Off to Alberta

So today’s the day Shawn and I fly out to Alberta for about a week for our “out-West” reception. It’s taking place this Saturday at the lovely Overlander Mountain Lodge. I hope it’s not too cold!

This reception is much smaller and more low-key than our actual wedding. It’ll have just under 60 guests, mostly my parents friends and my dad’s family (while some of them did attend our Toronto wedding, many of them were unable to). There will be a dinner, complete with wine, but sadly no open bar. And even more sadly, there won’t be dancing.

But my mom did order a cake as well as bouquets, corsages and boutonnières and a couple floral arrangements for décor. and I’m also going to bring some décor from here.

I have a second cousin who’s a professional photographer and we will be going out with him prior to the dinner to do some photos at a nearby lake, as well as take some at the actual lodge. I’m actually quite looking forward to that since I did find our wedding day photography session a little rushed since we were crushed for time.

I will be getting my hair professionally done but I’ll do my own make-up. And yes, I will be wearing my wedding dress (likely both versions) while my sister will be wearing her maid-of-honour outfit. Shawn though will be skipping the rental and bringing a suit he already owns.

Mexican Wedding: The Reception

After a tropical rainstorm washed away the original plan to have our friends’ wedding dinner on the beach of the Mexican resort we were at, we found ourselves in a private room attached to one of the resort’s restaurants.

While the room was certainly no beach it did the job for dinner, which was quite tasty, particularly the dessert.

Then it was time to dance and this is when the evening started hitting a few snags. The bride and groom asked for some of the dinning tables to be moved so that we could have a dance floor. They were told this wasn’t possible since some of the tables were secured to the floor. This was very much a lie since we’d all seen this room (it has glass walls) without any tables in it. But whatever, we just danced around the tables.

We also ran into issues with drinks. In the original plan, the dinner was to have its own bar. This idea was no longer practical once we were moved indoors but it also shouldn’t have been an issue since the restaurant had a bar. But despite that fact, it was still hard to get a drink.

At 10:30 pm we were kicked out of the room (something we knew would happen) but thankfully we were able to continue the celebrations over in the bride and groom’s suite, which had been upgraded to the much bigger and better presidential because of the broken beach bed incident. So at least that incident had one silver lining.

Both the bride and groom acknowledged that things didn’t go quite as planned but in the end they were happy with how things had turned out. And from a guest’s perspective I think everyone had a good time.

Below are a few more destination wedding tips and in a future entry, I plan to run over the pros and cons of a destination wedding. While I think this was the ideal type of wedding for my friends, I definitely don’t think a destination wedding is for everyone, myself included.

• Overpack and bring extras of such key items as foundation or nail polish since you may not be able to specific brands/colours at your destination
• Create a wedding day itinerary (including a rain plan) and pass it around to guests so that people know where they should be when. If you’re at a big resort, include a map since there might be multiple gazebos, beach ceremony sites, etc.
• Resort photographers can be expensive so be prepared to arrange your post-ceremony time so that you can cram in all the key moments you want photographed. This might mean doing the first dance between courses or fake cutting the cake
• Don’t be afraid to speak up if you don’t like how something seems to be shaping up, for example, maybe your ceremony location isn’t quite in the spot you pictured it being. Resorts are well aware that an unhappy bride is a complaining bride and they are usually willing to work with you to get you want you want (within reason of course)
• Also don’t be afraid to ask about upgrades or freebies. Because of the public nature of many destination weddings, it can be in the resort’s best interest to say, “surprise” you with a saxophone player who just happens to also be audible by other, impressed guests
• And finally, while you might be at the resort with your family and friends, you don’t need to spend every waking moment with them. Make sure to crave off some private time for you and your other half

Mexican Wedding: The Ceremony

By Mexican law, you have to be in the country for four days before you can get married there. So our friends got married on Thursday, April 15.

The ceremony was on the beach and it was quiet pretty though I kind of felt like we were a show for the other guests. There were people sitting on chairs and beach beds on either side of the ceremony site and most of them were clearly watching us (not that I wouldn’t have done the same).

The resort did have people on either side of the ceremony site, making sure that no walked or even swam behind the archway, something that I think every beach wedding should have.

The ceremony itself was short, sweet and partially in Spanish since that’s Mexican law. The bride and groom both looked great and I think that overall the ceremony went just fine.

After it was done, the bride and groom went off to have some pictures done and the rest of us (there was about 16 of us) went over to this gazebo-type thing for cocktail hour.

This was around the time in the day when it started to rain. It started off gently and then it began to pour. The weather had been like this for the past couple of days so everyone was prepared for the rain.

The original plan was for us to have our dinner on the beach but once it became clear that that wasn’t going to happen, the resort arranged for us to have it in a private room off one of the restaurants. More on the reception in the next entry.

A few beach wedding tips:

• Talk to your wedding coordinator about a rain plan
• Also ask about “security” and what the resort does to keep your ceremony and other events free of uninvited guests
• Resort salons can be super-pricey so be prepared to do your own hair and make-up
• And speaking of hair, avoid doing anything too fancy since it can get pretty windy on the beach
• On the positive side, all that wind can do amazing things for the right gown so think long veil, light-weight fabric and other elements that will catch the wind
• Most importantly, have a relaxed, flexible attitude towards your beach wedding. Distance, language differences and the fact that many wedding-oriented resorts host multiple events in a day mean that a destination wedding can be a lot harder to schedule and control than an at-home wedding so be prepared to just go with the flow

Mexican Wedding: The Resort

Alright, it’s time to tell you about my recent trip to Mexico for my friends’ destination wedding. Let’s start with the resort.

We stayed at the Mayan Rivera all-inclusive resort the El Dorado Seaside Suites. Forbes called it “one of the 10 most romantic hotels in the world” and it claims to be five-star.

Well, the resort was quite beautiful and romantic but I wouldn’t quite call it five-star, maybe Mexican five-star but the attention to detail and maintenance wasn’t quite at what I would consider a five-star level (more on that later).

Our room was wonderful. It was huge and had marble floors, giant marble shower, a Jacuzzi, a balcony and double sinks. But the rooms varied in amenities. For example, we had a king sized bed, a flat screen TV and a separate sitting area. But some of our friends, who paid the same price as us, had old TVs, smaller beds and no sitting area.

Also, the bride and groom paid more for a “swim-up” suite that included a pool in front of it. This was a fun feature but their actual room was smaller than and not as nice as ours.

One of the big selling features of this resort is the food and booze. At night it’s all à la carte dining and there are six restaurants to choose from. The food and the alcohol selection was great and things were quite yummy though it would be nice if you could make reservations (some nights it was hard to get a table in our first or second choice place). Sadly, I couldn’t fully enjoy this aspect of the resort because I caught some kind of food poisoning (I’m pretty sure I caught it from an off-resort restaurant).

On TripAdvisor.com, there were a lot of complaints about the beach and the swimming area but I thought it was fine. Sure, it could have better sand and the swimming area is bit rocky but the water’s fairly warm and calm and there are plenty of fish and even some rays swimming around. We also found quite a few crabs and even a lobster. Unfortunately a hurricane really smashed up the reef a few years ago but it does seem to be coming back.

The resort is located about 20 minutes south of Playa Del Carmen and 30 minutes north of the Tulum ruins. It’s an area that’s packed with stuff to do including scuba diving. Shawn and I were really hoping to do some diving but on the second day he had an accident that crushed that dream.

The El Dorado’s beach is dotted with wooden, four-post “beach beds”. Some of the beds are regular, one-level beds and then some are two levels, with the second level being about six feet off the ground.

On our second day, the bride and groom claimed one of these beds. After lunch the bride, groom, Shawn and I were planning to all sun tan on it (they are quite large) but I left to get a book and the groom left to get a drink. This left Shawn and the bride on the bed. And then somehow it collapsed and they both fell head first to the ground.

In the end everyone was OK. But Shawn and I decided it would be wise to skip the scuba diving since he was knocked out for a bit and his back was sore.

We went to the Playa Del Carmen hospital (quite nice and pretty quick) to get Shawn and the bride checked out and the resort covered the cost of that, as well as the ambulance, the taxi the groom and I took and the prescriptions that Shawn and the bride picked up (for pain). They also paid for massages but only after we asked. The bride and groom were also able to get quite a few wedding-related upgrades but the only thing Shawn and I got was a bottle of sparkling wine.

So that incident kind of put a damper on things. I thought the resort could have been a quicker to apologize (I think the only resort we got anything beyond the medical expanses paid for was because the groom demanded to speak to the general manager) and obviously those beds could have been better maintained (throughout the week we noticed at least a couple other single level beds that were busted).

I would definitely recommend the Mayan Rivera as a great location to check out but I don’t know if I could confidently recommend the El Dorado Seaside Suites. While in many ways it was a great resort, it wasn’t exactly the safest.

I'll share more on the actual wedding over the next two entries.

More Thoughts On Destination Weddings

Over the weekend, Shawn and I received an email from our friends who are getting married in Mexico next spring. The email contained all the info we needed to know to book our trip as well as a link to the resort’s website. While the email came as a surprise, the details in it were not as our smart friends have been prepping us for awhile on their destination wedding.

While I can understand that many couples want a “surprise” element when it comes to their wedding, the fewer surprises the better when it comes to destination weddings. As soon as you know that’s the route you’re taking, make sure to let your friends and family know. And don’t shy away from outlining your potential guest list. Because destination weddings tend to be much smaller than at-home weddings, many people will be unsure about whether or not they’ll be invited and it’s better to let them in on the answer as soon as possible so that those who are invited can start saving up.

Keep your guests in the loop on how your planning is going so that they can do their own planning. With at-home weddings, it’s fine not to reveal any details until everything is set in stone but because of the cost and complexities of destination weddings (for your guests anyway), it’s much better to let the details trickle out. These details will also help you to refine your guest list since they’ll result in you finding out that your choice of a February wedding in Cuba knocks out your Aunt Bettie because she’s travelling Europe then and your cousin Amy’s husband won't be able to attend because he’s American.

When revealing these details, make sure to watch your wording and don’t assume that anyone’s a given guest. Destination weddings can be beautiful and a lot of fun but they can also be a big, costly pain to your guests. Because of that, be prepared for a lot of “Oh, we’ll have to see if we can afford it” and “Oh, we’ll have to see if I can get the time off”-types of answers. Yeah, that probably isn’t the type of response you were looking for but then again, booking a $1000+ plus, week-long trip is a much bigger commitment than planning a single Saturday night out.

Also be prepared to be completely honest about the price of the trip. Don’t give vague answers or say that you’re sure you’ll be able to get everyone a deal. Instead, list off the resort’s selling features, explain why you and your fiancé picked tha place and then take a deep breath and let people know how much it’s going to cost them.

The resort our friends picked isn’t cheap but because they’d already explained why they loved it and why they thought we’d love it, we were able to understand and deal with the price.

The resort they picked, in case you’re curious, is the El Dorado SeaSide Suites. I’ll be sure to post a review about it once we get back in April.

Destination Weddings

One of the biggest wedding trends of the past few years has been destination weddings. It’s no surprise as to why. According to the founder of DestinationWeddings.com, eight of the top ten destinations are in the Caribbean or South Pacific; scenic, sunny destinations that are so much prettier than some banquet hall in Vaughn.

Destination weddings can also be cheaper (many resorts offer free weddings if you book a certain number of rooms) and less stressful since the resort takes care of the majority of the planning. And there’s no quicker way to slim down an ever-growing guest list than to decide to go away to get married.

Of course, destination weddings do that there downsides (if you’re a control freak, this type of wedding likely isn’t for you which is why I’m saying no to this idea) but I can definitely see the appeal of them.

Two of my friends, J and S, are considering a spring 2010 destination wedding. While they’ve yet to settle on specific place, they have found a great book to help them out on this journey. It’s called The Knot Guide to Destination Weddings and is written by Carley Roney and Joann Gregoli.

Says J, the bride-to-be, “What I really like about this book is its thoroughness. It seems to cover all the little details that not all wedding planning material touches upon. And the other cool thing is that it provides a list of questions that one can ask when shopping for a specific vendor to understand whether it will suite your wedding needs. And it also has little tips on how to organize things both from the perspective of reducing the expenses and increasing the experience.”

The book also touches on the legal aspect of getting married out of the country, a topic that while less interesting than secluded beaches and tropical flowers, is something you need to look into before you leave the country.

For even more info on destination weddings, check out About.com’s collection of useful links.

But if you’ve decided to stay close to home for your wedding (and home is Toronto), check out my recently updated venue spreadsheet. I just added in the Gladstone. It’s probably not the place to go if you want to have an open bar (you have to pay per drink and that’s about $6).