A bride’s childhood dream came true after all her guests boarded an open top bus then visited a McDonald’s takeaway. Talia Diaz, nee Babidge, wed her beau Juan in the US last year in a small ceremony, but her father Russell and mother Elaine was determined to fulfil her childhood dream a year later. Her dream was to wed on a Yellow Bus with everyone eating at McDonald’s.
A bride’s childhood dream came true after all her guests boarded an open top bus then visited a McDonald’s takeaway.
Talia Diaz, nee Babidge, wed her beau Juan in the US last year in a small ceremony, but her father Russell and mum Elaine were determined to fulfil her childhood dream.
Talia Diaz and hubby Juan on their wedding day in the US.
She returned to the UK on the anniversary of her nuptials and her mum and dad contrived to have her wait at a bus stop.
Talia was overcome with emotion when a double decker Yellow Bus arrived with more than 70 friends and family on board.
Russell, from Bournemouth, works for Yellow Buses and managed to keep the day a total surprise from his daughter.
When Talia and Juan were on board, the bus travelled to McDonald’s in Christchurch where everyone had a takeaway – just as Talia had dreamed.
The bus took all the guests to McDonald’s
Russell said: “When she was a very little girl Talia always said that weddings were boring and when she grew up and got married things would be different.
“She always said that she wanted to get married on a Yellow Bus and have a reception at McDonald’s.
“She married her Venezuelan fiancée last year in the States where they live so it couldn’t be arranged then.
“But my wife and I were determined when she returned to organise the wedding she’d always described from being so small.
“Yellow Buses were great and made the bus available and McDonald’s took all the orders in advance and gave us our own till and everyone went in turn and got their meal.
“We also had cardboard cut-outs of the couple so they could stand behind them and look as if they were in the wedding clothes they married in.
“I’d kept everything a total surprise form Talia and when we were at the bus stop I told her that I wanted to film her reaction to the bus’s graphics when it pulled up.
Yellow wedding (l-r) Fatima Diaz, Juan Diaz, Juan Diaz, Talia Diaz, Elaine Babidge, Russell Babidge.
“When she saw all her friends and family on board she broke down – and she’s not the emotional sort.
“It was a wonderful day and after everyone had eaten we went to the beach.”
Talia said: “Due to various reasons I had to marry my husband in the US without much notice and only my immediate family could come over.
“As a young girl I always thought the best wedding would be to all hop on an open top double decker bus and go to McDonald’s.
“I wanted my bridesmaids to wear lemon and for the people that I love most to be there and a year after I initially got married, this dream, to my ultimate surprise, came true.
Her bridesmaids wore lemon yellow – as she had always wanted.
“Me and my husband were able to come to England for a few weeks and my in-laws had come over to see England for only a week of that.
“We thought it would be a nice idea to take them on an open top bus to better see where I had grown up.
“Never in my life did I imagine what would be waiting for us on that bus!
“My dad works with Yellow Buses and told me to look out for the graphics he’d put together for it and that he was going to film my reaction to them.
“Because my dad is a little eccentric, not even that rang any alarm bells. And my mum managed to keep it secret.
“We waited about five minutes and as the bus starts to drive up to us across the sea front my brain couldn’t work out what was happening.
“At first I just saw and heard a lot of people on the top level of the bus and thought that maybe this bus was too full for us to get on and that we’d have to wait for another.
“It took me a good five or six seconds to work out what I was actually seeing – all these people on the top of the bus were cheering and whistling and saying my name.
“Then I saw a huge banner with me and my husband’s names on it. I broke into a set of uncontrollable tears.
Talia is not the crying sort, but blubbed like a baby
More blubbing
“It was hilarious as I knew that many people on that bus, in 24 years, had never seen me cry before and there I was blubbering like an uncontrollable idiot in front of every single one of them.
“My would-have-been bridesmaids came out of the bus and stood on the pavement all dressed in lemon yellow.
“We went to McDonald’s, then to the beach at Branksome Chine before heading back to Hengistbury Head where everyone had parked. The weather was superb and it was honestly the best night of my life.”
Watch the video here https://vimeo.com/224664004
Note to Editors:
For more information, please contact: Andrew Diprose, Director, Deep South Media Ltd, PR consultants to Yellow Buses, on 01202 534487. Or Ed Baker on 01202 534487 or 07788392965.
About Yellow Buses:
Yellow Buses operates a fleet of 131 buses and 18 coaches with a staff of 430. It carries just under 15m passengers a year with its vehicles operating nearly five million miles across the Bournemouth, Poole, Christchurch and East Dorset area. Yellow Buses is part of RATP Group, the world’s fifth largest public transport provider.
RATP Dev
RATP Dev is a RATP group subsidiary set up in 2002 to export the Group’s operation and maintenance knowhow outside the historic network operated by RATP in the Paris region. RATP Dev now operates in 15 countries on four continents (United Kingdom, France, Italy, Switzerland, Algeria, Morocco, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, India, China, South Korea, the Philippines, the USA and Brazil). In 2015 RATP Dev generated revenue of more than 1.1 billion euros.
RATP group
With 14 million passengers every day worldwide, RATP group is the fifth largest urban transport operator in the world. The multimodal network operated by RATP in the Paris region, with its 14 metro lines (including two driverless lines), two regional express network (RER) lines, seven tramway lines, 350 bus lines and shuttle services catering to the region’s two international airports, is the largest of its kind in the world to be managed by a single company.
RATP group can devise, design and implement infrastructure development projects, operate and maintain networks irrespective of the transport mode (metro, regional train, tramway and bus) and develop innovative services to promote mobility such as passenger information, electronic ticketing, pricing and customer marketing. The automation of Paris metro’s Line 1, which was completed at the end of 2012, is a world first and once again has demonstrated the ability of RATP group to complete particularly complex projects.
RATP group has a workforce of nearly 60,000 worldwide and in 2015 generated revenue of 5,556 million euros.
