I definitely had my doubts when, at the end of March 2013, we received a request for proposal from a Bulgarian girl living in Malta, engaged to a Slovak boy, and wanting to get married in Plovdiv. The reasons for my doubts were several:
♦ We didn’t know the city very well
♦ Didn’t have enough information about local wedding vendors, besides the wedding forums and several recommendations from friends who have attended weddings in Plovdiv
♦ The trips to Plovdiv, at least 3 mandatory trips for organization and wedding attendance, would increase the cost of our proposal. The increase would not be much, but still.
Five and a half months later, I am writing this article with a sense of great satisfaction of a job well done.
But, let’s go back to the beginning. The wedding organization inquiry was followed by a Skype conversation with the bride-to-be and an offer. A week later, the offer was accepted and we started working together with Sophie and Juraj.
♥ We presented the necessary steps and documents for a foreigner to be legally married in Bulgaria.
♥ We contacted the Slovak embassy and enquired about the needed steps Juraj had to take to be able to legally get married in Bulgaria.
♥ We researched the requirements for issuing a medical certificate to a foreigner and assisted Juraj (Sophie as well) to receive the needed document.
We checked the important wedding choices meticulously and efficiently: venue, official and religious ceremonies, decoration, photograph, DJ. We put together lists with recommended vendors, Sophie reviewed them, we organized skype sessions with the down-selected choices, and based on her impressions, Sophie made the final choices. Working with Sophie was a real pleasure – she had clear and precise requirements and for the rare moments she wasn’t able to decide – she followed our professional advices. We exchanged more than 130 emails and stored more than 148MB worth of documents in the Sophie and Juraj wedding folder.
A week after our first face-to-face meeting, the wedding day went smoothly and the celebration was perfect. Everything was calm, with a sense of purpose, and with no tension or stress.
We would like to thank Mrs. Lazarova for her assistance with the foreign guests’ transportation and the wonderful city tour she and her team delivered. Special thanks to the Sankt Peterburg restaurant team, especially Galia and Nasko, for the organization assistance and excellent service, to Galia for the beautiful wedding decoration and warm manners, to Viktor, who with the help of the best man made a great party after 22:00, and to Grisha who was both invisible and everywhere and whose photos we are very eager to see.
As far as our presence and coordination on the wedding day, we were the shadows that preceded the wedding party to prepare everything for their arrival.
And finally, the answer to our original question “Is it possible for a wedding agency based in Sofia to organize a wedding in Plovdiv for future bride and a foreigner-groom who are not living in Bulgaria?” The answer is loud and clear – YES!
