So you’ve decided to have a destination wedding, now you need to pick a location. By location I mean where exactly on your destination are you are going to have the big day.  St. Thomas has so many beutiful and amazing locations to have a wedding. We wanted a location that reflected our lives and what living here was all about. Naturally for us it was a beach wedding. We wanted to share our Flip flop lifestyle with our friends and family but at the same time we wanted the beauty and splender of a more traditional wedding.

Having a beach wedding may seem like a lay up but there is so many things to take into consideration. We wanted a quiet beach that would be facing towards the west so we would have the added effect of the sunset since we where planning to get marreid later in the day.

The beach we chose was Bolongo Bay. It is on the south side of the island about half way between town and the other side of the island. Bolongo Bay is also home to Bolongo Bay Beach Resort. I’m not going to get into the resort part in this post but will cover it later.

We decided to do a barefoot on the beach wedding.  We would get married under a small arch with everyone facing the water from the beach. The idea of having the gentle lapping of the waves as a back drop to the ceremony was exactly what we where looking for.

Now Having an outdoor ceremony has it’s problems. Weather being the number 1 concern. What if it rained?? What about Hurricanes??  I mean we where getting married in the middle of Hurricane season. We knew the risks, looked at past weather reports during the beginning of September and crossed our fingers and hoped for the best.

Don’t forget that this is the Caribbean and it can get hot during the day and I don’t need to tell you what that could do to makeup and sweat stain dresses and shirts. A photographic nightmare!

Other considerations included, uninvited guests, basically roaming herds of tourist wedding crashers! LOL Seriously though, we didn’t really want tons of onlookers and beach goers gawking at us. We had enough anxiety about being up there in front of our friends and family never mind complete strangers! Fortunatly September is the slow season in St. Thomas so we figured there wouldn’t be much to worry about.

Having our wedding later in the day cut down on the heat issue and most beach goers have headed out by 4:00Pm. We where confident that the weather would hold and the day would be perfect.

The weather was perfect, the beach was empty and the air conditioned rooms before we went out helped minimize any sweat problems.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you all about the resort at Bolongo Bay and the benefits to having the ceremony and reception in the same place that everyone is staying! Can you say Huge Discounts!!!

Till Tomorrow then..

Tiffany

 Powered by Max Banner Ads 

The dude and I had been living in Sin in St. Thomas for about 3 years, when I decided to make an honest man out of him. Our families are scattered all up and down the east coast of the US and trying to find a central location that would be easy for everyone to make it was clearly impossible.  We decided why not invite everyone down for a week and just get hitched here!

In doing so we knew that the number of people who actually be able to make would be much less than if we did it in Florida or Boston. But on the other hand the people closest and dearest to us would definatly make the trip to paradise. The key for us was early planning.

We sent out Wedding announcements to everyone almost 1.5 years in advance. We did a really cute announcement card that we actually bought at OfficeMax! It was very caribbean and simple.  On it we included the date of the wedding, and all the relevant info for the big day. On a seperate sheet of paper, we listed all the airlines that flew here, we gave the name of the Resort that the wedding was going to be held at. We where able to secure a discounted rate for all of our guests because we where renting like 20 rooms and having the wedding and the reception on property. Nice little budget saver there.

We let everyone know that this was not only a trip for a wedding but it was there vacation for 2007! The wedding itself was on a Saturday so we had everyone arrive on Tuesday prior. That way they could relax and hang out, go exploring and enjoy them selves for the first couple of days.  We also scheduled for everyone to leave the following Monday, so they got almost a whole week of Vaca and a Wedding all in one!

In the next couple of days I am going to go through every aspect of a Destination Wedding in the USVi, Specifically St. Thomas, so make sure you check back everyday for the next installment!

I look forward to your comments and questions and will help all of you in any way that I can, well except for offering for you to stay at my place!

Till tomorrow,

Tiffany

 Powered by Max Banner Ads