destination wedding – LongLegsBigCity

I Do or I Do Not – Should You Have a Destination Wedding?

July 5, 2022 1 Comment

One of the first questions I get about our wedding is why we chose to have it in Cabo, and why we wanted a destination wedding in general. We chose Cabo because there were direct flights from New York, it was a bit different and more romantic than Cancun, and because the resort answered my email quickly and they had our requested weekend available. Our initial choice was Ixtapa, on the Pacific coast of Mexico, but the resort ghosted me for a month after our initial 2 emails.

As for why we chose to have a destination wedding, the honest answer is that we didn’t necessarily want a destination wedding, and Chris was really on the fence. But after weighing the pros and cons, it seemed like the only logical choice and, as Chris will get used to in our marriage, I was right. He even admitted it! If you are considering a destination wedding, my advice would be: DO IT. You’ll see from the grossly uneven list below that it is the correct choice.

Pros:

Why Not?: At this point in my life (mid-30’s – yikes!), almost everyone has moved away from “home.” That means every wedding is a “destination” wedding in terms of having to pay for a flight and a hotel. So why not make it a vacation, too? I have only been to one wedding in my life that did not require a hotel stay, and a handful that didn’t require a flight. And I have been to a LOT of weddings. The flight + hotel for my wedding in Cabo was honestly less expensive than many other weddings I have attended in Cleveland, Bozeman, and Las Vegas. And all of the food and drinks and entertainment were included! There were things to do during the day, like aqua aerobics, trivia in the pool, and line dancing on beach, and there were activities at night like live music, and foam parties at the club. And of course, lots of drinking.

Budget: Destination weddings are CHEAP! Relative to having a wedding in the United States, especially in a city, a destination wedding is a fraction of the cost. Labor is cheaper in Mexico, but also, having everything in one place meant we did not need to think about bringing in vendors like catering, table and chairs rentals, and of course the dreaded transportation costs. None of that was needed and it was all on-site.

Wedding Planner Included: This is related to budget, but when we were thinking about planning a wedding, it was extremely overwhelming. We both have full time jobs and adding a new title of “party planner” to my resume was not something I had the energy to do. Also, since we knew we were going to get married outside of New York City, we would need help finding vendors in that place and a wedding planner would need to make those connections for us. For that reason, we knew we would need a wedding planner, and not just a day-of coordinator. We realized we were going to be spending ~$8K-$10K on a planner at a minimum. At all-inclusive resorts, the planner is part of the package.

Where do we want to get married?: Most couples nowadays meet online, or meet in a city that is neither of their hometowns. Historically, a wedding takes place where the bride grew up, but my parents don’t live where I grew up anymore and I have no more ties to Florida, nor would we have anywhere to stay while we looked at venues. Chris and I didn’t have a single place in common besides New York City, where venues start at $15,000 just for the space. Since we didn’t have a place we really wanted to get married anyway, we decided to pick somewhere beautiful.

Scenery: When I was planning our wedding, I said to my friends that we were not paying for any extras they offered, like special plates or tablecloths or paper lantern lighting. I joked and said the beach was the decoration, but you know what? It was. It was GORGEOUS. I showed my friends the photo below and one of them said it looked fake, another said it looked like a magazine. The background of every photo is stunning. At zero additional cost!

They know their sh*t: Perhaps that wasn’t the most eloquent wording but it’s true. These resorts produce weddings like a well-oiled machine. They know what they are doing because they do it every day. Things run smoothly, on time, flowers are where they are supposed to be, there are contingency plans in place, and it is easy. We planned our entire wedding with about 30 emails back and forth. We booked our florist by email (the one they recommended) and we used their DJ. We filled out a music questionnaire by email. We filled out our cake order online. Everything was done in a few quick spreadsheets and it came to life seamlessly. We met with the wedding planner 2 days before the wedding and reviewed all of the details. She assured us she knew what she was doing, and it went perfectly. Also, there’s a huge benefit to working with vendors who know the venue like the back of their hand. Our photographer knew every spot in the resort where photos would look amazing. The one of me below was the outside of the Indian restaurant. And that random window and hallway shot… none of those could have been done without a skilled photographer who knew the space. There was even a wedding 2 hours after us, and we met the other couple in the pool the day before. We ran into them while we were both taking photos and snapped one with them. It was so fun to have another couple experiencing it with us.

Our buddies, the other bride and groom (also named Chris!)

Spending quality time with everyone: This is by far the biggest positive of having a destination wedding. My main gripe with spending a lot of money to travel to weddings is when I don’t even get to see the couple. This has happened to me a few times, where I fly somewhere, get a hotel room, and I’m not even in the bridal party so I don’t go to the rehearsal dinner. I just show up at the wedding, see the couple when they walk around to greet each table, and I also dance with them on the dance floor for 5-10 minutes. Then I fly home and send a gift. It’s the worst and I always go home feeling like I wasted my money and time. When you have a destination wedding, it’s like going on a family reunion/friends vacation. You have DAYS to hang out with everyone at the pool, have breakfast and coffee, do shots at the foam party, and pretend to do aqua aerobics while sipping pina coladas. The best part is there is zero pressure to chat with everyone at the reception and greet each table, because you’ve already been spending days with them. It’s a win-win, and you can go home feeling like you had quality time with each of your guests. I left Mexico feeling closer to the people I already knew, and feeling like I forged real relationships with those I had just met.

Cons:

I warned you up top that there are very few negatives to having a destination wedding, but after racking my brain, I could only think of 4, and you will see below that I don’t even truly believe all of them.

Not everyone will be able to attend: If you want a huge wedding with everyone in your family in attendance, then you should not have a destination wedding. Having a wedding outside of the country does require a passport, so you will be cutting out some of your guest list by having a wedding abroad. However, as I mentioned above, every wedding will have a cost for guests unless you live in the same place where you grew up, so there will always be some people who cannot attend.
You do not want your guests to spend a lot of money: Again, I don’t truly believe this is possible and there are ways around this. For example, we told our guests they did not need to give gifts because we knew they were spending a lot of money to come. We also paid for some of our close family’s hotel rooms if we knew they couldn’t otherwise afford to come. Personally, the Cabo wedding was not even the most expensive one I went to this year!
You have a family with food issues/special requirements: All-inclusive resorts are nice because they have unlimited food available at all times. They also usually have a lot of different kinds of food. But if you have family with food requirements, like if they are vegetarian, vegan, kosher, etc, it may be difficult for them to find food. For a normal wedding, you only need to worry about one meal for them. At a destination wedding, you have DAYS of meals and with limited options, it can be repetitive and non-nutritious for those family members.
You want a SUPER UNIQUE wedding: It’s true, most resorts are “wedding machines.” This means there will be many other brides and grooms out there who had a similar experience to you. As I mentioned, there was another couple who got married on the same exact day as us! However, this also means that things are well-planned and run smoothly. Also, if I’m honest, I’ve been to around 30 weddings and I’m sure the couple always thinks they are unique – they are not. A wedding is a wedding. It may be an expensive wedding, but it will not be as different as you think it is. Sure, there’s an ice sculpture or a chuppah draped in flowers, but at the end of the day, it’s a party.

As you can see, I think the pros extremely outweigh the cons, but I’m interested to hear your thoughts. Have you been to a destination wedding? Do you think it was better or worse than a regular wedding? Did it cost you more money?

Wedding

Wedding Tips & Tricks

June 14, 2022 No Comments

I promised you another installment of wedding content and this one may be the most important one. If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that I have been a wedding guest A LOT. I’m a pro. But now I’ve also been the bride and I have picked up a lot of tips and tricks along the way.

My first tip: Have a glam team. I know not everyone is like me, but hair is IMPORTANT. Having bad wedding hair is listed as a regret on every single Betches Brides Wedding podcast episode. As you know, I flew in Alli from @playbraids to do my hair for my wedding. This was by far the best decision I made, aside from picking the husband. Not only did it make it easy because she was able to do multiple looks on multiple days, but she was friendly and fun for all of my friends to hang out with (and me, of course!). And most importantly, it took away a HUGE piece of wedding stress for me. The less stress, the better. I felt pressured to have amazing hair, and Alli understood the assignment. She was a huge trooper, helped me film multiple tiktoks, styled my mom’s hair and my best friend’s, and put up with/loved the Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion vibes. There’s this amazing video she took while the photographer was taking serious portraits of me, and you can hear WAP blasting in the background. Special bonus, my family also fell in love with her, and my mom announced that she’s another honorary daughter of hers now. Almost every person who has seen photos of the wedding has commented on my amazing hair. #WORTHEVERYPENNY

Casual Photoshoot and Rehearsal Dinner Hair

Here’s a tip for your guest list: keep it small. Some people with large families don’t have this option, but I recommend it. With this pandemic becoming a part of our everyday lives, the trend of “micro-weddings” has continued and I couldn’t love it more. We ended up with 51 guests (and a wedding crasher, more on that later) and it was the perfect amount to feel like we had close friends and family, a full dance floor, and people all over the resort. In fact, the morning of the wedding I was trying not to run into anyone, but sure enough I ran into one of Chris’s best friends at the coffee shop. It felt intimate and small, but also like we were surrounded by everyone in our lives.

Regarding toasts and hand-written vows: do them. Both. First the toasts. Choose these people wisely. No one wants to be bored while they are trapped at their tables and far from the bar. Choose entertaining people who will also have unique perspectives on the bride and groom. You don’t want 8 friends all talking about the same things. Chris’s dad told a story I had never heard before about him as a kid. And it was so fun to hear about his childhood from his siblings. For my side, I had one speech from my family (a poem – so funny) and one from my best friend (also hysterical, I cried and laughed). Having different types of people (siblings, parents, friends) makes for different types of speeches and keeps things interesting. Our speeches went a little long, but I think everyone enjoyed them, although I may be biased.

As for vows, I know it can be time-consuming and stressful to add this on top of other wedding planning, but it’s worth it. I understand that not every person enjoys speaking in front of a crowd, but if you pretend it’s just you and your future spouse, it makes it easier. Almost everyone at our wedding knew one of us well since it was a small guest list, and it still made the wedding an engaging experience to include our guests in our love and reasons for choosing to be with this person for life. The day after the ceremony, I had one couple (who is getting married this weekend!) tell me that they planned to read their vows to each other in private, but they were reconsidering because it felt so special to hear ours. Also, the practice of writing your own vows is so special. It forces you to think of when you knew they were your person and what you love and cherish about them. The whole point of inviting people to celebrate with you in your love is to explain those reasons to them. It makes it feel more personal.

Here’s a tip for the anxious brides: only control the things you want to control. If the bridesmaid dresses don’t really matter to you, don’t worry about them! I just wanted my bridesmaids to be comfortable, so I let them pick. Granted, I only had 2 bridesmaids, so it was easier for them to coordinate themselves, but I did not want to sweat the small stuff. Another thing I didn’t care about was the groomsmen, so I let Chris pick. Yes, I was a little nervous when 2 months prior he said he hadn’t picked outfits or communicated with them, but my husband is bit of a posh spice (yes, I called him that in my vows), so I knew I could trust him to figure it out. And he did! Less stress for me.

One more tip about stress: there are some things that will be out of your control. You can’t stress about them because you cannot change them. Flight changes? CHECK. They are going to happen. Our flight to Mexico was canceled the night before. We booked another flight that night. Was it way more money than the original? Yes. But we didn’t really have a choice and I chose not to stress about it. Our MC got stuck in traffic and never arrived. But the photographer’s assistant offered to step up, and what was I going to say? No? Of course not. I said sure! And we went through the list of names for speeches and dances and she killed it. No one even noticed. These things happen and you need to make a conscious decision to just go with the flow. Having an open bar helps.

Here’s a tip regarding an expensive cake: save on the cake, splurge on the cake topper! By the time cake hits the table, most people will be up dancing. And if they aren’t, they’re probably drunk. Hell, if it’s a good party at all, probably everyone will be drunk. People are not going to appreciate the flavor and moistness of the cake. But they WILL appreciate an aesthetic. We were lucky enough to have my aunt make us a cake topper that looked just like us on our wedding day. She made the bride wear my dress, carry my bouquet, she even put highlights and a braid in her hair! Chris also looked dapper in a blue suit and white boutonniere. Everyone LOVED it. We have a google album of guest photos, and there must be 15 different people who took photos of the cake topper. And the best part: it now sits in our living room smackdab in the middle of our bookshelf. Our cleaner saw it last week and was in SHOCK she loved it so much.

Here’s another unconventional trick: do a fun (not slow) father-daughter dance. My dad and I started out slow with Lee Ann Womack’s I Hope You Dance, and after 1 minute we transitioned into a zydeco number, Daddy Lessons by The Chicks and Beyonce. It was a HUGE hit. People were laughing and clapping, and my dad and I had a blast. I heard comments about it from our guests all weekend long! It was engaging and it sped up the tedious first 30 minutes of watching dances and speeches.

Our gorgeous cake (could not tell you what it tasted like)

One of the more controversial points in this blog is about welcome baskets. I think that whether you need them depends on where you have the wedding. If you know people are flying in, not renting cars, and the hotel is in an isolated place, then I would recommend them. Water and snacks are not always available, and when they are, they’re crazy expensive. If you can’t walk down the street to a bodega or a Walgreens, I’d say it’s a nice thing to offer. However, I think they can be simple. If your wedding is local, or in a city with many things around, they’re unnecessary. And welcome baskets are definitely not necessary at all-inclusives. For my wedding there were beverages included in every room (alcoholic, non-alcoholic and water), and I made sure everyone knew that I had Advil, ibuprofen and sunscreen for everyone. Also, there was food and room service available 24/7 for free if people got hungry. We gave out engraved reusable straws as favors, and I don’t think shipping boxes of crap and snacks to Mexico and forcing people to carry it home in their already-stuffed carry-ons was necessary.

My final tip, and the perfect segue into the next installment of wedding content: Have a destination wedding. I won’t delve into it too much here since I am going to write a whole other blog about this, but suffice it to say, it was the right decision for us. I know some people say this isn’t an option because of family pressure or cost of travel but let me tell you, it was not that expensive. It was beautiful. And it was FUN. More on that next time!

Do you have any tips or tricks you’ve picked up from being a bride, groom, or repeat guest? Let me know in the comments!

Wedding

Our Wedding (and my regrets)

June 8, 2022 4 Comments

I’ve been on blog hiatus, but the good news is, I’ve been so busy that I have PLENTY of material now. SURPRISE I got married! Ok, not a surprise because I talked about dress shopping, a hair trial, and other wedding-related things for the whole 4 months while we “planned.” I use that term loosely.

I’m going to do a series of blogs about the wedding. Here’s what you have to look forward to:

NO RAGRETS. Ok, I have a few. I’ll write about those today. Read on!!
Tips and Tricks: coming out this weekend!
Destination Wedding – do or don’t? (Spoiler Alert: the answer is DO): posting next week
Wedding Recap (and the things that went wrong): later this month.

First, a quick wedding summary: It was amazing. It was so special to have all of my friends and family in one place. It was a week-long party. It was GORGEOUS. The weather was literally perfect. Some would say it was too cool at night but since my internal temperature is roughly the same as an oven, it was perfect for me. The toasts/speeches were PHENOMENAL. I really would barely have changed anything. But since that is a very boring blog post, I decided to start off with a bang and tell you about the things I would have changed.

The good news about my regrets is that there aren’t many. I’ve been reflecting for a few weeks and despite the contemplation, I still have a short list of regrets, which is great!

My main regrets are regarding the photographer, but it’s not that they were bad, they were actually great. However, I probably asked them to cover the wrong times (my fault). Since our speeches ran late, they only could cover 15 minutes of dancing and I probably would have preferred an hour. I haven’t seen the photos yet but hopefully they got some good content! And to be fair, it was nice to take as many shots of gin as I wanted and know it wouldn’t be captured on film for my future children to see. The timing also affected the photo booth, which was another regret. We had it out for people to use during cocktail hour and then the first hour of the reception. Again because of speeches and mingling at cocktail hour, no one really got to use it! I kind of wish we just hadn’t paid for it. We didn’t need it and we had fun without it. Thankfully, we had plenty of friends with phones taking pictures of dancing at the reception and the after-party. Some of those will never see the light of the internet.

Despite the many podcast episodes I listened to, I didn’t pay attention when the experts insisted a bride should have a shot list for the photographer. I didn’t have one, so it was disorganized after the ceremony as I was pulling random groups for photos. A lot of people were waiting around in the sun and people were getting antsy and sunburned. I also wish we had taken photos with every guest. Since we only had 50, it would have been totally feasible, but I didn’t think about it at the time.

The only people I saw use the photobooth!

Another thing, as I look back – I wish we had a second shooter, at least for the ceremony. I didn’t realize that since there was only one person taking photos, they could only capture one angle of the ceremony. They got the most adorable photo of Chris as he turned around and saw me for the first time walking down the aisle, but since the photographer was behind me, I don’t think he got any of my face as I walked down. Again, I haven’t seen the photos yet (they sent us 10 as a teaser), but I’m not sure how they would have captured me, except maybe far away as we were walking down to the beach. Thankfully, my friends took a few photos and videos of my parents walking me down. Also, the photographer managed to get some great far-shots as well as some great close-ups, like of Chris putting on my ring.

Photo from friends of me walking down the aisle with my parents.

My next regret should be filed under #SaveOrSplurge and for this one, I would say SAVE on bridesmaid bouquets. Full disclosure: I am not a flower girl, so these were on rock bottom of budget needs for me. Honestly, I would have gone without a bouquet myself, but it was included in the resort package. And don’t get me wrong, my bouquet was gorgeous. It’s just that it was BIG and difficult to hold! I kept asking the photographer to take photos without it. If you have a lot of bridesmaids, those bouquets can add up! The resort package included a “maid of honor” bouquet, and since I had 2 bridesmaids and no ”maid of honor,” I just added on one additional bouquet, which was a minimal cost, but a cost nonetheless. People always say, “it gives you something to do with your hands,” but the groomsmen didn’t have anything in their hands and they did just fine. I could have done without it, but I haven’t asked my bridesmaids what they thought. I guess matching bouquets do bring the pictures together in terms of cohesiveness, especially since they were in different dresses, but in my opinion, it was unnecessary.

Pre-wedding detail shots of the bouquets, they were massive!

My next regret is a true #firstworldproblem, but I wish that I had stayed longer at the resort after the wedding. I’m very thankful that we had another full day after the wedding (we got married on a Friday and left on Sunday), but it still felt too quick to return to the real world. I would have liked one or two extra days, but Chris couldn’t get the time off of work and it felt strange to stay there alone without him. It didn’t help that I had a few friends who stayed on, and I had serious FOMO! I would recommend a slower come-down for someone traveling to their wedding. I guess this is why people go on a honeymoon directly after, which brings me to my final regret – not planning a honeymoon before the wedding.

I wish I already had something to look forward to. Also, it’s incredibly awkward because once our registry was purchased (we didn’t ask for much – we’ve been together for almost 7 years!), people gave us money for specific funds for our honeymoon. For example, someone gave $50 for the honeymoon flight, or $100 for a couples massage etc. It’s extremely awkward when people ask where we are going, and I have to say “I don’t know yet.” Soon… hopefully! Stay tuned!!

I’ll be posting my wedding tips and tricks this weekend. I wouldn’t say I’m a pro now, but I have been to a LOT of weddings and now I’ve planned one, and I would like to think I have learned along the way!

I Do or I Do Not – Should You Have a Destination Wedding?

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Wedding Tips & Tricks

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Our Wedding (and my regrets)

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