 |
|
 |
Destination weddings are supposed to be fun, easy and enjoyable. So why am I totally exhausted and broken after our week long wedding celebrations?
In hindsight there are some things that we did right, and some things that we did very wrong – combined that meant that our guests had a great time (which of course makes us happy) but that we were totally worn out, and in reality, didn’t have that much fun until the end.
If I could do things all over again there are many things I would have done totally differently – so I thought a Do and Don’t list would help other people that were considering a destination wedding.
DO
have one wedding If you have a destination wedding, or are from different cultures you don’t need to have multiple celebrations. I’m from Canada and my husband is from Argentina. I’m so happy we had a destination wedding in one location instead of having one wedding in Canada and one in Argentina. More of our friends would have been able to join us if we’d had two weddings, but it would have been a total nightmare to organize. One wedding is a ton of work, I can’t imagine planning two!
find a location that’s easy to get to and is central for most guests With people coming from all different locations it’s great if you can find a place that’s somewhere in the middle. Since we had people coming from South America, and the East and West Coast of Canada/ the US, Mexico was a good choice. It also meant that everything happened on neutral territory and neither of the families would feel like they were being favoured or disadvantaged.
try and spend quality time with each guest The reality is that people travel very far, and pay quite a lot to celebrate with you, so make sure that they know you appreciate it. Spending a bit of time with each person makes the whole affair seem more personal, and your guests will be happy that they got to have quality time with you at such a busy time.
make a wedding night party that is unique to you This is your chance to do something different – you don’t have to follow rules. Do what’s right for you! While we were away two other guests had birthdays, so we included a special shout out and birthday cakes for them at our reception. It isn’t the typical thing to do, but it made the event extra special for those guests.
make arrangements for all your guests to enjoy Each wedding has a special set of needs/wants and personalities. Keep those in mind when planning and anticipate your guests needs so that you can make arrangements and they can enjoy the whole party with you. For example, we had lots of young families at our wedding, so we made arrangements for kids meals (fries and chicken fingers) to be served before adult meals, high chairs to be at tables, and baby sitters to be on hand to either take the kids to their rooms, or watch over them in the seating area. That way the kids were happy, and the parents were free to relax and enjoy the party. Our plans worked out too, almost all of the parents stayed until 2am because all of the normal headache details were taken care of for them.
have your bachelor/bachelorette parties on the same night That way all the messy stuff will be taken are of in one night, and one of you won’t be left at home wondering what’s happening with the other.
have the wedding early on in the week The early you have the wedding, the earlier you relax. We decided to have the wedding on day five of our seven day stay. It was a mistake. If you get there on Sunday have the wedding on Wednesday. You will allow yourself a few days to take care of details and then you can relax with your friends after. We arrived on the Sunday and had the wedding on Friday – it meant we spent five days receiving guests, making plans for our wedding, spending time with everyone – it also meant we spent no time relaxing and enjoying the fruits of our labour. The only time we relaxed was for four hours on the day we left. Seriously.
stay after the wedding You and your forever mate will be exhausted after the wedding – so plan some downtime for after the wedding. My biggest regret is not spending time together alone after our wedding. We were both totally exhausted after our wedding – and we had not spent any time together alone for a whole week. It took a toll on us, and for a whole week I didn’t feel that close to my (now) husband, which is a real shame when you are getting married. With everyone around it’s understandable, so if you are planning a destination wedding make sure you set aside some “you time” after the wedding to relax, enjoy and reminisce about the wedding.
DON’T
expect the wedding coordinator to be a lifesaver They are coordinators…which means they coordinate, it doesn’t mean that they do everything. What we thought was going to be an easy event to organize because we had a coordinator on board was not so easy after all. The coordinator was the middle man, so saved us from negotiating directly with different suppliers, but it still meant that we had to make all the plans, come up with all the choices, provide all the direction, and solve all the problems. The only thing the coordinator did was show us a few rooms that we could get married in, show me a few flower samples, and call the suppliers to order stuff we asked for. We thought we’d be out sipping margaritas because we had a wedding coordinator…but we were sooo wrong!
over extend yourself Yes, you are a host, but set limits for yourselves. We spent so much of our energy worrying about our guests, and if they were having fun, that we drained ourselves. We had almost no downtime, and as a result we were both very testy, edgy, and we spent no time on the beach relaxing or enjoying the resort. The only things we saw were restaurants, the spa, our wedding coordinators office, and the banquet room for the party. We need to go back next year to see what we missed out this time!
put your guests requests above your own desires It’s hard when everyone is asking for things and wants something different, but you need to be able to brush it off and do what you want. Both my husband and I are very accommodating people, and my husband loves to host people. So that meant that we spent so much time trying to help people out, finding fun things for them to do, letting people interrupt us all day long. It’s great to wear the hostess party hat, but when it takes a toll on you, it’s time to put the hat away and let people figure some things out for themselves.
pay for friends and family to come if it’s outside of your comfort level When you have a destination wedding it means your guests will have to pay a lot to join you – and that means not everyone can afford it. Some couples will help their friends and family get there, others will not. Half our wedding budget was set aside for helping certain people come to our wedding. When the actual wedding came it was great to see our family together and some of our friends were sooo helpful and we were thrilled to be able to help. But others were a huge disappointment. One guest didn’t even thank us for helping, never made any effort to see us at the resort, and if anything did some things that took away from our wedding experience (i.e. totally inappropriate stag party). I felt like we bankrolled his family vacation. If I could do it again I would only pay for close family (maybe 3), and one close friend on either of our sides. Keep in mind that when you cover guests travel expenses your destination wedding will end up being just as expensive as a North American wedding (upward of $35,000), if not more.
|
|
|
On March 5th I officially became a Mrs, and it was quite a celebration to mark this event!
In my mind I pictured this being a relaxing and pampered day…but it’s a lot of work to get pampered! In the morning I had my nails done, followed by hair and makeup in the afternoon.
I wanted to have pictures taken with my husband when we had our wedding outfits on, and while we had full sunlight, but I didn’t want to interrupt our event between the ceremony and the reception…so we did things a little differently. We had our pictures taken before our actual wedding! It’s a tad unconventional for the groom to see the bride in her dress before the ceremony, but we’re not really conventional people.
coming to pick up the bride
When the photographer arrived we spent an hour and a half having our pictures taken. We posed and chatted and kissed for the camera. So much kissing! I’m not much of a camera kisser, it seems kind of cheesy to me, but every second picture our photographer wanted a smooching pose, until I said “enough!”
so much kissing!
After our pictures I went back to our room where my aunt and uncle were waiting for me. Originally I was going to walk down the aisle by myself, just because I’m that independent kind of girl, but it didn’t seem right. My aunt and uncle are like my second parents, and they, more than anyone, have mentored me, and guided me to become the person I am today. If anybody deserves the honour of walking me down the aisle it’s them.
So with my aunt and uncle we went to the gazebo where our ceremony was going to take place. We practiced our walk in the room, but when we walked down the aisle we were all in a different step! But even funnier than that…I forgot to show my train! My dress stayed in the bustle while I was walking down the aisle and throughout the ceremony. Even in the pictures before the ceremony. Ooops!
When I got to the gazebo and was ready to exchange vows I felt really excited and a tad nervous. I just remember having a huge smile on my face. It was a nice environment and I totally forgot that there were a bunch of people watching us in what I think is a very intimate experience. The only funny, and cheesy thing, was that when we exchanged our vows the justice of the peace gave us a microphone to repeat after him. Is that normal in weddings? It seemed very strange to me, but if we didn’t have them no-one would have heard us.
After the ceremony we had a champagne toast with the guests, followed by an outdoor cocktail hour. The whole week the evenings had been really chilly, but luckily on this night we had a nice warm breeze that was perfect for our cocktail hour. We had chairs outside, great music, some snacks and an open bar – everything you need for a cocktail hour!
finally a chance to relax!
After an hour or so of cocktail hour we went into the reception room and got ready for dinner. Since some of our guests had birthdays on our actual wedding day we decided to incorporate that into our wedding party. First, we had a three year old Isabella’s birthday song and cake. It was very cute! We also had a birthday at midnight for my new sister in law.
When dinner came we arranged for the kids meals, chicken fingers and French fries, to come out first, followed by the four course adult meals. Our first course was tomato and mozzarella salad with a pesto drizzle, followed by a Mexican lemon and chicken soup, and our main course of beef tenderloin. The food was excellent! We had crème brulle for dessert, but I was too busy having fun to eat any.
When the dinner was over we started dancing and getting wild. For Argentininan’s weddings are not formal affairs where everyone is on their best behaviour – instead it’s a time to get silly, have fun, and act wild!
the groom being thrown by friends
taking the groom to the bar
When the cake came out we were too tipsy and wild to enjoy cutting it, so we let it sit on the table, and decided to cut it the next day with just our family around. It was the perfect way to do it, because really we wouldn’t have enjoyed it doing it on our wedding night. We had done our obligations all week long, and the last thing I was interested in was doing one more thing that was formal and planned and involved us passing out cake and making sure we included everyone.
So instead on our wedding night we kept on dancing, drinking, and letting loose all night long. It was a very fun event, and definitely memorable.
|
|
|
Today is International Women’s Day, and for all women, including you….yes, YOU, this is a great day to sit back, reflect, and find out what you really want out of your life.
We have so much more freedom than before, so many more opportunities and so much more access to pretty much everything.
So what are you going to do about it?
GIRLS, GO OUT THERE AND GET THE LIFE YOU WANT!!!!!!
sit back, relax, and plan your dream life
Today is a day to dream large. Always wanted to open a spa, climb Everest, set up a date night with your husband every two weeks? Whatever it is that will help you achieve your dream life go out there and get it! Don’t make excuses, and stop thinking about all the reasons why you can’t do it, or it won’t work out.
Everyone has a chance at a dream life. Do you have the courage to live yours?
|
|
|
EEEKS!
I’ll let you know all the juicy details after the big do!
|
|
|
While we are in Mexico for our destination wedding we are lucky enough to have many Spanish speaking friends with us, and very lucky that they are willing to put together some tours for us.
These are not your get on the big tourbus with the guy making bad jokes selling you expensive and crappy beer kind of tours.
These are the kind of tours where you hire all your own things, like bus, driver, food, drinks etc…and get them to take you where you want to go and completely on your schedule.
I’m thrilled we were still able to tour, and see all the great things the Mayan Riviera has to offer, but we don’t have to get herded here and there, have people trying to sell us time shares, and spend a set amount of time at every place with zero flexibility.
Hello freedom, this is a great and different kind of touring.
|
|
|
When we arrived in Mexico it was late, we were hungry, and none of the restaurants were open, nor where there any front desk managers avaialbe.
So we all checked in and got ourselves sorted and just kind of “made do”. But when I woke up the next day I was not a happy camper. Because we are having a wedding in the resort we’ve helped to bring in more than 20 room reservations for our guests, and we have a hefty tab to cover for our reception…so why were we in this dark little room.
I woke up at 730 the next day enraged at the situtation…and quickly tried to figure out all our upgrade options and where we could move to and how much extra it would be. When I talked to the reception desk folks they were totally indifferent to my requests to get upgraded without paying since I’d help to bring in so much business.
So, our option was to upgrade our room, pay the difference and cut back the amount extra we had to pay on our room from our reception tab. It doesn’t make sense to give a resort more money when they don’t consider how much business we’re bringing in.
Happy with our solution to keep on budget, but just move up to a bigger and more expensive master suite, we packed once again and moved on. And when we got to our new suite it was wonderful!
For me it was really important to have a nice big place where people would want to come visit us, and also a place where family can gather and relax where young parents don’t have to be so on guard with their children wondering off, and in case you just want to have a relaxing time with friends and family and gather and relax together, without the million other distractions an all inclusive offers.
It really is true, room upgrades are always worth it!
|
|
|
When everyone arrives in Mexico they normally get off the bus, check in, and have several cocktails…
But when you are planning a wedding that happens in a few days that’s not quite how it works. You get off the bus, check in, and look at every single thing from cocktail glasses, to roofs, to bathrooms to figure out where your wedding should be, where the cleanest bathrooms are, and which drinking glasses you want to serve cocktails in. Not exactly relaxing!
