As a Travel Counsellor of 19 years, with hundreds of wedding bookings logged, Paula Hardman is the go-to weddings expert for many of her colleagues.
“I get calls multiple times a week from other TCs,” she says. “I made a ‘How to’ Guide for weddings, and I usually email that over to get them started.”
During the pandemic Paula picked up a lot of weddings business, when she helped brides and grooms who had been left in the lurch by suppliers. “They didn’t know where to turn,” she says. “So, I would contact the hotel to see if they were still holding the couple’s wedding date, and take it from there.”
One of her advantages when it comes to helping brides book their dream wedding abroad is that Paula has been there and done it herself.
Back in 2018, she married her partner Craig at Olympic Lagoon Resort in Ayia Napa, Cyprus. Theirs was a Tinder match that hit the jackpot, with Craig later declaring he knew he wanted to marry Paula after their first dinner date. Paula needed a little more persuading on the marriage front, as she’d been married before. Their solution was a small wedding overseas: “We felt that having it abroad would help us limit the number of guests without offending people,” she says.
“When we started planning, I wanted the Caribbean, just me and Craig, my son and daughter, and his son,” she continues. “I even said to my mum, I’m assuming you’ll not want to come because you’ve seen me do this before. But she was adamant she wanted to be there.”
When Craig’s mum and Paula’s best friend Kirsty also begged to be there, the cost of the Caribbean for guests became prohibitive, and Paula switched focus to Cyprus.
“The wedding cost us more – we could’ve got one included as part of the package in the Caribbean – but Cyprus did work out a lot cheaper for everyone else.”
After they had booked, an obstacle was thrown in the way. Olympic Lagoon Resort closed for refurbishment, and when it reopened, the hotel no longer offered Paula’s first choice reception venue – the outside Captain’s Deck. “They offered us rooms inside for our reception, but who goes to Cyprus to have their wedding inside?”
Step forward Mathilde Robert, managing director of Planet Weddings. “Mathilde and Planet had helped arrange a few of my clients’ weddings, and so she was the obvious and immediate choice to help arrange ours,” says Paula.
With Mathilde’s intervention, the hotel agreed to Paula and Craig having a midday ceremony under a canopy in the hotel gardens, then at 1.30pm they tucked into Cypriot meze food on the Captain’s Deck. “Ours was the last ever reception on the Captain’s Deck because Mathilde made them do it. Shows how much clout she has!” chuckles Paula.
Their wedding party was 11 close family and friends in total, and nearly everyone did a speech, including Paula’s stepson, who was in floods of tears; best friend Kirsty who had written a poem for the occasion; and Paula (a former professional singer) sang Jennifer Hudson’s Love You I Do, from the movie Dreamgirls to her new husband.
“After the meal we booked an open-top wedding bus for an hour’s tour. Everyone on the streets was waving at us and honking their car horns, and we even got a group of lads mooning us from their balcony,” she recalls.
Sunset photos followed, and then everyone gathered for cocktails on the hotel’s bar terrace, still in their wedding attire. “It was exactly how we wanted it to be, everyone together, chatting and laughing. Our day was perfect, relaxed and without all the people-pleasing that goes with a large wedding. We just felt comfortable in the company we had chosen to celebrate the day with us. The weather was amazing – warm and sunny all day, that’s the beauty of an overseas wedding.”
Paula has booked weddings all over the world but she counts Cyprus as a top choice. “It’s just so easy to get married there from a legal point of view,” she says. “And there’s so much variation for different budgets. Even when it’s not high-end, it’s still beautiful.”
Paula’s top tips
- “When a bride wants to replicate a UK wedding in a foreign country, I always ask why? I’ve been asked for stretch limos from the airport, pink glassware “because it looks nice”, and table decorations that cost thousands of pounds. It might be nice to have these things but they’re for other people. Much better for the bride and groom to spend their budget on a room upgrade – it’s their wedding, after all. Or a boat trip for everyone the day after. Not on nonsense, that no one will remember.”
- “Long-haul is becoming more popular – but short-haul does make it cheaper and easier for guests. In Cyprus, for example, it would be feasible for someone who was really short on time, to fly in one day, attend the wedding the next day, and then fly home again. You can’t do that with Mexico.”
- “Use an expert. Weddings are hard work, brides can be demanding, and you need someone who will help you go the extra mile. I know I can ask Mathilde Robert for any weird nonsense, and she’ll do her best to make it happen.”
