Give us the proposal details! When? Where? How?
Alex proposed to Salma on the 10th of September 2016 in arguably one of the most stunning locations on the planet: Venice, Italy. Salma and Alex had planned a three-week trip to Italy earlier in the year and simply could not wait to get on a plane and enjoy the long-awaited vacation.
We landed in Venice on the 9th of September and the very next day, we woke up quite early (partly due to jet-lag but mostly due to excitement), and decided to watch the sunrise in St. Mark’s square. We quickly got ready and went to explore the beautiful city. As we got to the infamous square, we snapped a few pictures and took in the breath-taking scenery especially that it was still relatively quiet given the time of day we were there; nice and early. We then walked to a little alleyway just off of St. Mark’s Square which was absolutely perfect and very picturesque.
The joy and memories of the day will stay with us forever.
Naturally, we decided to take a photo there, but rather than a regular selfie, we chose to have a full-length photo taken. Thankfully, there was a lovely lady enjoying the scenery and taking photos of the view herself, so we decided to ask her to take a photo of us. Alex was about to ask her to be our photographer and hand her his phone to take the picture when a lost tourist couple walked down the same alleyway with their luggage. Salma was admiring the view at this point, so she didn’t notice Alex’s disappointment as the couple walked down, and later, his sheer relief as they turned around and walked the other way (it was a dead-end).
Upon their departure, Alex handed his phone to the lovely lady who was thankfully still there admiring the view, and asked her very quietly but sternly to take “lots of pictures” in both English and Italian. Salma, oblivious to all of this, was still looking at the beautiful canal and sun shining through, and when she turned around to ask if Alex was ready to take the photo, he was down on one knee!
Needless to say, Salma was in utter surprise and absolute joy! As much as she has always known that this day would come, she did not expect it to be then – at all. Alex was super romantic in his proposal, and we both shed many tears. This was all captured on camera (well, iPhone) of course since our lovely photographer was there snapping many photos as Alex had asked! We even got a selfie with her afterwards, and she was also in tears. We like to think that we definitely made her day! Alex gifted Salma the ring of her dreams and the box in which it was kept was engraved with S & A and was absolutely perfect.
We had the rest of the day to celebrate the news and share it with our families and best friends. We also bought a bottle of Prosecco and plastic cups, then went on a gondola ride and celebrated our news a few hours later. It was by far, the best day of our lives!
What has been your favorite experience planning the wedding?
We have loved putting our Website together and making it our own. We have also loved coming up with personalized ideas from our own centre pieces to a unique guestbook. We have also loved coming up with fun and exciting twists on more traditional speeches / dances and more. The best part is definitely making it your own, unique, fun party – we recommend this for all future brides and grooms!
How do you stay sane under the pressures of wedding planning?
We use a project planning app (Asana) to keep track of our progress, which has really helped. We get our wedding party to help whenever we can and we started planning far in advance. We also have yoga and exercise to keep us sane.
What is your favorite part of using Joy for your wedding?
Being able to track our guest list and just seeing all of the fun info on there – our Website reminds us of how lucky we are to have met one another and of all the amazing people in our lives!
What piece of advice would you give couples to ensure that they use Joy to its fullest potential?
Definitely use the emailing and tracking tools available to you. Also, know how to merge guests so you don’t have duplicated entries. Finally, add fun bits and pieces and lots of pics! This make the Website really memorable for your guests.
At Joy we believe that even though a wedding lasts a day, joy lasts forever. What does that mean to you?
To us, this means that the joy and memories of the day will stay with us forever, and what’s even more awesome is that we will have our Joy Website / App to remind us of our special Website for years and years to come. Hopefully one day, we can show our webpage to our future kiddies.
