After six and a half years together, including one and a half years in a civil union, Claudio and I finally tied the knot on the 14th December 2024 in Quintero, Chile. We held our ceremony at Yachting Hotel Quintero, where we were married in front of the Pacific Ocean, in the presence of 47 of our family and friends, plus several more over Zoom. It really was the most beautiful and perfect day!
We were initially planning to get married in England, and were even at the stage of choosing a venue, when we discovered that we were unable to get married in the UK because of the fact we were a heterosexual couple in a civil union (which we entered into for practical reasons, always with the intention of converting it to a marriage at a later date). That left us with three options: have a non-legally binding wedding in the UK and just pretend to be married afterwards, though we would technically still be in a civil union; dissolve the civil union in order to get married in the UK; or get married in Chile. The third option was definitely the most preferable, but sadly, we knew that it would make it very difficult for my mum and dad, or any of our family and friends from the UK to attend.
However, on later reflection, I do actually feel that Chile was always the best option, and the wedding itself really confirmed that to me. For starters, Claudio has a bigger family and more friends than me, so it was nice to have a big celebration with all of them, especially as we're going to be living over here in the UK for at least the next two years so won't get to see them very often. Aside from that, I've always really liked the idea of having a beach wedding somewhere sunny, and that's not particularly easy to do in England! Claudio was definitely more into the idea of an English country wedding than I was - the main reason I wanted to get married in the UK was just so my parents could be there - but from the moment we saw Yachting Hotel Quintero on matrimonios.cl (a Chilean wedding planning website), we both knew it was our dream venue.
It was challenging at times to plan our wedding from afar; though Claudio had a few months in Chile last year sorting out his UK visa, I never actually visited the venue until the day before the wedding! Thankfully, we had a lot of help from my in-laws, especially my mother-in-law Ivonne, to get things organised, and then in the week before the big day, it was all hands on deck to finalise all the little details. In the end, the day went even better than we could have imagined, and we were so happy. The only thing missing was the fact that my parents couldn't be there in person, but at least we were able to live stream the ceremony and chat with them a bit afterwards. We're also planning to have some sort of celebration here and take photos with them at some point in the next few months, which we're looking forward to.
So, with all that said, now it's time to get into some photos! This is how our wedding weekend played out...
The Day Before
We loaded up the car and drove to Quintero from our Airbnb in Santiago early in the morning, where we met up with Claudio's parents for our "manifestación" in the registry office at 11 am. The manifestación is basically where they check all your documents are in order so that everything runs smoothly in the wedding ceremony the following day. Once that was done, we went over to the hotel to unload the cars and check into our room. We had our room specially decorated for the occasion, which I absolutely loved! Plus, the view was stunning.
The afternoon was taken up with last minute preparations, such as putting together our favours and going to buy photo frames from the local Chinese mall for our cake table. But we had a nice evening together afterwards in the hotel restaurant. One of several nontraditional aspects of our wedding was the fact that neither of us had a hen/stag party, so it was good to have a little celebration by ourselves before the wedding. We had been given a voucher for a free pisco sour each, which we took advantage of, and we also had some food. Though vegetarian options were lacking, I ordered the vegetable and shellfish pasta without the shellfish, and it was really delicious!
Another non-traditional thing we did was staying in the same room the night before the wedding. I'm glad we did, because not only was it cheaper and easier, but we spent most of the following day apart before the wedding itself, so the moment we saw each other at the ceremony wasn't any less special.
The Big Day
Claudio and I said goodbye to each other at around 11:00, after my hair and makeup artist, Bárbara arrived. Ivonne, Bárbara and I went up to mine and Claudio's room to get ready, while Claudio went down to his parents' room.
We had a nice relaxing afternoon getting ready and listening to music, but at around 16:30, I started getting nervous. The wedding was meant to be at 17:00 and by 16:45, hardly anyone had arrived yet! I was watching through the net curtains, and could see Claudio going between the hotel and the beach several times looking nervous!
At last, at some point after 17:00, I was given the go ahead to go down to the ceremony, accompanied by Claudio's dad, who's also called Claudio, and Jackito the beagle!
The Ceremony
It's now time to start sharing some of our professional photos, taken by our photographer Alexis. I really love all these photos, and there are a lot of them, but I'll try to just share some favourites in order to not overload this post!
Walking down the aisle towards Claudio was such a special moment. When we met at the end of the aisle, it was very emotional for both of us, and definitely one of the parts of the day that will stay in our memories forever.
It was then time for us to get married! We said "I do" (or actually "Sí, quiero"), signed the papers, put on our rings with the help of Claudio's cousins Pascale and Baltazar, and that was it - it was official. We felt so much happiness to have finally made this huge commitment to each other for the rest of our lives.
This was where the celebration part of the day began, starting with drinks and canapés next to the swimming pool and photos with all our guests. We also had the chance to speak a bit with our guests on Zoom, including my mum and dad, my sister, brother-in-law and baby nephew, my friend Sophie, my aunt and uncle, my godfather, and some of Claudio's family and friends who couldn't make it in person.
Afterwards, our guests went into the dining room, while we had a photoshoot for just the two of us. These photos are some of my favourites!
The Wedding Reception
We entered the dining room, where we were asked to make our speeches straightaway. I hadn't been expecting to speak so soon, and with my nerves I forgot most of the notes I'd written earlier, but I managed to remember some of it in time! After we sat down, Sebastián from Eventos Cruces, our events planner, went round all the tables asking who wanted to make a speech, so several of our guests ended up speaking. I thought this was really nice compared to the UK tradition, where generally it is just the groom, the bride's dad and the best man who speak, which is quite old-fashioned.
Then the dinner was served. For most of the guests, it was ceviche, followed by beef with potatoes and vegetables, and then tiramisù and crème brûlée for dessert, but I had the vegetarian option of avocado and tomato salad for the starter and veggie meatballs instead of beef with the main course. It was all very delicious, especially the desserts!
The next stage of the night was the disco, which of course started with our first dance to the song Caminar de Tu Mano by Río Roma, a band we saw live at the Teletón in 2022. We hadn't practiced much beforehand, but I think it went okay!
Claudio had the idea of hiring a 360 degree camera for the party, which I wasn't really sure about, but now I have to admit it was a great idea. It gave people something to do other than dancing, and everyone had a lot of fun making videos with it!
One of the other highlights was of course cutting the cake. We had a little display next to the cake with photos of our loved ones who either couldn't be there in person (my mum, dad, sister, brother-in-law and nephew) or who had passed away (my cat Pickle and my Nana, and Claudio's grandmother, grandfather and great-grandmother).
Other than that, we all had fun dancing the night away!
The Day After
We were both super happy to wake up married for the first time! And now that the wedding was over, we finally had some free time to enjoy the hotel pool!
After checking out of the hotel, we had a nice day exploring some of Quintero's beaches, starting with Cueva Del Pirata (Pirate's Cave), where the water rushes in and out of a little cave.
Later in the day, we went to Playa Los Enamorados (The Lovers Beach) and Playa de Los Enamorados (also known as Las Conchitas - The Little Shells). These beaches are absolutely beautiful and have definitely gone straight into my list of my favourite beaches of all time.
We drove back to Santiago that evening, tired but very happy! Our wedding day was fantastic and we enjoyed it so much, but it was definitely a relief to not have to think about wedding planning anymore, and also just a great feeling to finally be properly married.
Here's to the rest of our lives together!
