It’s Friday, so you know what that means – time to look back on another wedding day!  We’re counting down to the day Martin and I got married and celebrating the core of every home (our families!) all in one.  Family is such a lovely thing to celebrate.  Every time we share another wedding on Making This Home, I find myself giving Martin an extra hug and racing to the phone to say hi to my mom.

Christy’s story today is no different.  She’s become a fabulous online friend of mine, and today her husband celebrates a birthday.  What a great time to look back on the day she married her dream guy, huh?  So everyone, meet Christy and her birthday boy, Matt:

You’re an American living in the United States, yet you got married overseas. Could you tell us about your decision to do this?

Sure – it was a super easy decision, actually. My husband (Matt) is Welsh, from a very small town in South Wales called Ystradgynlais, and his mother lived there. She was disabled, and thus unable to travel to the United States, so when we got engaged, I immediately ‘offered’ to get married in Wales! Matt was thrilled – as he had hoped his mother could attend our wedding, of course!

How did you make all of the arrangements from the US?

We got engaged in September, and were already planning on spending that Christmas with his family in Wales. His mother said she knew just the place for our fairy tale wedding – a castle just down the road called Craig Y Nos. It had just been refurbished as an events center, and was available for weddings! I completely trusted her, so we booked it in October, site unseen. When we did visit in Christmas, I fell in love with it and I began planning all the details with their wedding coordination, for our wedding just four months away, in April!

Wait.  You were married in a castle?  You’re going to have to expand on this.  It sounds too dreamy!

I know, right?! It was dreamy. Ours was the first international wedding to be held at Craig Y Nos – they flew the Welsh and American flags for us! And we rented out all the rooms – it was a small affair, only 28 guests including our parents. But it was perfect! A couple of our very good  friends came from the States, as did my aunt and cousin, and my cousin from Istanbul came with her family too. The rest were Matt’s closest friends and family members from England and Wales.

Will you tell us about your dress and how you got it there?

We wanted to pay for as much of the wedding ourselves as possible. So we did the whole thing for about $5,000 USD.  Seriously.  One way we saved a bunch of money was on the clothing! We bought Matt a tuxedo, which he has worn again, and I wore a bridesmaid’s dress in white!

You see, I found these red bejeweled shoes first. Aren’t they gorgeous? I’d never seen anything like them, and knew I just had to have them – but the only way I could justify them would be to wear them as my wedding shoes.

Once I had the shoes, I decided I needed to wear a short dress, to show off the shoes. I went to several bridal stores, but they were all too expensive, so I ended up in the Macy’s bridal salon, and found a beautiful, simple bridesmaid’s dress that came in ivory and fell in love. It cost less than half the price of the shoes! And I bought a spool of red ribbon to match my shoes, and used that around my waist, and had red sparkly earrings and a matching barrette.

Along with my veil, my outfit was complete! I carried my dress and veil over in a garment bag, and the lovely flight attendants put it in storage in the 1st class cabin, and bumped us up to economy plus!

Did you honor any Welsh traditions?

We did NOT serve fruitcake, much to many of our guests dismay! And we did NOT read our wedding cards aloud. To be honest, I didn’t even realize we were supposed to read the cards aloud until after the wedding was over. We did have all of family members wear boutineres and coursages, per Welsh tradition. And our ceremony was in English, and Welsh.

What were some of the hardest things about getting married overseas?

I can honestly say it wasn’t that hard – because Matt’s mom and our wedding coordinator were fantastic. One slight hiccup – I’m not a fan of the carnation flower, and that was my only request regarding the flowers – no carnations please. So of course, on the morning of the wedding, what do we find when they’re unloading the floral arrangements? Loads and loads of carnations! I just had to laugh; it was too funny!

Now you have to us about some of the best things.

The memories of gathering our families together to celebrate our marriage. Neither of my parents had ever been out of the United States before, so getting to see them explore London and the Welsh countryside was amazing. We rented a minibus and made it a three day affair. One of Matt’s friends came along with us and my whole family, and we drove all around South Wales for two days before our wedding exploring castles and pubs. It was a trip of a lifetime, culiminating in our wedding! It simply doesn’t get any better than that!

Thank you so much for having me Katie – it’s been so fun remembering what a great time our wedding was!

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And thank you, too, Christy!  Wasn’t her wedding dreamy?  (And I don’t just mean because they bypassed the fruitcake tradition, either.)

Peek into all the international weddings our friends and family have shared on Making This Home (from Vienna to Japan) on the International Wedding Page.  Of course it includes our wedding, too!