Niel and Olya - Bermuda Wedding

When Niel was seconded to his company's new office in Russia, he never imagined that he would fall in love with a woman who didn't even speak his language. And the night the couple met, Olya was convinced the handsome man across the room that she was so smitten with was certainly Russian. How surprised she was when she discovered he didn't speak a word of Russian and she only had a handful of very simple English words. But the two had a deeper connection and that first night, Olya was certain she should not let Niel disappear, even though she usually loved chatting yet in their case, they sat in silence. She didn't understand it, but she had something inside her driving her to stay close to him. The two started dating and after six months "in the silence", she realised she was not going to learn English solely by speaking with Niel. She had the best motivation to learn and so she did an eight month intensive course learning English for 4 - 5 hours a day. During her studies, the couple started to speak more and more and it was then that they realised that there really was something much deeper to their connection than a simple initial attraction. They fell head over heels in love and after three years of dating, the couple were engaged. They now live back in Bermuda, Olya speaks beautifully, and their love just keeps blossoming.

I was so excited when the pink taxi arrived with Olya and her attendants. My kids are obsessed with this taxi and when the play the "taxi game", they get 10 points for spotting it! Such a fun wedding transport option.

Olya always dreamed that when she met her true love, she would like to have a church wedding, which in Russia, is not that easy to arrange as most couples are married in a civil office. St John's was the obvious choice as it was the family church and where Niel had been christened, and Bishop Nick Dill was very welcoming to Olya and make her feel at ease.

Bishop Dill tells a sweet little story about a rope, and how each strand that makes up the rope is not strong on its own, but when woven together, it is unbreakable - it is a sweet analogy for marriage that really highlights what is important and what makes couples strong, from two of the strands representing the couple and the third strand being the love of God.

Olya's glam sparkly silver shoes were designed by Lasonia.

After the ceremony, we popped over to the South Shore for some beach shots with the bridal party and of the couple. The couple had cleverly obtained permission to do the shoot at Grape Bay which was close to town and so beautiful.

Less than a month before Niel was to return to Bermuda after his time working in Russia, Olya and their friends hosted a leaving party in Moscow for him. There were about 60 friends in their apartment and Olya had tailored and sang a song for Niel, "From Olya with love", which was quite emotional. Niel knew that a speech would be expected from him but he delivered to Olya and their friends something nobody was expecting. He bent down on one knee and proposed to his love. Needless to say, Olya was extremely surprised, but managed to say "yes!" and just like that, a rather sad leaving party had become a very happy engagement party.

Can you see Olya reflected in Neil's sunglasses below? Gorgeous flowers by the ever creative and dreamy Petals.

We'd been a bit naughty and hopped this gate to get the romantic moon gate shots and it was particularly amusing watching the lovely Olya with all her masses of tulle scale the gate but luckily on the way out, we discovered the opposite gate was half the height of the one we jumped on the way in.

Olya's ring was made to order at Walker Christopher. It is a classic gold band with seven small diamonds, with space to add more for anniversaries and other special occasions which I thought was so sweet. Niel's ring was also a simple gold band.

After the beach, we headed to the reception which was held at their dear friend, Shelly's house. When Olya was describing her old, new, borrowed, and blue, she very romantically said the old was the church, with its formal and traditional setting that would impress upon them and their guests the solemnity of the occasion, and had hosted many momentous events in the past. Her new was all the opportunities for family and friends to experience new places, new culture, customs and cuisine. Their borrowed was Shelly's lawn, kitchen, boat house and even a knife to cut the cake when the realised this was one detail that was missed, and they are very grateful to her tremendous generosity, time and ideas. The blue was the groom's suit, which the bride was keen be dark so that it contrasted with her gown. She even told me about one of the first coins that Niel had ever found as a boy, which he still has today, was a sixpence. Had he known about the tradition of a silver sixpence in the shoe for good luck, he might have worn it in his shoes on his wedding day!

I adored the newly weds bringing their cultures together with the sand and sea theme of Bermuda coupled with the darling Russian dolls as centre pieces on each table.

I don't usually include photos of guests as how can one possibly choose and so it never seems fair, but in this case, this is my dear friend and photo assistant, Lana, with her sweet little boy, John. I couldn't resist sharing the photo of these two!

Niel is big into fishing and it is how he spends much of his free time so Olya thought it would be fun to get a shot of her love capturing her on his fishing line.

In keeping with the fishing theme, the couple were not keen to have a big wedding cake, but rather a conversation piece with some fun injected into the day. They decided to have the reverse idea and have it be the bride who was reeling in her diving catch and pastry chef, Ganesh, from Fourways Catering did a beautiful job of manifesting their creativity.

For their first dance, they chose "From This Moment On" by Shania Twain. The two had a dance they had worked on together and I love that as it adds such a fun element to the day - a little glam in a time when that sort of thing has almost died out.

The couple had to over come some pretty tricky immigration hurdles for some of their over seas guests, but they were well supported but a great team of family and friends and ultimately, they were successful in getting almost everyone to the island for a fantastic wedding that was a fusion of Bermudian and Russian culture.

Niel and Olya - you really did have a fairytale wedding, from the dreamy white gown and dashind dressed groom to  being married by a Bishop in a glorious church to the sun shining and blessings raining upon you with all your family and friends from near and far there to celebrate. Congratulations and wishing you much happiness! xxx

The Cousins

So I am sure anyone who follows this blog has been deeply aware that my posting this summer has been embarrassingly more erratic and less frequent than usual. There are plenty of reasons (aka excuses) like the fact that we moved house, the kids are off school with no camps and most recently, we went on holiday to France to see all Ben's family. So there was a devoted great granny to see in the UK before nipping down to the Dordogne to stay with Granny and Pa who love to spoil the kids rotten and next door the three cousins to spend endless hours playing in the river, picking blackberries and general cute cousin bonding time. So our heavenly trip was lovely and long, but of course put me further behind. Desperately trying to catch up now, but between still trying to settle into the new home and the kids being home for a couple more weeks, I think I won't be able to properly buckle down until mid September when they are back at school and I finally have the mornings to myself to work again. Thanks so much for your patience if you are waiting for photos, and thanks to the cousins for a great summer holiday! xxx

Daddy is 80!

Today is my father's 80th birthday! I still can't believe it. This photo above was taken this past July in Italy. I am so amazed that he keeps referring to it as the "terrible birthday", when all I want to do is shout about him from the hilltops. I want to shout about how lucky he is that he has reached such a magnificent age, and more importantly, he has reached this incredible milestone still full of energy, vitality and a fun and joyful spirit. As you can see, he is still not even fully grey, he doesn't need glasses, nor a walking stick or frankly anything to help him get on in life. I suppose for him, when he says he wants to keep this birthday quiet, he is remembering back to when he was a hottie pottie like in the below shot, taken in 1980. But that was thirty three years ago and his life has been so blessed with loving family and friends, wonderful lifestyle here in Bermuda, and the opportunity to travel. He has everything and although he may have a few more wrinkles and grey hairs, he hasn't lost the important things in life like his sharp mind, sense of humour and all of us who love him so very much. So as far as I'm concerned, he still has it all.

Above is a photo from 1981 with my sister Amanda, on the left, and me, in my Brownie uniform on the right - too cute. Below is my father carrying me over an electric wire which I was utterly petrified of when we visited family friends in Canada.

My father has one of those rare noses that don't come along very often. He is a Master of Wine and was the youngest with that qualification for many many years. He came to Bermuda in the 50s for six months to open a fine wines company and here he still is on the island today. And today at 80, although he pretty much only lives off raw fruits, veg and nuts, (no more cheese, sigh) he can still recognise and appreciate a fine wine and is brilliant at recommending to us such colourful selections at all price ranges - can't recommend him highly enough - he does an amazing job. He also invented the Vinicool and I remember when I was growing up what a household of creative ideas it was with him always trying to perfect his next idea - such an unusual brain the way he didn't see boundaries the way most of us do - he things anything is possible.

Not only was he a young star in the wine world, he also was a water skiing whizz. He is one of the key people who brought the now popular sport to the UK in the first place and below is a triptych of him doing his wild stunts.

Water skiing naturally transferred into skiing, and it was on a ski holiday where he met my mother 46 years ago! He likes to mono ski and invented his own Blackburne Contoured monoski which he still uses today.

Ever the ideas man, he invented a double strung tennis racquet which makes the sweet spot that much larger so if you haven't got one yet and need to improve your game (let's face it - who doesn't want that!), then go out and get a Blackburne tennis racquet!

And on top of being such a go-getter driven mad inventor/wine connoisseur/tennis and ski buff, he is also a loving grand father. Although it is exhausting to spend time with littles, he loves the kids so much and they simply adore him. And now that they are getting older (7 and 8), he can finally share his love of sports like tennis, croquet and boules with them.

Daddy - you have given me so many opportunities in my life and for that I am so thankful - you are a constant voice in my head of the point of life is that it should be enjoyed - your joie de vivre, and as a result your incredible health, is an inspiration - I just hope you passed down those genes! We love you very much. Happy birthday. xxxx