I know its been a little bit since I posted, but now that the wedding is a couple of weeks behind us, I’m ready to put together a short review with my overall impressions. There are also other reviews I intend to get to like the sailing excursion, the welcome bag photos and contents, and trash the dress shoot. And of course I’m planning to share photos, though want to figure out how to do so while respecting my guests’ privacy.

Welcome Party: We started our ‘Wedding Weekend’ with a Welcome Party at the Marriott’s La Vista Restaurant. We arranged this for Thursday evening, the day most of our guests arrived in Aruba. Eveline and her staff at La Vista did a fantastic job! She was willing to do so much to accommodate our group and next thing we knew La Vista felt like a home away from home. She let us take over the bar and lounge and they prepared some fantastic food and drinks! Since we were only able to pay for a limited amount, we were glad that our guests also had the option to order off of their menu. Here you can find the full La Vista Review»

Sailing / Snorkeling Excursion: On Friday we privately chartered Mi Dushi for a sailing / snorkeling excursion for our guests. We decided this would be our gift to our guests instead of wedding favors. (Does anyone really want a trinket with our name on it anyway?) I have yet to write a full review (sorry), but will say that this excursion was one of the best decisions we made! Aside from a couple of people that weren’t feeling well, our entire group participated. All from our 3 year old to those in their 80s had a day to remember! And it was nice for us to finally get to spend some time with them where we couldn’t ‘work’ on anything except enjoying our guests.

WEDDING DAY

Getting Ready: The wedding day started with my hair and make-up appointment at the Mandara Spa. I hate to say that hair and make-up ended up being one of my bigger challenges nearly putting me in tears twice. I had trials on both Thursday and Friday, neither of which went well or gave me much confidence. Saturday morning I was pleasantly surprised when my hair turned out awesome and held beautifully throughout the day. (Doesn’t look too exciting in photos but you have to understand that I have baby fine pin straight hair you can do almost nothing with.) Make-up didn’t turn out as well, but luckily I had a photographer that assured me that anything I would do myself would improve it. I brushed off a lot of the cheek color and re-worked the eyes a bit. I will say that the base they applied (I believe it was Bare Escentuals Mineral Make-up) held up beautifully throughout the day. Read full Mandara Spa review»

The Ceremony: The weather was gorgeous even though the famous Aruba wind seemed to have left us that afternoon. It was sunny and hot! Must have been at least 90º. Desiree collected the guests into the lobby and then walked them out when we were about ready to start. I walked down the aisle to beautifully played steel pan music. Reverend Gibson officiated and it was a really nice ceremony followed by the ’sand ceremony’ which is Aruba’s version of a unity candle. The decor was minimalistic – simple clean white folding chairs and a bamboo and white fabric arch provided by Edwina Werleman of E2 Events and Celebrations. Marriott’s had done a beautiful job grooming a path for the aisle (my husband was especially impressed!), and we lined the aisle with simple palms. I’m glad we didn’t spend a bunch of money on flowers – in my opinion they weren’t needed and might have just created clutter. Here are link for: full Ceremony Review», Reivew: Reverend Robert Gibson», Review for Edwina Werlemen and E2 Events & Celebrations»

Cocktail Hour: Following the ceremony was a cocktail sunset hour on the beach with some fruit and cheese provided and more steel pan music. I’m assuming this went well – we were busy with photos and went upstairs to change into our ‘reception clothes’. If I hear any specific feedback I’ll be sure to share. I have yet to ‘debrief my friends’… I’ll get the real scoop from them next time I meet them for drinks.

Reception / Dinner: After changing, we came down to the poolside reception. We were a little late because we took a few moment for an impromptu photo shoot in the entry to the hotel – hey – when your photographers are inspired you just go with it! Desiree had our guest seating at waiting. Edwina had set up the gorgeous canopy that helped give us intimacy created whimsy. The canopy combined with the contemporary nickel lanterns complimented the island theme beautifully. We were introduced, did our first dance, cut the cake and then joined our guests for dinner. The food was Unbelievable! I’ve never had food like that at a wedding and am still disappointed there were items I didn’t get to try. From rave reviews of the Indian food that is not on their catering menu to people who ‘don’t eat fish’ that went back for two helping of the red snapper, the food was an overwhelming success! Other than that first bite, we didn’t get to eat any cake but it was decorated beautifully and late at night we had arranged for a ’surprise ice cream sundae station’. Read the full Aruba Marriott Reception review»

Mark Benson of Elite Productions did a fantastic job with the lighting. At first I really wasn’t too excited about the lighting aside from wanting some indirect lighting instead of floodlights. I didn’t like the idea of colored lighting because so often I think its tacky and felt the lighting was really expensive. Now, when I look at the photos I really see what a difference that lighting made! I wouldn’t have expected the colored lighting to be done so well and to be so beautiful. Here is a full review of Mark Benson’s Elite Productions»

Mark Benson also provided the DJ which happened to be DJ Randolph. Though I had some reservations at first, I couldn’t have been happier! He did a fantastic job aside from the fact that whichever of the two introduced us as husband and wife pronounced our last name wrong! I had been warned that happens a lot… Read the full review of Cool Pro DJs, Mark Benson & DJ Randolph»

Farewell Brunch: On Sunday we had planned to have a farewell brunch at La Vista again. Most of our guests had breakfast included in their room package so this was a cheap way for us to offer another function. I’m kind of glad to say that there wasn’t much of a turn out. While we would have loved to spend more time with them, we were glad they were out having fun! We had a few joiners and many others that just stopped by to say “Hi / Goodbye”. It ended up working out really well as we got to dine with a couple that missed the sailing excursion and it so happened they were the only two that didn’t stay with us at the Marriott. (This person has a condo in Aruba and he was the one that insisted we consider it as our destination!) And by the way – Champagne mimosas are included as part of the La Vista brunch but they don’t seem to advertise that! Luckily my husband had found out about that. =) Food again at La Vista was great, though I have to admit we were a bit distracted, wishing we had the food from the night before! We wanted that Indian food again.

Trash the Dress: After seeing off our families at the airport, we hit the road for a trash the dress shoot which was so much fun! When I get to my post of “The Best things we did and things we could have done without”, the post wedding shoot will definitely be on the BEST things list! It was fun to put the gown on and spend time in unconventional settings. We went to some ruins and then went an ‘got her wet’ at Eagle Beach! Unfortunately it could be 4-6 more weeks before I see the photos.