My wedding couple Rory & Katie French - Their thoughts on booking with me
I had arranged numerous holidays for Rory and Katie ever since I became a Travel Counsellor 7 years ago, so it really felt an honour to arrange their wedding too. They have always been such a lovely couple to arrange holidays for that I was just as eager to get started on coming up with ideas and options as they were.
They had some ideas of places they liked but weren't sure about. I gave my advice and suggested options and worked on various quotes to give them. I arranged to go around to see them and between us, over coffee, we came up with the perfect combination of a wedding and honeymoon. The wedding to be in Mauritius and then to spend time in the Maldives for their honeymoon.
I booked them 10 nights staying at the Heritage Awali Golf Resort & Spa which is where their wedding was booked followed by seven nights at Centara Fushi Resort & Spa in Maldives. Perfect!
It was close to the departure date when I got the call to say that the Awali was going to have to close through no fault of their own due to beach erosion and the closure was enforced by the local government until the beach was sorted. This was a shock to the hotel just as much as it was to the guests due to stay there. However, my only concern was Katie and Rory and the wedding they had booked. Making that call to Katie to tell her the bad news was devastating but she was amazing with the way she took it. Any other bride and including myself would have panicked and reacted. However, the fact that Katie trusted that I had only their best interest at heart and my reassurance that it would be ok really helped. Having a personal agent dealing with something so important is a godsend, especially if something happens because the care and personal devotion from a personal agent 24/7 is nothing like booking elsewhere.
I changed their Mauritius hotel to Beachcomber Paradis and we didn't have to change the wedding date which was lucky. The hotel is stunning, so they were pleased with this choice.
While they were away I was in touch with them seeing if they were ok and if they needed anything. My husband and I also attended their wedding reception when they came back too. It was so lovely to have been invited.
This is Katie's thoughts on arranging their wedding with me:
"Thank you for choosing one of our pictures for this post Donna, it bought back amazing memories of our special day that you helped create.
From the moment we were engaged we were certain of two things, one being we were definitely getting married abroad and the second being you were going to help us plan it all. It is the best decision we made, literally zero stress. You did all the research before coming to our home to discuss all our options over coffee. After answering about a million of our questions you set off and shortly came up with several wedding and honeymoon packages fitting our criteria for us to choose from.
We finally chose our wedding destination as Mauritius followed by a honeymoon in the Maldives. Four weeks before we were due to fly out, you called with the terrible news our hotel was shutting down for a few months due to erosion on the beach. To say we were devastated would be an understatement, all our planning with the hotel wedding coordinator had all been for nothing and I'd have to start again with another hotel or, so I thought after that first phone call. But you had everything under control and by that evening we were put in another hotel that we could only have dreamed of staying in, never mind getting married there. So I just want to thank you again for all you help in making our wedding as special as it was and stress free so we really could really enjoy every second of it"
If you are thinking of planning your wedding abroad or honeymoon, I would love to hear from you so please do contact me on 01502 558910 or email me donna.bidwell@travelcounsellors.com
Be sure to also follow me on facebook www.facebook.co.uk/DonnaBidwellTC