After what felt like a lifetime on the phone I eventually established that we could in fact get married on the Island… well, sort of… The words “yes yes yes, no problemo no problemo” appeared in numerous conversations, generally followed by a long list of what sounded suspiciously like problems. After a while I worked on the basis that it was possible, though exactly where we could get married was another matter entirely. It seemed that whatever we did we would need to go to a town hall somewhere to sort out paperwork, though no-one could tell me whether we could actually get married in the town hall or whether this was purely the signing of papers. In fact, I wasn’t even particularly clear what these papers were, for all I knew at this point I may have been put through to the wrong department and we might well be discussing where I could find some toilet paper. I was frankly baffled, no-one I couldn’t be sure whether anyone I spoke to had the faintest idea what I was talking about and I can damned well guarantee that I didn’t know what they were trying to say… it was time to call in the big guns!
Dom’s parents have many friends on the Island and so we asked Peter to make a strategic call to one of them… I can’t help feeling we’re going to owe a lot of people a lot of favours by the time we eventually reach our wedding! Anyway, they promised to look into it for us and so, happy that the ceremony was in absolutely no way sorted and still unclear as to whether we were going to end up legally married only on an obscure tropical Island, we moved on to planning the reception.
We had previously discussed a restaurant sized reception and here at least we did have some prior knowledge. Although Dom and I had only been across to La Palma once before, her parents owning some property on the Island meant that they were regular visitors, and whereas Dom and I had rejoiced in our retreat from the British weather by spending much of the week having sizzling hot barbecues on the roof of the apartment, the Shaw’s had visited a fair few restaurants in their many visits over the years.
The first to be mentioned was Hotel Sol – one of the biggest hotels on the Island, situated in Puerto Naos across the beach from the Shaw’s apartment. The hotel is well equipped with both restaurants and conference rooms and is probably one of the best places to hold a large event on the Island. It’s beachside location, great facilities and experience of dealing with guests from all over the world made it an obvious choice. The trouble was that we were travelling halfway across the world to do something different and get the unique flavour of the Island, and getting married in a big hotel seemed to somehow defy the whole point. It was also much bigger than we really needed for the number of guests we were expecting…really we wanted something smaller with it’s own charm.
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Another idea was Restaurante La Muralla, a restaurant high up in the mountains with beautiful views of the whole Island. The consensus was that It would be a stunning location but that its remote location up an apparently treacherous road would make it virtually impossible to get everyone to and from the venue.
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Another location further down the mountains with a similarly spectacular vantage point was La Balcon’ du Taburiente a restaurant full of rustic charm in stunning scenery overlooking the valley. It would be significantly easier to get guests to and from (although still tricky), but again its remote location had a definite flaw: it was in the middle of no-where… in such a small location with only one real room what would the guests actually be able to do when not eating or taking to the dance floor? The balcony would be a nice setting for drinks, but we would be able to offer little other activity during the day. With this in our minds the question arose: everyone’s staying in Puerto Naos where there’s a gorgeous beach and plenty of places to look around and things to do… why would we move away from the beach?
The beach could be the setting for a post-meal drinks reception, we could encourage our musical friends to bring instruments and play some songs as the sun sets…what could be more perfect? And so the search began for a suitable location in Puerto Naos, and with the hotel ruled out one location sprang instantly to mind…
Stay tuned to the blog to find out what we came up with as our wedding diary continues!
