It’s finally time for me to start planning our wedding! I am so excited to bring you guys along on the journey!
As you all know, last year I got engaged after 3 and 1/2 years of being with Mr AN and it’s finally time to start with the plans, so I thought that I would share the journey with you guys as I know many people love a wedding (me included!).
Today we are talking venues and how we decided where to get married…
So let’s get started! For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to get married in the snow in a forest. I don’t know why exactly, but I’ve been fixated on it for years. To begin with, that wasn’t where we were headed location wise, but after a while, it became apparent we both wanted the same thing and I started letting myself imagine my childhood dream as a reality.
It helps that my fiancé has the same view as me on a big traditional wedding, otherwise I may have met resistance on the whole eloping thing! 😉
Firstly, I want to be clear about why we are having a small wedding and eloping. Our view is that relationships are a two way thing and we are not going to invite people to our wedding to enjoy our special, intimate day if they can’t be bothered with us from one end of the year to the next. We are private people at the best of times and we only want people we love and care about and who love and care about us to share our day.
We both feel strongly that if we were to plan a wedding here, there would be pressure on us to invite a ton of people we don’t want there and I know I would come to regret it as I don’t want to just remember a day of saying “hi” and “bye” to people I rarely see at any other time. I want to remember the positives of the entire day and the whole experience of getting married. 🙂
So, now let’s move onto how we chose Finnish Lapland for our venue! 🙂
Thoughts on countries.
To begin with we were thinking Italy, Hawaii… somewhere bright and sunny. (This was more Mr AN than me). We looked at the Italian Riviera (Vernazza) to begin with and although utterly stunning, once we found out about all the paperwork required, we were kind of put off.
I am also pale as a sheet of paper… In fact I’m borderline allergic to the sun because even with Factor 50 on I still burn and I get a hideous rash as well, so although we both liked the idea of a sunshine filled wedding, we weren’t sure that we would 100% enjoy the day if I had to keep hiding from the sun!
So then, just randomly, we started talking about honeymoons and how we would love to see the Northern Lights and it suddenly came to us: “What if we got married in Scandinavia and then we could see the Northern Lights on the day!?” This made me extremely happy as I felt like we were on the same page and I was going to get my dream wedding!
Of course, the Northern Lights aren’t 100% guaranteed, but there are certain times of the year when it’s more likely, so we are getting married in February. We are crossing everything that we do get to see them as it would be utterly breathtaking!
First off, we started looking at the Ice Hotel in Sweden which is so beautiful. They re-build it again every year as it melts, so every single year it’s different which excited me because I love the idea of it being different to someone else’s wedding there in a previous year.
However, I’ve always had this love for Finland. Again, I can’t quite explain why… I just love the country. Growing up, I always loved the Finnish drivers in Formula 1 and was obsessed with going there when I was older haha!! All of my embarrassing secrets are coming out now!
We looked at quite a few different venues; ooing and ahhhing at all the gorgeous snowy pictures… Here’s one I found of Finnish Lapland. How stunning is this?!?!
Anyway, both of us were just getting more excited at the possibility of actually getting married in Lapland, so we finally started looking for someone up there to help with booking the ceremony and the paperwork. (Luckily, the paperwork is a lot easier than Italy!). We found a lovely lady who sent us over 6 venues to look at and after going over all of them with a fine tooth comb, we decided on a place called The Wilderness Kota. (This isn’t the site we’ve gone through, but it’s the only photo of the Kota I can find online!).
It reminds me of a tepee crossed with a log cabin. It’s in the middle of nowhere and snow is guaranteed. The Northern Lights House was a close second, but it’s set in a busier place and we really want our day to be intimate, so we went for the Kota.
SO, the venue is booked, I’ve finally put my design degree to good use and designed our Save the Date’s, we’ve picked our wedding rings and I’ve found a possible Bridal shop. I’m super excited for all the things to come and I’ll be sharing another update with you soon! Have a fabulous day!
You can follow along with more behind the scenes plans on my snapchat (@anniesnomsblog) and with the hashtag #anniesnomswedding on Instagram.
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