It finally happened, to me!

I have been with my BF for 6 years and we have lived together for over 4 of those. As a woman in her early 30’s I was starting to get a bit anxious to get on the bridal train. Finally, whilst visiting BF’s parents in Spain he popped the question at the very beautiful village of Guadalest. The view was breathtaking as you can see from the picture above. I had absolutely no idea that he was going to do the deed, in fact I thought that perhaps he never would. BF was acting a little strange on the day, but then he is a little strange so didn’t look into it too much. At one point I turned around and he was looking at a buttercup… I asked him what he was doing and he just muttered something about the colour.

When researching the area before our trip, we had seen online that there was supposed to be a waterfall and lagoon within the Guadalest valley. However, after searching for it for a few hours – while taking in the other beautiful sights – we came to the conclusion that it didn’t exist. Once at the top of the cliff, near the castle ruins BF turned to me, knelt on one knee and said “Well I was going to do this by the waterfall but…” and uttered those words that all women in love want to hear. And yes I did cry. It turned out that the reason he was acting so strange was due to the fact that he didn’t yet have a ring to give me. He had therefore been trying to fashion a ring out of a flower, the first 3 attempts had failed. Well that explained the buttercup incident.

We then stayed in a hotel in Calpe, followed by a hotel in Valencia – celebrating with lots of drinks and yummy Spanish food. I still feel giddy now with the excitement, I can’t believe that I am a betrothed woman. Eeek, it is all extremely exciting.

The buttercup ring that BF proposed with

My actual engagement ring

Spain feign ordain

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I have the most random thoughts at the strangest of times. Last night was one of these times. For some unknown reason whilst watching a recorded episode of Game of Thrones, I had the thought that Spain should be looking at their legislation regarding non-residents not being able to marry (i.e. UK citizens seeking a wedding abroad). One must be resident in the country for 2 years before they can get married in Spain, unlike many of their neighbouring countries who offer the opportunity for non-residents to marry once they have been resident in the respective country for a varying number of days.

It may seem a trivial matter when Spain is in such economic turmoil, but there is a reason behind my thinking. According to hitched.co.uk weddings in the UK are worth around £10,033,768,472 each year, that is a serious amount of money. Of these weddings; 16% of first and 60% of second weddings take place abroad. None of which will legally be able to take place in Spain and this does not take into account couples from around the entire world that may chose to marry in Spain if they were allowed to. One may be able to have a ‘blessing’ in Spain, but this would only complicate matters and put people off wanting to have a legal ceremony in the UK followed by a public wedding in their chosen country.

When every penny (cent) counts, can Spain really ignore the booming ‘Destination Wedding’ industry? With the global economy the way it is, it’s diversify or die.