Fall for a venue—with one major asterisk
While they were pretty sure they wanted to celebrate along the sea, the couple wanted to avoid the sort of all-inclusive, copy-paste, beachy wedding package common to resorts in the area . “We toured a couple of those places in Varna, and they were beautiful, but we wanted to showcase the uniqueness of Bulgaria,” says Nasko.
The final venue they toured, and the one they ultimately chose, screamed Bulgaria: In fact, Euxinograd was the summer palace of the Bulgarian monarchy from its 1880s construction until the monarchy’s abolition in 1946. “It’s this beautiful, soft pink building with gardens all around. The entrance for a lot of our guests came from the sea, and they’d walk up this aisle filled with flowers,” Jess recalls. “Looking at the history, the architecture, the grounds, it was like this fairy-tale wedding was presenting itself to us.” They knew immediately that they’d found their place.
There was some fine print, however. Though it’s also open to tourists, the palace is now a government building that hosts cabinet meetings and diplomatic visits. “One of the scarier stipulations when we were planning was that the Prime Minister [and his team have] the right to cancel our wedding up to a month before,” Jess says. “We loved the venue so much we were willing to take the risk.” With their full trust in IDo, who established a plan B with the nearby Boutique Hotel Oasis, where they ultimately hosted their welcome dinner, the couple was okay taking the plunge for their dream space.
Go all in on flowers
How does one complement a stately brick palace in the Bulgarian Revival style, with mansard roofs and a clock tower, surrounded by elegantly manicured gardens? An exuberant ombre explosion of roses in juicy shades of pink lemonade, kiwi, and cantaloupe orange, obviously.