Real Weddings 16th September 2022

Gian & Marco’s Secret Garden Wedding.

We're delighted to bring you Gian & Marco's magical wedding arranged by the wonderful Zohrah Day Wedding Planner. Read on for full details of their love story, the wedding day and stunning photos!

After going through their vision in detail it was apparent that Gian & Marco had their sights set on an outdoor ceremony. When sourcing a venue for them, I shortlisted only those that could accommodate this. We only visited the shortlisted venues because of the time and effort that went into getting to know each other and detail their plans at the start of their journey. After visiting each of the venues from the shortlist, it was clear that they loved the idea of a secret garden ceremony.

It was hit and miss with the weather on the day because right up until 30 minutes before the ceremony was due to take place there was a downpour of rain with thunder and lightning. Get some inspiration from their special day and Gian & Marco’s experience of hiring a wedding planner.

marco and gian

When & how did you meet?

Marco and I got acquainted back in 2018 through dating platform. Then we started on dating exclusively in October 2018.

When and who proposed?

Marco asked me for a short trip in February 2020. We went to the Czech Republic for 3 days. While walking around Charles Bridge in the middle of the crowd, he kneeled and proposed.

Why did you feel you needed a wedding planner?

Marco and I are both busy people. Planning takes a lot of effort and time. As both of us working full time, and me as a nurse, I can’t give 100% of my time and attention attending to every details. Another thing is that we came from different cultural background, having no idea on how a wedding is like in this country, like I am talking about the process itself. A huge part of it is sourcing for suppliers and venues. I made a query on an online platform to get a quotation and see how we can move on in our planning, because of course we wanted this wedding to be memorable for us and during that time (prior to Covid) relatives and friend around the world are lined up to come to UK to be with us.

What was the most challenging part of your wedding planning journey?

The wedding planning journey isn’t that bad at all, it was actually a great experience as Zohrah walked us through a lot of things. Finding the right suppliers and liaising every detail for us. It really does help if you have an idea of how you want things to look like as it is easy for everyone to turn it into reality, and in terms of not knowing something, that is when you can rely on your wedding planner. Covid honestly played a huge part that challenged us that made us move the wedding date, changed plans multiple times.

What are the five benefits of hiring a wedding planner?

1) Take a huge responsibility to action on your behalf, but still make you in control of everything about your wedding.

2) Direct the scheduling and budgeting (also acts as advocate on your behalf if they know the price/offer isn’t right).

3) Help in outsourcing venues and suppliers that suits your needs.

4) Will introduce ideas, concepts and help you decide with pros and cons, especially tricky situations.

5) Offers a wide range of services, depending on your needs and budget.

What advice would you give a couple considering hiring on a wedding planner?

It turned out as the best decision we ever made. With the outcomes of our wedding, it is all worth it. In our experience, we availed a full wedding planning which includes the whole planning, outsourcing of venues and suppliers that are important for us i.e cake, flowers, DJ etc., day event coordinating, and post wedding services to send cards to our guests. It lifts the heaviest pressure in our part so we could focus more on other things like the invites and approving details/ideas. It is important for couples to know what they like and how they want their wedding will be, if they don’t have a clue, it is best to ask a lot of questions from the wedding planner as they have done this lots of time and they can massively aid if not all, in most of the situations. Do not be afraid of inquiring about the services, have a go and see what suits your need. Finally, find the right wedding planner like we did.

The main benefits of hiring a Wedding Planner

Budgeting- great to have someone to take accounts of all the expenses. Wedding Planners can work through the set budgets that you have. In our experience, Zohrah made us put a great strategy in prioritizing how important a supplier for us and how much budget we want to allot to them.

Monitoring of the expenditure.

Advocate on your behalf especially in terms of difficult decisions with suppliers

Constant updates on the progress of the planning and remind on what are still pending and needed to achieve.

On the day service- you will just enjoy your day without thinking of what is going to happen next as she coordinates everything for it to run smoothly

After wedding- if you wanted to thank your guests, like we did, Zohrah arranged for a thank you card to be sent out

marco and gian