A Sneak Peek of our Gorgeous Private Villa Wedding in Marbella

What a wonderful whirlwind of weddings May and June has been, with a pretty wet start to our wedding season thankfully it soon warmed up to the Mediterranean temperatures we know and love!

I cannot believe we are now into July, goodness knows where the past two months have gone, and we are now eagerly awaiting photos of our weddings we have worked so hard on in the past few months to share with you.  

Can you imagine our delight when we received these sneak peek images of some of our decoration from our wedding last weekend at a private villa in Marbella.

We adore this wedding and cannot wait to share the rest of it with you.

From the pre-wedding cocktail party at the fabulous Gran Gatsby overlooking the Puerto Banus to the stunning details of such a fabulous wedding day in a private villa in Marbella, followed by a very cool tropical themed pool party with an cute icecream station and giant inflatable pineapples and flamingos!  I was in heaven despite spending hours blowing up inflatables!!

Thank you to Agata Jensen for sending us a few treats this week of our work and looking forward to seeing more images of such a fabulous weekend designed and produced by Reviva Weddings and thank you to my amazing team for your devotion and humour during a very busy time!

Considerations when choosing a wedding venue in Spain

Finding the right wedding venue can be a daunting task, especially when you are trying to get as much information as possible whilst organising a destination wedding in a different country.

Here is a bit of professional advice before you commit to booking a venue here in Spain.

1. Plan B Weather

In the event of high winds or rain does your venue have a back up space?  

If your venue does not have enough space to move an entire wedding inside, i,e, ceremony, dinner and dancing then you must factor in the cost of installing a marquee, perhaps with heating, lighting, etc and do check out the available spaces in your venue to make a wedding work if you cannot host it outside.

You must also factor inside spaces into your arrangements if the venue does not allow music outside after midnight, see no 2.

Do bear in mind this will apply even if your wedding is organised in the summer months, i,e June, July and August as often here we suffer from high winds, particularly if you are planning a beach wedding.  I can recall two weddings we had last year, one in June and one in August where it was blowing a gale.

2. Can you play music outside?

Here I find this is one of the most crucial factors for our couples wishing to host their wedding here in Spain.

Often it is assumed that as we lead a very outdoor Mediterranean lifestyle we can party outside until all hours, but sadly no.  There are very strict noise regulations in place in venues and private villas which are located in built up areas.

Noise has to be kept to a minimum during the evening and after midnight it is forbidden, hence you are going to have to move your party inside.  There are a few venue exceptions but over this past year I have met with many couples who have booked a private villa only to subsequently find out about the music curfews and are faced with having to work around these restrictions for their celebration, which of course they had not anticipated.

Do be careful, many private villas want bookings and are not going to enlighten you with this information until they have received your deposit and you are locked into a rental agreement with them.  Ask them before you book if there are any music restrictions.

3. Decoration of your Spaces

Many of our venues here in Spain are already stunningly beautiful which is a bonus and only require a few elements of decoration to add some style and personalise your wedding.   

However do consider if you are hosting a wedding which has a plan b room that you may need to spend extra on providing some more decor to liven the space up.

4. Catering and a Kitchen at your Venue.

If you have chosen a stunningly remote venue for your wedding do check that there are facilities installed, i,e kitchens and toilets.  It sounds quite a basic thing but if there is not a lot at your venue you are going to have to pay to bring them in, for example mobile kitchens and mobile toilets.  This is quite a cost as off premises caterers will have to build adequate kitchens to cater for your wedding on site.  So do get quotes and check with suppliers how much it is going to cost to bring everyone to your wedding before you commit to your beautiful but secluded venue.

5. Access to the Venue.

You have fallen in love with a venue, it ticks all the boxes and it is set in the stunning hills of Andalucia. You can play music outside all night and it is perfect, it has adequate kitchens and toilets, but it is accessible for all the suppliers who will be arriving to create your event?  
Calculate the amount of suppliers who are going to come to your venue to create your wedding, they arrive in cars!   

You will have catering trucks, coaches or mini buses bringing guests to your venue and all the other suppliers, hair and make up, photographer, videographer, entertainment, wedding planner, etc so do check the access roads are suitable and there is adequate parking available for all the trucks and cars who will be there attending to your event and make sure they can park out of sight.

I hope this helps you with a little bit of advice and of course you can always enlist our pre-wedding consultation service with our expert knowledge before you confirm your perfect venue.

Rocking at La Cabane, Los Monteros!

Here at Reviva we do create many fantastic memorable weddings and one of my absolute favourite no fail combinations is a beautiful ceremony at the stunning Encarnacion Church in the quaint Old Town of Marbella followed by a chic and sleek stylish party at the jaw dropping La Cabane.  It is a win win situation!

Michelle and Gordon wanted this perfect wedding scenario and what fun we had planning and designing their dream day with them, they were an absolute delight to work with and we enjoyed every minute of working on their wedding and post wedding beach party.

It was a pretty hot day here at the end of June as the heatwave started to rack up and hit Southern Spain and the temperatures rose into the 90's, it got worse after this, that is another story but it was hot enough for the centrepieces to mist up as the temperatures were so high!


Michelle and Gordon had friends and family flying in from all over the world to join them in their celebrations and celebrate they did.  We created some cool ideas such as the Man Corner and the Glo Bar which sadly Jeremy missed for the photos, so he is now hanging his head in shame but has been forgiven as they were later in the night.   

Michelle said she loved seeing the glo bunny ears and glasses later popping up all over the place and it was such a fun idea.

Despite probably many hangovers the party continued the next day hosting a paella and BBQ evening at a local chiringuito which I understand finished about 5am!

Our congratulations to Michelle and Gordon and again a huge thank you to all our professional suppliers without whom we could not execute such wonderful days.  

Drum role!  Alex Harrocks for superstar wedding hair, Sweet Things by Fi for the gold leaf wedding cake which I did not get to eat, test or even sniff, Sarah Howard Duo for fabulous cocktail music, Legal Aliens for seriously rocking this wedding!  Along with the ever talented Reviva girls, Isabel, Jess, Rocio and moi :)

Thank you to Jeremy Standley for his amazing images and allowing us to share such a cool wedding!