We thought we would start off the week by whisking away to Cartagena, Colombia to this whimsical wedding captured by efeunodos fotografia. How does a week long getaway in a charming colonial city sound? Top it all off with one deliciously detailed wedding, a raging carnival and all-night extravaganza. Can it really get much better than that? The full gallery is packed with more inspiration from this adorable couple and their destination nuptials!
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From the moment we decided to get married, Kuba and I knew we wanted to have a small and intimate wedding with the word FUN written all over it. Kuba is Polish (he grew up in Poland and Botswana, Africa and went to boarding school in England) and I am half Colombian, half Ecuadorian (lived in both countries). We met in Canada in 2002 at university and had the opportunity to live in different Canadian cities. After several years living like gypsies, we settled down in Toronto and had our son Mateusz. This particular lifestyle has allowed us to meet many wonderful people from around the world. Our wedding list included people from 32 different countries and we invited only 75 people! From these 75 guests, 50 made it to our wedding (from 15 different countries).
We chose to get married in Cartagena, Colombia because it is one of the most romantic and charming cities in the world. We knew all our guests would fall in love with it the moment they got off the plane. Cartagena is a city which maintains and its colonial roots very much alive and is unbelievably breathtaking. Its Caribbean warmth and its imposing architecture make it a very special setting to the small, unique and intimate wedding we had in mind. Our guests started arriving one week before the big day and we felt really lucky to have a wedding that lasted longer than most weddings (that is how it felt!). We celebrated each night of the week in a different venue of the city and counted down the days to the big day with our family and friends. Having everyone we love with us for a week was the best wedding gift we could ask for and made for a beautiful wedding experience.
We had our wedding at a 500 year old colonial mansion in the old city called “Casa Don Sancho”. The house has a gorgeous salon on the second floor where we held our civil ceremony and a stunning pool area on the main floor where we had our reception. The house is full of history and has an air of colonial romanticism throughout the space. Kuba and I are fans of The Beatles and feel many of their songs represent our life together and our dreams and hopes for the future. For that reason, The Beatles were a salient element throughout the wedding. Our first song was “And I love Her”, our tables were named after Beatles songs and our altar had a banner that read: “Stand By Me”. These personal touches made us feel like our wedding was really ours, like we were making ourselves felt in sublet and delicate ways in every aspect of the ceremony and the reception.
Our wedding was a small, intimate and fun. Our main priority was to have as many of our friends and family that day with us. We wanted everyone to feel welcome and feel how much we appreciated all the effort they made to be there. That is why we came up with the idea of welcoming them with goodie bags. The day of the wedding, we welcomed the ladies with some adorable paper fans (in turquoise and pale pink) which we decorated ourselves with stamps (fish and our initials in each fan). We also crafted the flags for the ceremony ourselves and put them together a couple of days before the wedding as well as the big banners. I designed them myself even though I have no background whatsoever in graphic design… let’s just say it took a lot of trial and error (and a lot of sleepless nights) before I got the desired results! We made the letters for the altar (“Stand by Me”) with gorgeous crafting paper we found at Michael’s and stringed the letters to form a banner. We had some paper hearts and circles hanging from the small bench we used during the ceremony. We bought these hand-punched hearts in Etsy (seller: theCandyShoppe) and they are from a 1920’s world atlas. They symbolized our love for travel and our dream of traveling the world as a family. They were also a way to express our gratitude for having people come from all over the world to be with us that day. We also made the cards that went in the frames at each table. I got the frames custom made by a designer I met in a design fair in Colombia’s capital, Bogota. All these little D.I.Y. details added a little bit of a personal touch to the whole day.
Wedding Photography: efeunodos / Flowers: Gladys /Event Design: William Banea / Event Planning: Caribe Cordial / Wedding Venue: Casa Don Sancho – La Heroica / Invitations: D.I.Y / Shoes: Forever21 / Dress: Tailor-made / Music (DJ, violinist and carnival): Grupo Manhattan / Hair and Makeup: Diego Moya / Wedding Suit: Paul Smith
