I must start by sharing that Leo and I are together for a long time, and we have been “engaged” for some time as well, and the wedding took a little longer to happen because we decided to move to London first and only now, almost five years after we moved, that we found the right time to plan the wedding.
All this explanation to say that our engagement party was actually a party to celebrate our soon-to-happen wedding (which happened four months later).
Since we live far from the country that our family and friends live, trips to Brazil always mean meeting our loved ones. Our engagement party was exactly that. A family and closest friends reunion to celebrate love between all of us.
We also used the opportunity to do two important things.
One of them, which I believe to be very interesting and practical, was to trial some of the services and companies that we were budgeting for the wedding. So, even before we did the food tasting, we would have the opportunity to learn more about what we were planning for the wedding.
And this is how we trialed the buffet company Divani, the sweets from L’ Atelier Ofner, the flowers from André Pedrotti, stationary from Paper House and photos by A Essência.
Of course for this event we hired a much smaller scale of what would happen in the wedding, but having a first contact and samples of what was available definitely helped in the final decision.
Full disclaimer: the photo company was decided a long time ago, since we already knew and admired the work of Amanda and Felipe. A little later I will have a post dedicated to A Essência, but on the day it was important to have them there not only for the amazing pictures, but also so that they could meet the family and understand our dynamic and expectations.
We also had the amazing help from aid/organiser Marina, and through her we got to discover amazing providers.
The buffet was done by Divani, and we decided on a varied menu, full of flavour. From the quality of the food to the presentation, Divani won our hearts and stomachs.
The sweets and cake was provided by L’Atelier Ofner, who also made our mouths water just by looking at them (even the flowers on the cake were edible).
The party happened at a family home, so we wanted some flowers to make the environment a little more decorated. André Pedrotti, a genius when it comes to flower arrangements – simple yet so elegant – a beautiful result.
And the second thing that this party allowed us to do was to officially invite our Godfathers, Godmothers (in Brazil we usually have godparents rather than best man and maid-of-honor), Bridesmaids and Flower Girl. So we prepared a box with gifts and an invitation card. The boxes were made by Paper House.
It was a very special day, full of meaning to us, and where we officially kick started our wedding celebrations – especially because the next four months after this were exclusively dedicated to our wedding – in fact, a week after our engagement party we were already doing the food tasting.
There is nothing better than celebrating with our loved ones.
