Our Aruba Wedding

I mentioned in our previous post that one of the things we LOVED about our wedding photos and our photographers, was that they captured how young and adventurous we FEEL. The pics are fresh and funky. Here are a couple of our favorites from the wedding day itself. We have plenty of photos that aren’t loaded with attitude and featuring sunglasses, but they seem to be our favorites! (Thanks for indulging me!)

How cool is this!?! This totally says “Married in Aruba!”

My sister-in-law described this photo the best: “Mission Accomplished!”

Somehow we really don’t care about ’sunset photos’, but love this one!

And I just LOVE these shots — the “Moody Guy Shots”. Maybe this
one would  be better titled “Mission Accomplished”. He’ll probably say
more like “I’m in charge now” but we both know better. =)

Hello, hello! I know I haven’t posted in a while. Things have been crazy busy now that the wedding is done and it’s time to get back to everything at home that we neglected during the planning. We are still on a high after our wedding and were SO EXCITED last week when we were notified our wedding photo proofs are ready.

The day after the wedding we chose to do a “Trash the Dress” shoot. I remember the first time I heard the term Trash the Dress. I was mortified! Why on earth would someone trash their wedding dress? Why would they destroy something so special? Well the more I read I started to realized that “Trash the Dress” isn’t always what it sounds… The dress may not get trashed at all. Sometimes what’s called Trash the Dress is really just a ‘post-wedding’ photo shoot. Often these are done in an unconventional location. I have TTD links I’ve posted here in other posts. Sometimes you see an unconventional location like the couple sitting cross legged in the middle of a street. Other times you see a backdrop or setting that is often in stark contrast to the delicate beauty of a wedding dress. Graffiti walls, “ruins”, among cacti, riding bicycles (or even banana tubes!) and of course, getting in the water!

The more I looked at these photos, the more I started to love the idea. In these sessions, the couple is often much more relaxed and having fun! Gone are the pressures and distractions. Suddenly its time for the two of you to ‘play’ and really get some unique photographs. Suddenly I ‘had to have’ these pictures. Luckily, my husband also loved the idea!

After spending what’s often countless hours looking for the dress and thousands of dollars to buy her, its still hard to imagine ‘trashing’ her. Shortly before the wedding I purchased a simple white cotton strapless eyelet sundress that I was thinking I would probably use for the shoot. Even I couldn’t imagine subjecting my Romona to dirt and bricks and water.

We made it through the wedding and had our TTD shoot lined up for the next afternoon. I so loved my dress that I realized I wasn’t done making some amazing memories with her. I packed up the dress and the veil and we stopped by to pick up the photographers. We asked the hotel concierge for directions to the “Gold Mill Ruins”. Well we should have been more specific and asked for the Bushiribana Gold Mill Ruins. This is the location of some of the dramatic post-wedding photos you may have seen; large rock walls and the sea crashing in the background.

Instead we were sent to the Balashi Gold Mill Ruins. These were not at all what we expected. Not the drama of Bushiribana. We were conflicted – make the most of it, or go in search of the intended location? We decided to make the most of it and are so glad we did. We totally had the place to ourselves and still got some gorgeous photos…. Photos you probably won’t see anywhere else! That’s what’s great about having a brilliant photographer – they can make any location ‘the location’.

So I put on ‘the dress’… Romona, and we got started. I went to climb up in the window and realized it was going to be a challenge. The dress really could get damaged. I knew I was ready and up I went! It was a rush. A nook or cranny we wouldn’t have given a second glace to inspired the photographers. We had an idea the photos were going to be cool, but really had no idea just how much we were going to love them! And even better!?! We had time to hit the beach and do sunset in the water!

A few minutes away was Eagle Beach. We parked by the Bucuti and got in the water there. (Remember, there are no private beaches in Aruba.) There were very few people around. Our photographer told us to just take a stroll down the beach and back. We had fun goofing around. And they warned us — the ‘getting in the water’ part goes really quick. So how did we do it? Well we started walking… he said go ahead and walk in the water a little bit. Just maybe our feet. Then he had me lay on the sand, head toward the beach, feet toward the water. The idea was I’d be laying there and the waves would come up and envelope me. Swallow me up. I thought this would be a succession of building waves, but instead we got one big wave right off the bat! And he got the pic!!! What a surreal feeling…

After officially getting drenched, then we went ahead and went into the water to play. It was hilarious. Its amazing how heavy a wet wedding dress gets! And the waves were strong. They kept knocking me over. And the photogs had ideas of these shots they wanted – him lifting me up or carrying me out of the water… yeah, right! Took a LOT of tries with the water knocking me over again and again and him adjusting to the fact that I now weighed 20 or 30 pounds more than he is used to. It was an absolute blast.

So why trash ‘the’ dress instead of the sundress? A dress I love so much? A dress I worked so hard to find and pay for? It’s hard to explain. Part of it was wanting those photos. I’ve never felt as beautiful as I did in that dress. Part of it is saying goodbye to ‘the bride’, the single woman. Part of it was an outlet for some of the frustrations I experience during planning…

Our photographers warned us the dress was going to be smelly. We got back to the hotel and let her air out on the balcony the next three days. When I went to collected it, what a sight! Why didn’t I feel a tinge of regret, I don’t know. I’m very sentimental about the dress and just grinned as I thought about the fun we had together. My husband was the one that actually insisted we get it dry cleaned and even ‘preserved’. It was embarrassing to bring it to the cleaners. There was all kinds of sand and even driftwood in the underskirt. He sent it out and it did take longer than normal to get back. I’m still dying to open ‘the box’ and survey the damage, but the dry cleaner insists it came clean! Seriously!?! He said if it didn’t you’d see the ’sorry…’ sticker, tag, indicating there were stains they couldn’t get out. Clean? Really? I actually had a couple of photographers tell me that many of the dresses come clean just fine. Still, you have to be prepared for it to not come clean.

Now she’ll be boxed up til our 10th year anniversary when we’ll open it back up. Our joke is that if I can fit into it on our 10th anniversary I’ll get diamonds! What does he get if I don’t? I guess he gets to save a lot of money! Or maybe by then he’ll decide he gets a sports car if I don’t. Its all in fun…

In the end, these turned out to be our favorite photos! I feel really lucky that I have a husband that was willing to entertain what to many seems like such a crazy idea. And we were so lucky to have such gifted photographers that captured how young and adventurous we feel!

Oh and those photographers, no, they are not in Aruba. Though I tried and tried, I just couldn’t seem to find any that compared. Sometimes you just ‘know’. You see photos that take your breath away and know you won’t settle for less. My advice – never settle with your wedding photos!

A couple of great real wedding reviews have just been posted to the Aruba.com forum!

• Renaissance Island, October 2009 – Though this  couple brought their own photographer from North Carolina, the bride raves about working with Juney. They also decided to do the civil ceremony at home in NYC – like us they considered that ceremony a ‘formality’.
• Aruba Marriott, November 2009 – Serena raves about several of the same people we did: Desireé (of course! she’s awesome), DJ Mark Benson, Tico the Steel Pan, Dufy (sp?) the bartender, the Marriott’s food! (they had filet mignon & lobster), Bully the Taxi Driver, and Reverend Gibson. She also bride raves about her hair and make-up experience with Knipoog: www.knipoogaruba.com, 297-583-0221. Sure wish I would have known about them! (Here is her Knipoog review.) And she loved her photographer, Victor Winklaar – (I’ve mentioned before when it comes to island photographers, I’ve felt Victor’s work is the best. The photo, right, is uploaded to the post on the forum and links back to that original review.)

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.

We had our ceremony on the beach at the Aruba Marriott. Sunset was at 6:14 that night so we chose to have our ceremony start at 4:30. We did not want a ’sunset ceremony’. Our idea was we would have the ceremony, then guests would move on to the cocktail hour to enjoy steel pan music and the sunset while we were taking photos. Also, the photographers told us the best light is the hour just before sunset, so we wanted most of our photos taken between 5:00-6:00. (Believe it or not, we don’t care about ’sunset photos’. Instead of capturing sunset photos, a little after 6:00 we were on our way inside to enjoy an orange mojito in the lobby bar before going upstairs to change clothes.)

The day of the ceremony, guests were asked to gather in the lobby around 4:15pm. Desireé, the Marriott’s wedding planner, would be walking the guests in groups to the ceremony location, when she confirmed everything was on schedule. She didn’t want our guests to spend more time than necessary waiting in the heat if we were for some reason delayed. Good thing too, because it was HOT! And Aruba’s characteristic ‘wind’ seemed to have left us that afternoon, so the ceremony was probably 90º with very little breeze! (Desireé had recommended we instead had the ceremony start at 5:00 because of the heat, but we stuck with 4:30 since we didn’t want to miss out on the hour of primo light.)

My groom joined his two groomsmen up at the arch while the guests were being seated. (We did not have the groomsmen ‘walk the aisle’ with the bridesmaid and maid of honor.) His eldest son seated both of our mothers and then it was time to begin!

Steel pan music played as my bridesmaid and maid of honor walked down the aisle up to the bamboo and white fabric arch. Our flower girl (daughter of the maid of honor) started off great, but then decided to walk off and do her own thing which was fine. For us it was something to laugh about – after all, she had just turned 3 so we knew something like that might happen. Then my dad walked me down the aisle to the steel pan ‘here comes the bride’. Somehow I thought it would be cheesy to have that song played by the steel drum, but it was actually quite nice. That tune tugs at the emotion but the steel pan playing it made it seem so cheerful and fun – perfect for the beach!

I wore a gorgeous Romona Keveza Collection silk gown, Nadri chandelier earrings and bangles, and high heeled wedge flip flops. Luckily Romona’s dresses have the most amazing construction so I didn’t need any ’support undergarments’. A simple pair of lace undies is all was needed under that dress! And I heeded the advice from bridal consultants that said limit the veil to simple single tier of fingertip length, though I also brought a cathedral length veil which I used for other photos. (I purchased both veils on eBay for only $20 each!) Had there been a lot of wind, I would have just tucked a little bit of the veil in the back of the dress to hold it in place. (My ‘reception’ dress which I’ll show in the reception review was a gorgeous Nicole Miller gown purchased on RueLaLa.com. RueLaLa has short ‘private sales’ of designer clothes and accessories, during one of which I purchased the $2600 gown for only $650! They emailed me a teaser two days before and I was lucky enough to snag that dress before it sold out.) My bouquet was white cymbidium orchids and white freesia and the bridesmaids carried orange calla lilies. (I loved my bouquet even though it was really expensive but wasn’t impressed with the bridesmaid bouquets. I’ll elaborate more on flowers in another post.)

The Ceremony:

For the ceremony, we chose Reverend Gibson, whom I had communicated via email for a few months and we met in person the day before. He’s definitely a pro and very comfortable in front of the group. There was something that put me off a little bit, but I can’t put my finger on what is was (maybe I’ll figure it out by the time I write a more detailed review for him).

We exchange traditional vows and were then asked to say some words of our own. He had warned us the day before that he would ask us to do this. He insisted ‘Don’t worry about it – don’t even give it a thought’. He said he had never seen it go wrong. He said relax and something beautiful will come out, ‘it always does’. We decided to go ahead and leave that part in and trust him. When the time came though, I hate to say that I felt a little lost (luckily the groom had to go first!). Did some beautiful words come to me when it was my turn? I’m afraid not. I thought it was really awkward and I remember feeling embarrassed. I haven’t seen the video yet – when I do maybe I’ll decide he was right. My hunch though? Probably not.

After we are pronounced husband and wife we were invited to participate in the ‘sand ceremony‘, kind of Aruba’s version of a unity candle. We invited my husbands children to participate with us and filled the sand vase as a family. (By the way, we hired Rev. Gibson directly and in our email communications he never mentioned we’d need to provide the vase for the ceremony. We found out about that the day before. Luckily, Edwina came to the rescue and found us a beautiful vase and some colored sands.) The vase gets filled, the ‘keepsake certificate’ signed and then he invites guests to come up and congratulate us. It was nice to get that hug from each person right after the ceremony, however it took a while and I kind of feel like our guests were wanting some shade and a drink and not so excited about waiting in line to say their congratulations at that moment. (And we wanted to move on to our photos so we could stay on schedule.)

Decorating:

We chose to simply line the aisle with palm leaves. (The pink / orange ombre rose petal pattern I had in mind would have likely been disrupted by the wind and sand. I had instead chosen a white carpet runner which I decided against at the last minute. I had been considering the runner so that it would be easier for me to walk in my high heeled wedge flip, but then a carpet on the sand just didn’t seem right.)

We chose to do almost no decorating of the ceremony – no flowers at all and no sashes. We rented the folding chairs (which I think are more sophisticated than the plastic slip covered / sashed chairs) and bamboo and fabric arch from Edwina / E2. I had briefly wondered if I should have at least decorated the chairs at the ends by the aisle, but was glad we chose to leave them plain. We just didn’t want to spend more money than necessary on the ceremony – we wanted to save our budget for the party! I never felt like anything was missing.

The Beach:

If you’re planning an Aruba wedding you probably already know that there are no private beaches in Aruba! Many couples are bothered by this and its probably one of the biggest reasons some choose Renaissance Island, where you get to rent out the whole Island and you have ultimate privacy. Edwina warned us that Palm Beach is much busier than Eagle Beach which is why she prefers Eagle Beach for weddings. We had read posts from couples that were concerned about having tourists and water sports activities in their photos. The fact that Marriott is the Palm Beach hotel furthest to the north, we hoped these things would be less of a problem.

So, were there sunbathers laying around watching the wedding? Was there water sports activity going on in the background? Was there anyone in a speedo walking the beach? Yes, Yes and Yes! Were we bothered by these things, like the fact that some of our ceremony photos show a person in the water in the middle of the arch (shown here)? Surprisingly, no! Aside from one group of skimpily clad people that we politely asked to move during family photos after the wedding, we weren’t bothered. We really didn’t even notice the extra audience to the sides and were able to laugh off the occasional person strolling the beach. You may notice two of the photos in this post are almost identical with the exception that in one the swimmer is easily Photoshop-ed out of the arch. With as much as I get hung up on so many other things, I’m surprised that this didn’t bother me. I will try to post more photos later and let you judge for yourself how big of a deal it is. If you do want to be assured more privacy though, I’d consider Ren Island or Eagle Beach.

Things I am glad we did:

• Kept the ceremony decoration simple! I did not want to spend a lot of money decorating a short ceremony and wondered if I would regret that later. In the end, that simplicity was something I loved.
• Steel pan player: I believe Tico was the steel pan player and he did a fantastic job. Marriott positioned him perfectly between the cocktails and ceremony and the volume was perfect. I had wondered if a single steep pan would be enough and I totally think it was. (Other options were a steel pan trio or a steel pan and guitar duo.)
• Timing: I’m glad we kept the 4:30 timing (vs. moving back to 5:00), even though it was hot.
• Cocktail hour: Arranged for a cocktail hour to follow. (We limited it to 2 signature cocktails, beer and wine and fruit and cheese displays to help keep the cost down.)

Things I might have done differently:

• Sand Ceremony: I would have brought a vase from home for the sand ceremony. I think we paid $80 for a simple glass vase that I could have purchase for a fraction of that here at home. I also might have liked to pick out this keepsake myself. For the sand, you can keep it as simple as using some beach sand, or you can use some colored sands. Luckily we loved the combination of natural sand and earthy colored sands Edwina found for us.
• Vows: Put some thought into the words Reverend Gibson would ask us to exchange

So, the final verdict – should we have done our ceremony elsewhere? No way! We found the Marriott’s beach to be much less crowded than other hotels on Palm Beach and really wanted the convenience of having everything in one place. We didn’t have to worry about transporting guests between the ceremony and reception site. We wanted everything to be as easy as possible for our guests who had come so far. Also, some guests like being able to sneak up to their room to change into something more comfortable for the reception. Having spotless facilities nearby (bar and restrooms) was a plus as well. And we actually enjoyed having total strangers come up to us the rest of the weekend telling us they had watched our ceremony on the beach. Some said that it was the most beautiful ceremony they had ever seen. Every “Congratulations” was well received and we even had one lady say our ceremony brought tears to her eyes. Awww…. !

Here is a write-up and photos of a beautiful ‘real wedding’ on Renaissance Island in Aruba. Though we decided Ren Island wasn’t for us, this posting shows just how beautiful it can be. I can totally identify with this bride who describes Aruba lacking in vendor options. In particular, before reading her write-up I can tell her photographer was not from Aruba. They even went to the extent of bringing their own priest with them. Since Aruba works hard to promote itself as a wedding destination, you would expect more options. While they do have some wonderful people, the wedding industry does not seem nearly as well developed at places like Cabo and Hawaii.

Since Aruba has a reputation for being expensive I had a feeling I would be able to find all the glam and latest / greatest wedding decor available but instead often find myself feeling like they are about 10 years behind. Still, patience and creativity will pay off. And of course so will a substantial budget — I’d be willing to bet this couple’s budget was a bit higher than most. We created a budget based on initial proposals from the hotels and have exceeded it by more than 50%.