SAPPY SUNDAY: WHY A DESTINATION WEDDING

• By loramarie03
• 29 July, 2012
• 21 Comments

Welcome to Sappy Sunday! Since this is my first post, I thought I’d cover the basics. Long story short, C and I met in college… at a party… where I said I would never meet a boy. Ha. We were actually both dating people at the time and reconnected a few months later. Of course, I hadn’t heard from him for months so when he called, I could hardly believe he was serious so ended up standing him up for what was supposed to be our first date at Chipotle (because I had never been there before and promised that I would go with him the night we met). He called back afterwards and was like, where were you? and I had to fess up that I didn’t think he was serious. We finally went and started hanging out a lot, and the rest is history! If you want to read the full story, check it out here.

Fast forward to two cross-country moves and eight years later, and we were back in Wisconsin for the week with my family. Little did I know, C had a big secret up his sleeve… but, wasn’t able to make it into what he wanted because the week was so crazy (I think I’ve mentioned before that my family is always on the go, so finding the right moment when we were alone was nearly impossible… and I didn’t realize that “time together” meant romantic time so he could propose so I was confused when he didn’t think going to the liquor store and Walmart made the cut). Anyways, we finally got a free moment and he completely blindsided me by proposing. I had NO idea! Which of course led to some tears and about 15 “Really? Are you serious? REALLY?” before I finally said YES! This is the short version, but check out the full one here.

Anyways, since I’m from Wisconsin and he’s from Texas and we now live in New York City, there really wasn’t a good location that we could plan the wedding. New York was out of the question — way too expensive. My small hometown was out, so inconvenient for our traveling guests (not to mention expensive!). So why not plan a destination wedding? It seemed like the perfect balance and we could go somewhere fun and different.

We started looking and thought we were set on the U.S. Virgin Islands. People didn’t need to get passports, it was absolutely gorgeous and there were several options that we were in love with. We contacted a travel agent at Beach Bum Vacation (they are awesome!) and when we spoke to her, she was honest with us. USVI is expensive. It’s hard to get to. There aren’t many all-inclusive options. Really, there are so many other islands that would be better…

…and then we thought about it. About 95% of the people who would go to our wedding already have passports. The flights are cheaper. And, the options. So many options.

So, Jamaica it was.

(source)

We checked out some of the big resorts. Which we found out operate like wedding factories. One wedding, on the hour, of every hour, of every day. Um, what? If you want a day with less weddings, pick Tuesday or Wednesday. But I don’t want to get married on a weekday. (We had already settled on October 13 since we are both born on the 13th and it’s a lucky day for us, we wanted to continue the tradition.)

That’s when we found Coyaba Beach Resort outside of Montego Bay.

A boutique resort, they only do one wedding a weekend and I  even spoke with the owner of the resort. Plus, you don’t have to make your guests stay for a whole week. SOLD.

So, on October 13, we will be married on the West Lawn of Coyaba Beach Resort. The night before, our welcome dinner with be a Jamaican BBQ. We are excited to add some island elements into our wedding while focusing on some of the traditional aspects. A destination wedding gives us an opportunity to get married in a neutral location while giving our 40 guests a great reason to go on vacation.

Have you ever been to a destination wedding? Any must-see activities to do in Jamaica?