A man took his girlfriend on a romantic holiday to Barbados where he proposed and surprised her just three days later with a fully organized ‘magical’ wedding. Adam Blakey and his girlfriend of seven years flew from Manchester Airport to the Caribbean island in April.
Adam convinced Victoria that the trip was to celebrate her 40th birthday, when in reality he had organized a proposal and wedding without his wife’s knowledge. The entrepreneur kicked off the surprises by taking Victoria’s parents to the airport, who had not left the country for over fifteen years.
But it was the first of many surprises for Victoria as her wedding day was just days later. Adam chose Barbados to honor Victoria’s Caribbean heritage and proposed to her while surrounded by roses placed in a heart shape on the beach outside their hotel, before getting married at the same location just days later.
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Adam, who was previously married, had planned to marry Victoria sooner but said it took seven years to complete the paperwork for his divorce, which wasn’t helped by the coronavirus pandemic. He added that he felt the need to take the burden of wedding planning off his partner’s shoulders as a thank you for her patience.
He started planning the wedding in early January 2024, just a week after his divorce was finalized, telling PA Real Life: “I always knew I wanted to marry her, but the subject of marriage was a difficult conversation, and she was so patient about it.
“I tried to reassure her (the divorce) took a long time because there were problems with it, but she was so patient with the whole process that it made me love her even more. ) engagement for years and years in which she is going to wait for her dream wedding, because she’s already waiting. I wanted to plan the whole wedding for her, so all she has to do is say yes, and then everything happens.”
He managed to keep his plans from Victoria a secret as he organizes a surprise holiday for them every year where his wife never knows the destination, and on this occasion he also blindfolded her so that he could secretly take her parents to the airport. He explained: “She thought she was going away in April for my 40th birthday.
“I’m a bit of an old romantic so I always take her with me but she never knows where she’s going. When we actually left she wasn’t surprised by the fact that she didn’t know because that’s been the case for seven years been.” everything we’ve done, and we’ve traveled and done crazy things.
(Image: Ryan Alleyne/PA Real Life)
“When we got to the airport she was blindfolded and she really thought it was just part of the process. She didn’t think about that at all. She took off the blindfold and she saw her mom and dad at the airport and she was absolutely shocked.”
Adam, from Blackpool, organized for his wife’s parents to join them in Barbados, which Victoria described as “the best surprise you could ever do in your entire life”. “We all sat there and thought, ‘Just wait a few more days,’” Adam said.
The couple enjoyed a day of swimming with sea turtles, seeing shipwrecks and riding a catamaran before Adam’s seasickness and nerves set in leading up to the proposal on April 14, the same day as his 40th birthday. He got down on one knee on the beach, surrounded by roses in the shape of a heart, and said: “We walked along, it was all lit up and all the lights were placed in such a way that the heart shape really came out.
“All the candles were really romantic, the sea was just at a perfect level, it wasn’t too close but you could hear it in the background. The steel drummers were playing on the side so it sounded amazing and it was just absolutely perfect. It was like something out of a movie. It was magical.”
(Image: Collect/PA Real Life)
While the proposal may have surprised Victoria, the fact that Adam had planned the wedding days later caused even more shock. He said: “In the proposal I said, ‘Look, I’ve been planning this whole thing for the last three months and our whole wedding day in two days,’ and then she panicked. But she’s involved in the then planning.”
Initially, Adam wanted to marry his partner the day after the proposal, on April 15, but was told by a local wedding dress shop that he needed time to make Victoria’s adjustments. The couple instead got married on the same beach in an intimate ceremony with Victoria’s parents and about 15 hotel guests, who heard about the surprise wedding and wanted to join in, on April 17.
Adam said: “The craziest thing that happened there, believe it or not, was on the day of the wedding. Her grandmother’s favorite song was Somewhere Over The Rainbow, so we played that on the steel drums as she walked down the street. aisle.
“Barbados had a sun halo that day. They’ve never had one before. It’s a perfect rainbow around the sun, which was just crazy and she walked down the aisle towards that. It was clearly intentional. just unbelievable, we all couldn’t believe it.”
(Image: Collect/PA Real Life)
Adam joked that he had created a “surprise within a surprise” for the couple’s return, as he hosted a party with their close friends and family under the guise of his 40th birthday, before unveiling their wedding. He said: “I had a big surprise planned for my 40th birthday. I involved my parents and her parents in the planning.
“Everyone thought they were going to celebrate both my and Vic’s birthdays, but then we walked in and surprised them with the fact that they were actually married. It was like a surprise within a surprise within a surprise, which is just crazy.”
The couple, who have been together for seven years, met on Tinder and Adam knew from an early age that he wanted to marry Victoria. He said: “She was my ‘Tinderella’, she always says. I really knew from day one that I wanted to marry her. I was head over heels and it just worked. When you know, you know.”
(Image: Collect/PA Real Life)
Realizing that she would not be able to witness the planning of her own wedding, Adam also filmed every stage of the process for her.
“Because she wasn’t involved in the planning phase, which she is very grateful for because it is so stressful, I wanted to record the whole thing for her so she could watch it back and see every step from the moment I met her parents and mothers went to ask permission, to go to the ring shop, suits and everything in between,” he said.
The couple have since shared their videos on TikTok, with one video of their parents’ reaction to the surprise racking up nearly 40,000 views. “If money was never an issue, we’d happily give someone else the gift of a secret wedding,” Adam said.
For more information, visit: www.tiktok.com/@thesecretweddinghq.
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