never have to bother him again!

 

Chris and Faye have remained friends since their wedding here and we have been delighted to have met them for coffee whilst Faye was pregnant with little Harrison and now joyfully watch updates on Facebook and Instagram of their gorgeous little boy growing up!  We are hoping to meet the latest addition to this wonderful family, in the flesh, very soon :)

 

In the meantime let´s share with you Chris´s Coolest Groom Award Attire!

 

Chris´s lightweight blue/grey suit was off the peg from Reiss

 

Chris´s waistcoat, tie and pocket square were custom made. 

 

I think the dark sunglasses also did the trick to win our coolest groom award!

 

We hope this helps share some of our previous bride and groom tips with you.

 

Our gorgeous images are courtesy of Jeremy Standley Photography.

 

We will be back shortly with a gorgeous New Year´s Eve inspiration and our highlights of 2012 weddings.

Wishing you a Glittery Christmas

 

As the Christmas weekend approaches, we are sharing some last minute glittery images with you.  This approach to design is so up my street and I am horrified I did not find these gorgeous images beforehand!

 

 I am in love with the wonderful eclectic array of colours and styles, and this is so my house, style and colours, olive greens combined with hot pinks, reds and turquoise and cooled down with whites, greys, silvers and golds, I am in heaven and needless to say if there are glittery cushions, completely sold :)

 

We would like to take this opportunity to wish all our past clients and friends and our future clients, who we are looking forward to working with in 2013 and 2014, a peaceful and wonderfully sparkly Christmas :)

 

Laura x

A Gorgeous Christmas Wedding Photo Shoot from Ireland

 

Here at Reviva we are getting into a very festive mood and are in love with this gorgeous Christmas photo shoot organised and styled by one of my previous and all time favourite brides :)

 

Claire tied the knot with her gorgeous hubby here in Marbella in 2010 and I was delighted to be hired as her wedding stylist, florist and decorator, we have since become good friends and Claire left Marbella well and truly hooked on wedding world. 

 

 Upon Claire´s return to Ireland, as a happily married woman, she set about spending a year training to become a fully qualified wedding planner setting up her dream business, a fabulous wedding and styling company White Sage Events.

 

With Claire´s attention to details combined with her natural flair for style she really was suited to becoming a wonderful wedding planner and I have enjoyed watching her flourish as she has worked tirelessly to set up her successful business and is now reaping the rewards of working for herself and you can see she is totally devoted to her profession.

 

Do head over to Claire´s website to have a look at her fabulous work.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing this Christmassy photo shoot Claire´s company recently put together, it is so festive and beautifully styled, the deep berry Christmas reds combined with the soft greys are a perfect winter wedding palette.  Claire´s attention to detail will ensure you have a wonderful wedding and this photo shoot just reinforces her wonderful sense of style.

 

We absolutely love it and are rather jealous we do not get many winter style weddings as there are so many wonderful decoration opportunities, but here in Spain all our brides wish to get married in the wonderful Mediterranean sunshine and who can blame them as Spain is known for it´s wonderful climate.

 

However with the exciting opening of the Marbella Club´s latest venture in the Sierra Nevada, the El Lodge Ski and Spa we are holding out hope now that we may indeed get some beautiful snowy winter style weddings to design, plan and host :) 

 

Imagine hosting your wedding in a wonderfully festive and snowy ski resort near Granada and bringing your guests down to the coast with a 2 hour drive for a beach party the next day!  How different would this be :)

 

I have done it, skiing all through the day and sitting in Marbella on the beach in my ski wear in the sunshine enjoying a cocktail in the evening, there are not many countries in the world where you can do this!

 

Claire´s wonderful colleagues involved in this photo shoot were

Claire at White Sage Events Shoot Coordination and Styling White Sage Events

Florist Best of Buds

Venue Dromquinna Manor

Photography Lisa O´Dwyer

Wardrobe Styling Lindsay Moynagh

Wardrobe Patrick Casey and Adah Lynch

Hair Accessories Aisling Maher and Rangoli

Make Up Rosa Ospina

Hair Caitriona of Headrush

Stationery Citrus Ink Launching soon!

Cakes and Deserts Cloudberry Bakery

Models Jacqui Murphy and Sarah O´Connor

Alfie the Dog :)!

 

If you do hire Claire for your wedding planning please do make sure you change your entire colour scheme 10 days before your wedding and email your guest list the night before at 1.30am so she can create your table seating plans, table names and guest placecards ;)!

The Small Things in Life

This week has been a challenge I think for ´normal´ people trying to comprehend the horrific massacre of innocent children at Sandy Hook.

 

 

I have spent the last few days in tears as I watch and read the news unfold of this terrible senseless incident.  I go to bed and wake up thinking about how these parents are coping and trying to imagine the unimaginable nightmare they are suffering.  Their lives will never be the same again, if they ever get through this tragedy.

 

I look at my own children, my older girls were the same age as the children gunned down in the Dunblane incident and I remember my girls local school doors being changed as a direct result into hi tech security doors with buzzers to let parents in.

 

 Now as I look at Twinks, my youngest daughter (not her real name), who is six, I cannot even comprehend how someone can so mercilessly shoot a six year old, it makes my bones go cold to the core and shiver with such evilness.

 

I had to do a blog post as this has affected me too much to ignore as this tragedy slowly unfolds in front of our horrified eyes. 

 

If America does not change it´s gun laws now it never will.

 

Let´s hope Obama sees sense and at least tames down the type of guns that are permissable otherwise we will be witnessing this again in a few years time.   All parents too, as much as their love their children, should seek help if they feel a mental illness is apparent which is a tough one but in the light of this latest disaster perhaps mental health issues will also be taken more seriously and reported.

 

Words still fail me, I cannot comprehend the events of the past week but something has to be learnt from this otherwise all these innocent children would have died in vain.  Part of my heart died this weekend just witnessing the awfulness as the news broke.

 

We are about to embark on what should be a lovely festive time with Christmas fast approaching and I have to admit I have been spending a lot more quality time with my little one.

 

I am appreciating what she is and what she brings to my life, albeit I do already as she was a late baby and a beautiful surprise which I think makes it harder as I have felt blessed to have had her in anycase and the past six years have bought me numerous wonderful moments.

 

My thoughts are with the whole community that has been completely devastated within less than an hour.  I am not at all religious but I think with so many more angels in heaven there will be many more prayers said this Christmas for the parents and families directly involved in this atrocity and parents all over the world will be holding their children tighter.

 

Christmas In Malaga

 

 

 

This might sound dreadful but in all the years I have lived here I have never visited Malaga.  Usually I have been flying past the city either on route to the airport or to a wedding and have never been a tourist.

 

  We have hosted many weddings in Malaga at some gorgeous venues, including the Castillo de Santa Catalina, which has involved me whizzing through the very hot city centre in the summer at an alarming speed with ribbons, confetti and flowers streaming behind me :) 

 

We are also very much looking forward to planning and designing a fabulous 2 day wedding in Malaga this coming summer which is very exciting.

 

This week, however, I had the luxury of finally being a tourist embarking on a festive  pre Christmas day out with my good friend Loraine who runs Dream Weddings in Spain and our fabulous tour guide Kris McGuirk who incidently is a wonderful wedding photographer by day!  You can see we mix business with pleasure! 

 

I am fortunate to have met so many amazing people through my business who have since become good friends. 

 

What can I say, what a wonderful city Malaga is and I was completely spoilt with two fantastic hosts prepared to show me the sights, lights and tapas bars in Malaga´s city centre.

 

Loraine and I started off by hitting the Larios Shopping Centre and it was a big highlight to visit Primark, aren´t they fab for cosy socks and pj´s plus kids things!!  I had heard about this store but never visited one so was rather overawed by how busy it was!

 

After clutching a few too many shopping bags, full of cosy socks and glittery pink ugg boots for Twinks, Loraine and I then drove into the main city centre to be greeted by Kris, the hostess with the mostess!   

 

Kris then proceeded to whisk us off to many tapas bars with lots of copas de vino involved and the odd break to do a bit of sightseeing, it was amazing, there was so much to see. 

 

Kris truly won the tour guide award dragging us very reluctantly into gorgeous tapas bars and Moroccan tea shops and then proceeded to show us some fascinating cathedrals, churches, the brotherhoods displaying their Christmas nativity scenes along with the stunning processional floats they use at Easter and of course the Calle Larios for some festive Christmas lights, they were beautiful and the street was lined with entertainers and street vendors just like Barcelona. 

 

The day went far too quickly and we ended up at the top of the Marriot hotel on the roof terrace enjoying a very civilised vodka and tonic whilst admiring the rooftops of Malaga, the port with a cruise ship in and being startled by the occasional random firework being set off!

 

What can I say apart from I had such a wonderful day.  I now realise I need to go back to Malaga many times to see all the sights and more of this city and it´s history and do need of course to visit a few more of the wonderful tapas bars!

 

Tonight though I would like to express my deepest sadness at the horrific tragedy that has unfolded in the US, I have cried at the loss of so many innocent victims, it beggars belief to be honest and we send our thoughts and prayers to everyone who is suffering.