ANEŽKA & DANIEL

The story is like a movie. It has all the Hollywood ingredients: fast pacing, fateful encounters, breathtaking scenery. Starring: Anežka, a Czech who has spentmost of her life abroad, a photographer and translator of plays; and Daniel,
a Briton who has also lived away from home for many years, a former army captain and now an independent innovation consultant.
Scene 1: The world is in the grip of the Covid pandemic.
Anežka takes photographs for restaurants in her home city of Prague,
while Daniel trains East European military units 200 km
away in Brno and Vyškov. They both download the dating app Bumble and set the distance filter to 50 km,
but a technical glitch in the app connects them anyway. Their first date is seven days later. Daniel is introduced to Anežka’s parents the very next day. 24 hours later they are living together. “From the first message,
we both knew we had met someone special. Within a month, I became pregnant as planned because it felt right to both of us.
Today our daughter Allegra is nearly four,” says Anežka.
Scene 2: The Greek island of Corfu surrounded by turquoise sea.
Anežka’s family has been coming here for twelve years,
to the same spot and the same holiday apartment. Two-year-old Allegra is given the task of delivering the engagement ring.
But at the last minute, she throws a tantrum that registers on the Richter scale. When the ring is finally sparkling on Anežka’s finger and Daniel is kneeling before her, she immediately accepts while soothing her crying daughter.
“I designed a ring with a wave motif, a symbol of the sea, and with two circles conjoined into one,” Daniel explains.
Scene 3: The island of Guernsey in the English Channel.
The family moved here shortly after the birth of their daughter. Anežka longed to raise her child by the sea and Daniel had happy childhood memories from here. Within a year and a day of the engagement, wedding guests gather. They can look forward to exploring the island, an informal garden party to celebrate Allegra’s third birthday, and an intimate wedding ceremony by the sea for 15 people at fifteen hundred hours on 15th June.
“We wanted a wedding with no stress and hassle, an intimate occasion everyone would remember fondly. We wanted to celebrate the lives of everyone involved, and that’s just what we did,” the newlyweds add.
This year the movie of their lives will take them to Portugal. This has all the makings of a blockbuster – scene four, camera, action!

text: Hana Janišová | photo: Martin Faltejsek