Fun & Fabulous Croatian Wedding In Milla Nova Gowns

❤️ The TWC Effect – Our brides, their way ❤️

Stacy and Zach really know how to celebrate! This loved up couple celebrated their love in a perfectly personal Croatian ceremony surrounded by their nearest and dearest, and lots of fun!

How did you meet?

We met through a mutual friend at NYE fireworks going into 2014.

Was it love at first sight?

No! We met in passing next to a dumpster outside Temple station when he was bumming a free ticket off me for him and his girlfriend at the time! Little did we know 10 years later here we would be.

Who proposed and how? Lovely details, please!

Zach proposed on the roof terrace of our hotel on holiday in Cappadocia, Turkey. Initially I thought he was joking because he’d asked to take a photo of me facing the view and when I turned around it was very dark so I couldn’t see the ring in his right hand and he was half down on one knee (but couldn’t do the whole thing as he’s cut his foot badly a day before when we were in Antalya on some sharp rocks!).

I was a bit puzzled at first and asked “what are you doing? Is this a joke?…..” at which point I finally saw the ring and he’d told me to stop ruining the moment…. And here we are 2.5years later with our first home bought together and 6 months married.

Did you have a theme for your wedding? How did it come about?

We had a couple of themes for our wedding. It was in planning for 18 Months before the actual day so what I initially thought would be exactly what would work changed 8 months before the wedding!

We got married at the end of August and our wedding planner had told me the florals we’d chosen wouldn’t be in season so would need to be shipped in from abroad so I asked what was local and in season at that time of year, she told me Lisianthus and Dahlia. I looked at Pinterest and the first florals to show up matched the colour shades of my bridesmaid’s dresses so immediately, I was sold.

It was bold and bright, very different to the traditional wedding palettes, but it worked out beautifully and matched the bridal party and venue perfectly. 

Location and how you found it? 

Villa Dalmacija in Split, Croatia. My husband and I are both from Africa, Zach from Cape Town and myself from Zimbabwe, so we considered a wedding in the Cape wine lands.

We chatted to Hannes Maritz at Kraak. Designed hospitality and looked at budgets and venues but the more we thought about it, all our friends have done Cape Town so we wanted something different! My family roots on my Father’s side are Croatian so the next step was to see what Croatia had to offer.

I scrolled Instagram for event companies, venues and past weddings and narrowed down the search from information I found before even contacting the planners. Villa Dalmacija is in Split so an easy trip from the UK, there are a lot of towns for people to go day tripping nearby whilst there if they wished, it was part of a nature reserve but also along the ocean so we had beautiful grounds and then it overlooked the ocean, music could stay on until 3am and this was a big one for us! Last but not least the building itself is yellow, which is my favourite colour, so It felt like it was meant to be.

How did you find The Wedding Club? Tell us about that moment when you found and chose your dress – how did it make you feel when you put it on for the first time?

I had fallen in love with a wedding dress I had seen on Instagram prior to getting engaged and saved a screenshot. The Wedding Club South Kensington happened to be the only store in London that stocked it. Of course, I tried many other dresses as well to make sure it was the right one before deciding!

Mel at The Wedding Club assisted me the day I went in as my family lives abroad and friends were working so I went alone, she made me feel so at ease! It is not easy going to try on dresses alone, sometimes maybe it can be easier as you don’t have other opinions but after doing four different wedding shops and about 18 dresses later it was great to have her energy. I had asked her to take photos of me in each of the dresses for my family to see and WOW, did she do an amazing job. She had told me to imagine myself at the venue and spin around in the dress and the moment I saw those photos was the moment I knew it was THE ONE.

Which designer did you wear?

I had a wedding dress & reception dress, both were by Milla Nova.

Where is the suit from? Why was it the perfect fit?

Zach’s suit was from H&M (surprising I know!) but we had looked at all the designer brands and bespoke tailors for months and we couldn’t find the perfect shade of beige linen we’d decided on for him and the groomsmen.

Everywhere was just too dark or too brown so we found the suit at H&M and we had my dress tailor perfectly tailor it to him so that the fit was just right. It was a lot of work, but she did an amazing job.

Did you have speeches? Who performed them? 

We did. My father, the best man, Zach’s speech and we had an MC from bridal entrance through to the first dance. All of them were short and sweet so we could get on with the party but all were very special.

Did you have a first dance? What song did you choose and why? How was the performance?

We did. I travel a lot for work so I am often away, and we’d left it till the last minute with only 1 week to find a song and practise a dance as then I would be away for 9 weeks leading right up to the wedding day!

We went through endless Spotify playlists and YouTube first dances and pieced together some moves we liked to last about one and a half minutes (we are not pros) before we would invite everyone on the dance floor. It worked very well, we practised in our kitchen, wrote the steps down and timed it down to the last minute as we’d have sparklers go off at the lift (only practising a dance in your pyjamas is a little different to dancing in a corseted skin tight dress with a tail) so on the night we needed a couple of run throughs before the first dance but it was perfect. 

How was the party?

The party was wild! We went until about 7am the next day with a lot of our best friends coming back to our villa when we had to leave the venue at 3am.

We danced all night, there were a few conga lines, some local African music from time to time, lots of shots and we ended it by dancing on tables and swimming in the pool when we got back to our villa before a couple hours of sleep and then on it again for pool party day 2.

Wedding planning advice for brides to be?

Enjoy the process! The day itself goes by in a flash and a blur, thank goodness for photos because of the nerves and excitement there was a lot I couldn’t remember about walking down the aisle or cocktail hour.

It can become very tedious but make sure you are picking all the things exactly as you want . If you are able to have a planner to manage vendors, payments, sourcing and take away all the added stress leading up to the wedding and especially on the day so you can focus on just enjoying the day itself, I highly recommend it.

   
In saying that, if you are not able to have a planner, it will be ok, you have the Internet, Instagram and Pinterest at  your fingertips with endless information, put together some vision boards and your taste might change throughout!

 Then remember, no one else but you know what your vision was so if it isn’t perfect, that’s ok, no one is going to notice. Everyone is there to celebrate your love and they just want to have fun.

One moment you’ll never forget:

I can’t say there was only one moment, there were hundreds of unforgettable moments during the day! But one particularly special memory I had when reflecting on the day after the wedding was that it was going to be the only time in our lives where we would have both our families and all our very best friends together celebrating us.

It was chaotic at times, a lot of eating and drinking involved but we will never live that moment ever again and we felt so special to have so many amazing people who love us and made the effort to be there for us, that was an incredible feeling.

❤️
Dresses – Milla Nova 
Hair & Makeup – Hair Studio Institut & Kate Ramic
Planning – Promessi Weddings & Events Croatia
 Venue – Villa Dalmacija
Photography & Videography – Martina Skrobot & Amas Films
Flowers – Pixy With Love
Catering & Cake – Restoran Gusar & O’š Kolač
Lighting – Rabbit Rock Light Production
Music – DJ Luca Goya & Ilex Saxman