The Proposal

After spending a few years together in London, Nell & Luke decided to pack it all in, escape the rat race & travel to far off lands, for six months. About halfway through their trip and halfway around the world, they found themselves in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was Nell's birthday and they were staying in the city to celebrate. At dusk they took a walk around Christchurch's botanical gardens and it was there that Luke proposed! It was a complete surprise, but he had been carrying around an engagement ring the whole trip! 

We hoped it would feel individual to us, and we hoped it would feel more like an exciting adventure than a day full of the usual tradition and pomp.  

 "We chose Crear after meeting another couple, who married there. From the description of their experience,  it sounded the perfect fit for us too. We had moved around a lot and didn't feel a traditional wedding suited us, but we still wanted a special, memorable day. This is exactly what Crear delivered!"

 We weren't sure if we'd feel any different, but the solemnity of what we were saying really resonated with us, and it has since made us feel stronger together. It's a surprising and amazing feeling to have. 

 "The day was completely relaxed and incredibly exciting at the same time. We chose to get married in October so we were prepared for bad weather. And it looked like that would be exactly what we got: Tropical Storm Opheila was predicted to engulf the UK right at the time we were getting married! But amazingly it swept through the night before and in the hour we had planned to get married the sun came out for a beautiful, atmospheric ceremony. That made it pretty special!

But oh, there were loads of other things that made it special too: having a piper, the wild flower bouquet and button holes, our personalised ceremony with the celebrant Annie, being able to go back to the beach afterwards to watch the sun set.." 

 "We found negotiating the world of weddings pretty tricky, so our advice would be, just try and distil what is important to you and create a day focusing on that, rather than what you think you should be doing."

 Nell & Luke were very relaxed about their outfits. Luke's stylish, navy fleck suit was from Topman, whilst Nell found a dress from London brand Issa, teaming it with a wool jumper from Cos. I think you will agree they look incredibly elegant & didn't need to break the bank!

"The only issue for us was keeping it from our friends and family! We had decided that we wanted it to be just us on the day, which meant a fair bit of subterfuge and dodging a lot of questions in the preceding months. It was such a relief when it all came off and we could ring everyone afterwards!"

Top travel tips from our intrepid explorers

"We are quite experienced travellers, and Scotland is one of our favourites places to visit in the world. We think Edinburgh is a must-see, whilst the Isle of Skye has it all, from mountains to coastline. The Kintyre Peninsula -where Crear is based- is fantastic: connected to the mainland, it has a quiet island feel and is utterly beautiful."

 Where should we go in the world?

"We guess you could call us keen walkers. In fact shortly before we arrived at Crear, we had just finished a 2,000km walk from Canterbury to Rome! We love blogging about travel and found Italy particularly an unbelievable place to visit. Top attractions for us would be Tuscany, the Italian Lakes and of course the Eternal City itself, Rome.

We did a lot of camping which we love, but you can't beat an AirBnB for cheap accommodation in all the right city spots. Plus you can cook your own food!

In 2018, we're planning to head back up to Scotland to do some trails there for our blog. We've got our eye on the Hebridean Way, which is brand new. We absolutely love exploring places on foot which is yet another reason we chose Crear - we got to walk to our wedding, which suited us perfectly."

 * Watch this space for a very special blog, about Nell & Luke's amazing travels by foot *

What with all our moving about, we haven't actually had our honeymoon yet. But we have our eye on 1,001 places to go next. Top of our list is: the Pacific Northwest, Morocco, Japan and more of Italy including finally visiting Venice, and walking the Aeolian Islands.