“Vicki” from New York City shares with us her review of her spring Westin Wedding. In a separate email exchange she told me her officiant was Rev. Ruben Traxx whom she really liked and she chose a local photographer recommended by the Westin, Robert Arenz. Thank you Vicki, for your review and for sharing some of the photos Robert Took for you. Congratulations to you and your new husband!

Why we chose the Westin.
My husband and I chose the Westin to host our wedding (after looking at the Renaissance and the Marriott) because it seemed to offer us the best value for our money, and everyone there seemed so willing to work with us to ensure that we had the wedding of our dreams.  We also thought that the wedding location for a beach wedding was the absolute best of the three resorts.  At the Renaissance you have to take a little speed boat boat to their private island (which is right next to the airport and the planes fly right over the island as they fly in and out of the airport), which I refused to do in a wedding dress on my wedding day.  Plus the set–up just wasn’t that great.  The Marriott was expensive and while the hotel itself was really nice, the area that they host beach weddings is squished in next to the big hut where you rent rafts and other beach equipment.  With the Westin we felt like it was neither as crowded as the Marriott, nor as family-oriented.  My husband and I appreciated that we didn’t have to line up for a palapa on the beach at 6am, which would have been a total pain, and that were weren’t surrounded by screaming children.  Luckily at the Westin we never had to fight for beach or pool chairs, nor did we have to line up really early in the morning to stake out a place.  The one thing that gave us pause about having our beach wedding at the Westin was the random blue concrete buoy in front of the area where they have the beach weddings.  But they angle the ceremony towards the light house so the buoy doesn’t end up in any of your pictures and you don’t really even realize or remember that it was there.  So don’t worry about that at all.

Our decision to hold our wedding at the Westin was validated 6 months later when they called us to tell us that another couple had inquired about our wedding date and offered us the choice of whether they would host the second wedding or not.  The fact that they would consult us about that, rather than just accepting the other couple’s money meant a lot to us.  After we gave the Westin the go ahead to host another wedding on our date they assured us that we wouldn’t even know that there were two weddings on site and they were 100% correct.  If I hadn’t been told in advance about the other wedding by Inge van Roon (the Sales Manager at the Westin who called us), I would never have known they were there.

Wedding planning

Patrick, the wedding coordinator, was a life saver.  We emailed back and forth for the year leading up to the wedding while I threw around ideas for flowers, wedding colors, menus, photographers, music, etc.  He was incredibly receptive to all of my ideas and was very helpful.  He also responded to all of my emails very promptly, which I appreciated.  By the time the event rolled around there was literally nothing left to do.  He was also very friendly and upbeat, which I really appreciated.  I know that planning a wedding can be incredibly stressful, but he made the process as painless as possible.  Actually, everything he handled for us was 100% painless.  The only painful things were things I handled myself (like the guest list).  Patrick also stayed with us to ensure that things ran smoothly throughout the wedding.  Both he and Inge were present for the ceremony and then he stayed with us during the entire reception.  Actually, they were both also present at our rehearsal dinner at the Westin on the night before the wedding.

Our Ceremony and Reception
I have to say that the Westin put on a flawless ceremony and reception for us.  We had the steel drum player for the wedding and cocktail hour, along with an open bar and passed hors d’oeuvres for the cocktail hour.  Everyone couldn’t stop raving about how beautiful the ceremony location was.  Then for the reception, everyone couldn’t stop talking about how wonderful the food was – particularly the Chilean Sea Bass, although people really enjoyed the vegetarian risotto and the Flat-Iron Steak as well.  Actually, everyone also raved about the food from the rehearsal dinner the night before (the Aruban buffet).  The DJ was great, the bartenders and waiters were very fun and friendly, and the cake was beautiful.  Oh and I was absolutely in love with my flowers.  Everyone had such a fantastic time – we really couldn’t have planned (or had) a better wedding.  We had 51 guests, most of whom stayed at the Westin with us and they haven’t stopped talking about the wedding and how fabulous it was since we returned from Aruba two weeks ago.  I would highly recommend the Westin to anyone thinking about having a destination wedding in Aruba.

Other events
In addition to the wedding and the rehearsal dinner at the Westin, we also chartered a catamaran from Red Sail Sports as a welcome party for all of our guests.  Red Sail Sports was wonderful.  It was a very nice, low-key way to introduce all of the wedding guests to each other.  Ayerim from Red Sail Sports was great.  All of the groomsmen also went golfing at Tierra del Sol and thoroughly enjoyed that as well.