The Plans Behind Our Surprise Wedding

Image by Jonathan Ong via How To Throw A Surprise Wedding

With a date locked in, venue booked, celebrant and photographer organised – we started to discuss whether to tell our families what we were up to. Mark initially said “nup – they can find out on the night and be surprised like everyone else”. Which I did think would be fun – keeping the whole thing a secret between just the two of us.

But I also had a feeling taht pulling off a surprise wedding would be no easy feat, and perhaps having half a dozen people in on our plans, could work in our favour. There would no doubt be little things that would come up along the way, that we might need their help with. Plus I felt it might be too much of a shock for them to find out on the day.

So we let my parents and sister, as well as Mark’s mum, brother and sister-in-law into our “inner sanctum”. They’d have no chance to throw in their 10 cents worth, with everything already locked in! We were determined to have the day we wanted- not the day other people wanted us to have!

Thankfully we had nothing to worry about – everyone thought our plans were terrific. They were all sworn to secrecy. We knew the more people we told, the less of a surprise it would be and stressed this to them. It was important we had our story straight and they also needed to be across what to say if anyone asked how our wedding plans were coming along.

That story was, we were looking at resort options for a destination wedding in Bali in May 2013. That ‘said wedding’ would be small but that a bigger engagement party had been discussed so everyone would get a chance to be a part of the celebration (this way, when people got their invitation they’d be more likely to come, because a small wedding overseas might not see them included on the guest list).

A full-blown bridal party wasn’t for us. Just a witness each – and so we also had to tell Mark’s Best Man and my Bridesmaid of the plans, which were again greeted with much delight and excitement. And again, a vow to keep our secret under lock and key.

The general idea was set. An engagement party that would become a wedding. Now it was time to build on that idea and start to work out how the reveal would happen on the night. We threw around a number of ideas and brainstormed different possibilities.

Should we have a sign out the front, welcoming everyone to our wedding? Should Mark and I turn up late to our engagement party – with a celebrant in tow? The logistics proved quite a headache and after numerous discussions, we agreed that we had come up with the best way to hopefully get maximum surprise – and both be able to see and enjoy the reactions of our family and friends.