Weddingbee Blog
Ah yes, the vows.
From the beginning, I knew I wanted Mr Breezy and I to say our vows to each other in our own words. (Mr Breezy wanted it too - he just didn’t know it.)
So you’d think a year would be enough time to think about it, right? I mean, I don’t know about you, but I’d seen plenty of wedding movies where the bride and groom were hastily writing their vows moments before the ceremony and I couldn’t help going, “Pffffffttttt!!!!!!!! COME ON, people. What, this day happened as a complete surprise to you, hence you couldn’t prepare? How pathetic!”
Well, guess what we were doing the night before?
Although we have our reasons for it, which will become a funny memory one day, it taught me something very important: you are ready when you are ready. And when it comes to your wedding vows, in the end, it’s not ‘when’ that matters, but ‘what’.
The scene: Majestic Colonial Resort, in the Gazebo. The guests are assembled, the men and maids stand at attention, and Mr Breezy and I, having kissed our parents goodbye, face each other with big silly-happy grins.
Once all the portraits and family photos were done, our guests started trailing on out of the lobby and down the walkway to the Gazebo to take their seats. The late afternoon sun was shining down and I imagine them sitting there, chatting away, listening to the pre-wedding soundtrack that I had spent hours agonizing over.
I can’t seem to locate the list and the only two songs I can remember at the moment are ‘I’m Yours’ by Jason Mraz and ‘Better Together’ by Jack Johnson but I swear, there were many more and they were AWESOME.
When Mr Breezy and I met in the lobby for the reveal, it was shortly after 1PM (the ceremony was set for 4:30PM). It didn’t feel like we had been taking pictures for almost two hours so when our families started trickling in, it was a shock. Having pictures done with them was top on our priority list so we had also scheduled them pre-ceremony.
I hadn’t thought of it but of course this turned out to be the big “reveal” to them, too! As soon as they saw us, they rushed over and cooed and pulled out their own cameras for some candids. It was mass photo hysteria for a while, there. But I wouldn’t have had it any other way - it was an exciting moment for them too, you know? Plus we got some really fun photos from our friends while we were just hangin’ out.
Photo by friend Kuba
Both Mr Breezy and I were descending upon the lobby at the same time but somehow our photographers coordinated it so I stealthily made it upstairs while he remained downstairs.
And then, the big moment had finally come!
At least, it was a big moment for me. I think that Mr Breezy largely humored me when it came to “the big reveal”. He knew it was important to me so he went along with it, though if he had had an option, I think he would have forgone the whole hullabaloo. I appreciate his honesty. Really, I do. But I wouldn’t have had it any differently. Sometimes I find, you have to make something special in order for it to be something special.
Oh alright, so maybe ‘gone wild’ is a bit of an exaggeration. But it definitely wasn’t conventional. Once we girls were ready, we headed out with Photophil to the main lobby of the resort where the big reveal would take place and Mr Breezy and I would see each other for the first time in all our wedding finery. En route, however, we just had to make a couple pit stops to ruffle our plumage a bit and strut our… you know… stuff.
Hmmm… what’s this I see? That’s one big palm thing. Must. Get. Photo.
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Okay. Our hair is done, our faces are on, the flowers are as good as they’re gonna get and the champagne is flowing. I guess it’s time to put on the dress–er, DWess!
Because we were doing so many things, it took me a while to realize the flowers were missing. I couldn’t wait to see them.
If you will remember, after I met with our wedding coordinator, I thought I was getting this style of bouquet, but with a mix of white and purple flowers.
Well, the flowers were finally delivered to our room and what we got was this:
Read more…
While the guys were goofing off next door, we were taking the matter of getting ready very seriously… NOT.
When the girls came over to our suite around 10 AM, I was already putting hot rollers in my hair. I was crossing my fingers that it would turn out as well as it had in my DIY hair trial, but you never know, so I gave myself lots of time. Plus, call it a sixth sense, but I just knew that there would be some last things to take care of that I hadn’t planned for. I didn’t want to be rushing around too much.
Here I am with my maiden sidekicks (R to L) MOH Pepperpot, SIL and Miss P, soon after they arrived.
The next day, Mr Breezy and I woke up and looked at each other. Could it really be true? The morning of the wedding had finally arrived!
That’s right, we had stayed in the same room the night before the wedding. I actually wanted to be separated but Mr Breezy didn’t think it was a big deal so I went along with it. It was a bit complicated to figure out and at that point, our heads just could just not handle any more logistics. However, if I had a do-over, I’d have tried harder. It was sort of weird to walk into the buffet restaurant together that morning to grab a bite before the craziness of the day began.
Back at the suite, we kissed goodbye and… I closed the sliding doors.
Because we had a big suite, the guys got ready on the lounge side, and on the other side of the sliding doors, we girls were primping. I loved that setup because I could still yell at - um, I mean yell to - Mr Breezy through a crack in the doors whenever I remembered something we’d forgotten to do (yes it happened). Plus our awesome photographers could go back and forth between the guys and the girls easily.
Before long, the wedding party and a few others started trickling in.
The guys got off to a slow start…
A couple hours after the meltdown (and possibly an El Presidente later), I had calmed right down and set my sights on the final things on our to-do list. After all, the show must go on!
The most important of these was the rehearsal.
I had never really given a rehearsal much thought, to tell you the truth. Even though I’m normally a type-A personality, I had enough sense to know that a destination wedding would be more relaxed. However, about a month before the wedding (right about the time I discovered I had a bone fracture in my foot, remember that? Ha!) I was out for a walk with my SIL and she changed my mind. She was reminiscing about her own wedding and said that even though hers was also a pretty simple affair, she really wished they had done a rehearsal because it just would have made things go that much more smoothly, you know? Since she’s one of the smartest gals I know, I took her advice.
When we met with our wedding coordinator Sandra, we asked her about the rehearsal, and to our surprise she told us that a rehearsal was unnecessary and that she didn’t normally do them.
Um, what?
“You’ll just line up and I’ll be there to tell you when to go,” she said.
At which point I looked at Mr Breezy, raised one eyebrow (yes, ’tis a talent that I always have possessed) and said, “Okay then. We’ll do our OWN rehearsal.”
Read more…
They say that no wedding would be complete without a meltdown. Knowing this, I was determined to be the very first bride not to go down that path. And in fact, excepting a few minor (relatively speaking) flare-ups, I kept it together right up until the very end.
And then The Incident happened.
The day before the wedding, Mr Breezy and I were enjoying a rare moment of pre-wedding down time with our friends. We were on the beach and Mr Breezy decided he’d use this opportunity to go to the market just down the road from the resort to buy some cigars. He enlisted his friend J to accompany him and they left, saying they were going to drop by the room first to grab some cash. He asked me if I wanted him to take anything with him back to the room. I said, “No thanks, we’re fine,” and they were off.
About half an hour later, I changed my mind and decided to go back to the room after all.
I opened the door to our gigantic suite and dumped my beach bag on the floor. And as I walked in towards the lounge area of our room, I spotted something out of the corner of my eye.
Something in the bedroom.
Something big.
Read more…
Some of our closest friends and family aren’t ‘close’ at all. From Montreal to New York to Hong Kong, they’re scattered all over the place. This is a big reason why we chose to have a destination wedding, but it’s also the reason why we didn’t have stag/stagette parties.
We figured we’d just throw something together (easy-breezy style, yo) once we got to Punta Cana. So on the Saturday before our Monday wedding, we spread the word that the guys and gals were going to dinner separately. Little did I know that Mama SB, my amazing sister-in-law and a couple of my girlfriends had been conspiring all along to throw me a mini bridal shower too. Yay! A showerette!
We gathered together for champagne toasts and then did something I absolutely LOVED:
Being a total wedding-porn addict (yes, I am in a 12 step program), I was hell bent on having gorgeous photography of our wedding day. It was, however, also the one thing on my earliest to-do list that caused me the most stress.
You see, I absolutely fell in love with the engagement shots we had done by James Day, photog extraordinaire, and lovely person to boot. Naturally we looked into having him do our wedding too, but sadly, he was in Australia at the time. That’s a long ways away from the Dominican Republic and flying him in was not within the realm of our photography budget (though if it were an option, I think I’d have seriously considered stuffing him into one of OUR suitcases). I seriously envy the couples that get to work with him though. Really. You should check him out.
So anyways, where was I? Ah yes. The hunt for a photographer was on.
Like most resorts that do weddings, the Majestic Colonial resort has its own photographer. And of course like most brides, this was the first option I considered. But truth be told, I wasn’t crazy about some of the work I’d seen and I wasn’t a fan of the packages; 50 prints (not originals—prints!!) just wouldn’t cut it for me.
I then thought, well maybe we could find a photographer in Punta Cana that does destination weddings.
Read more…
Okay. So. Ahh… (digging her toe in the dirt). There’s, um, something I have to tell you.
It’s actually not a big deal.
Well, it sorta is. Actually, it wasn’t supposed to be a big deal, then it sort of turned into a sort of deal, more a medium deal than a big one, though. To us, anyway.
Mr Breezy and I were “officially” married a month before we left for Punta Cana.
Yep. One day in early October, Mr Breezy called his mom and said, “Hey Ma, whatcha doin’ tomorrow?… Is it ok if we get married at your house?”
So that day, straight after work, we went to Mr Breezy’s parents’ house and got married. (I will forever remember that it was a Tuesday because when I suggested Thursday, Mr Breezy said, “I can’t get married on Thursday - Smallville’s on.”)
| Visit our sister sites | Project Wedding Wedding Songs |
eHarmony Advice Dating Advice |
JustMommies Pregnancy Calendar |
Fertile Thoughts Infertility Support |
Mrs. Sea Breeze, Vancouver/Dominican Republic Age in 2008 and Occupation: 30, Communications Manager Fiance's Age in 2008 and Occupation: 29, Experiential Marketing Director Engagement Date: October 6, 2007 Wedding Date: November, 2008 Blogging Since: July 17, 2008 Venue: Majestic Colonial Resort, Punta Cana About Me: Planning a destination wedding by the sea should be (oh no she di-in't…) a breeze (…*sigh* yep, she did) but when you've never been to the Caribbean, your powers of imagination are really put to the test. Luckily, I'm 90% resourceful, creative optimist (and kooky, neurotic practicalist-if-that's-a-word for the other ten). Other than writing about our week-long celebration of family, friends, laughter and love, I adore books, shoes and… you guessed it… long walks on the beach.
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
