The proposal
I proposed to Gemma, in Koh Samui.
We were sat on the beach, the sun was setting and music was playing in the background. It was perfect.
How did you style your day?
We’re both very simplistic with our tastes and decided on a rustic theme. We had wooden centre pieces with candles, globe lighting and hessian wrapped glass jars, with gypsophilia in them. They looked perfect. The spot lights, supplied by the fort really worked with everything too.
Did you have bouquets/flower decorations?
We used a company called Florabella and went with a pale pink and cream arrangement. This worked really well with the bridesmaid dresses, as they were of a similar colour. We had roses / carnations and the stems were wrapped in hessian.
Who took your photos?
Our photographer was Joshua Leo Dorfman photography and he’s based in Manchester. He was so creative and worked like a Trojan. He did his research of the venue and had so many ideas of where to go for the perfect photo. We went down to the private beach, where he asked one of my bridesmaids to run behind us, with a smoke grenade to create a perfect film / photograph. It was such a funny moment, he was great to work with
Did you have a wedding cake?
Gemma’s sister in law made our cake. It was very simplistic, white icing with pink flowers down the 3 tiers and rainbow colours inside. It was lovely.
Who were your food and drink suppliers?
We chose Kerra’s catering and she was absolutely amazing! She’d also been to the fort before so knew what she was doing. We went for a ‘posh fish and chip’ theme, followed by afternoon tea. It was absolutely delicious! Their front of house staff were fantastic.
We set up a table outside where we had arranged kilners of cocktails for the guests to enjoy, pre / post wedding. We bought all of our own drink and their staff ran the bar for us. Great job all round
What was your favourite part of the day?
We had a harpist – Ruth Hall – playing ‘how long will I love you’ as we both walked down the aisle – it couldn’t have been any more beautiful
Jo: I walked down the aisle first, so my everlasting favourite moment was watching Gemma walk towards me. She looked absolutely stunning and completely took my breath away
Gemma: My favourite part of the day was walking and seeing Jo there waiting for me, with the most beautiful smile. There is not one aspect I would change about the day. Family, friends and staff were amazing. Especially my beautiful bride
What advice would you give to others ?
We had been ‘planning’ the wedding for the past 12 months and had left it to the last 4, to get everything together.. we have really similar tastes and are relatively placid so it was actually quite stress free. For those that aren’t of a placid nature though, I’d recommend a very large note pad, post it notes and take all input from those that have planned a wedding before. We loved organising everything and had such a nice time doing it together.
Favourite things about Polhawn Fort?
Polhawn fort is the most beautiful setting for a wedding, that you could imagine. It was the first and only venue that we had seen and fell in love with it straight away. With us being from Manchester, we took several trips down to meet suppliers etc so if we were to do it again, we’d organise it so that we met with everybody on the same weekend… although we didn’t mind the several 7 hour drives down there…
