Chicago couple’s destination wedding in San Sebastian

Good morning everyone and happy thanksgiving day!,

Kelly and Nathaniel are a couple from Chicago who contacted us to help them to plan their beautiful and simple destination wedding in San Sebastian.

They wanted us to create for them and their guest a “basque experience” so we planned different activities and chose different spots of the city for their wedding day.

The rehearsal dinner wasn’t a dinner by itself. We planned a pintxos crawl around the old part of the city for the couple and their guest. We split them in groups so they could enjoy better the pintxos tour. All the guest ended meeting outside of the church of Santa María and made a champagne toss for Kelly and Nathaniel.

After this enjoyable night everyone was ready to experience the amazing day that 20eventos Wedding Planners had planned.

Kelly and Nathaniel decided to got ready and have the first look at the beautiful and classic Hotel María Cristina. Afterwards they went with María and Iván, from Ivan Perez Photographers, walking to the downtown to do the couple pictures. Meantime the guest picked up the bus that dropped them at the entrance of the funicular (cable car) that would left them at the top of Igeldo Mountain.

Everyone was amazed with the beautiful views that they can enjoyed from the cable car and from the top of the mountain. While the guest waited for the couple they had some drinks at the beautiful Hotel Mercure Monte Igeldo, where the ceremony was going to be hosted.

It has one of the best views of the city and the bay. As the weather wasn’t very clear finally we had to host the ceremony indoor just to be sure that there wasn’t going to rain when the ceremony started. Right after all the guest and the couple went to the terrace and enjoyed glasses of champagne with olives and chips, that way everyone was able to enjoy the amazing views the hotel has.

Once this was over another bus took them to the restaurant where the reception and dinner was going to be served. This restaurant is EMEBE, recently awarded with one Michelin star, the owner is Martín Berasategui, who has more than 9 Michelin stars. It is located in an old typical basque house so this enhanced the “basque experience” vibe that the couple wanted for their wedding.

All the wedding styling was based on the colors and the basque traditions. This is for a great reason because Nathaniel’s ancestors come from San Sebastian, Basque Country area. He feels very proud of his basque roots. The colors chosen for the wedding were all the shades of green with touches of white and blue, the colors of the city of San Sebastian.  We used hydrangeas, since this is the typical flower from our city in summer. The stationery was designed by us and what we proposed them for the table names were the most famous locations of the city (Santa Clara Island, La Concha beach, Monte Igeldo, etc…)

The most funniest thing of the stationery that we designed was the seating plan, since it was very, very original. We embroidered handkerchiefs with the name of the couple and the “Lauburu” (basque symbol that represents the basque identity) , this kind of handkerchiefs are used for the traditional basque festivities and were used by our ancestors. So each handkerchief had tagged a card with the name of a guest. They had to find their name and put the scarf around the neck as the basques do on their traditional festivities.

During the reception apart from the traditional pintxos all the guest enjoyed a delicious Jamón Ibérico station. There was a man cutting Jamón for everyone. The restaurant also has a cider barril, they opened it so any guest could go to the barril and drink basque cider.

Once the reception was over all the guest took seat in the restaurant, we explained them that it is typical in the basque country to take the scarfs and shake them at the rhythm of the music to welcome the newly couple to the dinner area. It was a really funny moment and we are sure any of them will never forget it.

The couple did a welcome speech and afterwards all of them enjoyed an amazing dinner. They cut the cake, did the first dancing and straight after the dancing time started. Nathaniel brought inflate rock guitars and we distribute among the guest. They had a very memorable night.

Thanks so much to this lovely couple which whom we enjoyed planning their destination wedding in San Sebastian.

Thanks to all the suppliers who were involved in this beautiful wedding it was an honor to work with you!!

Wedding planning coordination and styling: 20eventos Wedding Planners

Photographers: Iván Pérez

Make up and hair artist: Amaia Makeup

Flowers: Villa María Luisa

Hotel getting ready: Hotel María Cristina

Ceremony Spot: Hotel Mercure Monte Igeldo

Restaurant: EMEBE

DJ: Burunda DJ

Let me wish to all the readers of this post a fabulous Thanksgiving day. I hope you enjoyed this night with your loved ones. I feel really grateful and blessed for the people that I had met during this year (and the beautiful weddings we had planned for all of them), the family I have and the new member that is coming soon!!

Be happy and be thankful!

Leire