Now, deciding on themes and coming up with creative wedding ideas is no easy job. It’s often even more difficult to portray those ideas to other people, particularly when they’re the person who is going to turn your concept into a reality. I’m a bit of a control freak and I find it really hard to just let go and hand my ideas on to other people, but every now and then you just have to trust that they are the experts and they know what they’re doing more than you do.
The key here I think is to be happy that you’ve described what you want in enough detail whilst keeping that careful balance of allowing their creative flair to shine through and influence the design as well. I may, for example, know what types of flowers I want in terms of colour and placement, but the way they are arranged and the exact flowers used to create that overall picture is best left in the hands of the professionals.
With this in mind, on the next day of our scouting mission in our tropical wedding venue of La Palma my parents took us on another extraordinary journey up the mountains and around the winding cliff paths to find a real restaurant with a view! Set right on the cliff edge overlooking a cavernous valley forged by the volcanic eruptions that shaped the island over hundreds of years, the Balcon de Taburniente restaurant is a truly spectacular place to dine. However despite the delicious aromas emanating from the kitchen, for this particular meeting food was not on the menu.
.jpg "Balcon Du Taburiente")
A side business of this particular establishment is the creation of balloon art. The owners provide stunning balloon based decor for a range of events across the island, and we felt this would be a fun and simple way to spruce up our reception venue for all the guests. From my parents’ last visit they had brought pictures of balloon arches used as a grand entrance to various venues and we really liked the idea of a multi-coloured arch welcoming our guests into the restaurant and immediately setting up our tropical theme for the venue.
There was just one problem… our balloon artists don’t speak English.
Fortunately they remembered my parents from their last visit (though they only chose to let on to this fact after enjoying a frantic display of balloon mime for quite some time). They produced a photo album and we were quickly able to spot almost exactly what we had been looking for, although we wanted the colours from one picture on the arch shape and design of another. Simple enough to do but not so simple to translate.
“WE WOULD LIKE THESE….(pointing) THESE… BALLOONS IN THE ARCH…ARCHO DE BALLOONOS, BUT WITH THESE (more frantic pointing) COLOURS…COLORES…LOTS OF COLORES….MUCHO.”
“Que?”
This went on for some time.
As I continued to speak in an unusually loud voice in the hope that something would register and as my parents began to mime rainbows and arches it was clear we were not going to be able to get what we wanted through a simple lack of ability to communicate. It would appear all was lost, we would not be getting our balloon arch after all. All of a sudden a voice at the back piped up.
“Lo siento paras mi amigos. Le gusta el arco de globos completo aqui, pero con todos colores, por ejemplo rojo, verde, azul, naranja. Tambien, le gusta solo pocos globos circundante el cuarto. Es posible?”
“Si si, no es problema”
“Cuanto es?
“Approximadimente… 180 euro mas o menos.”
“Muy bien, muchas gracias. Yeah she says that’s fine, it’ll be round about 180 euros.
“WHAT????!!!!!!” Matt you can speak Spanish??
“Solo un poco”.
“Why the heck didn’t you do the talking???”
“Well I always get embarrassed because my grammar’s not very good and I thought you had it in hand so I went to look at the menu.”
I regret to inform you, dear readers that the wedding has had to be cancelled after my husband-to-be suffered an unfortunate cliff-top fall. If only we’d been able to order some balloons for him to hang onto such a tragedy might have been avoided. Matt how do you say “Irony” in Spanish?
“Buenos Noches.”
