for those of you who don't know me, i'm an event planner who cringes with tension until i have every single little detail planned out. i'm not flawless or neat, but i'm a slave to order and an addict to knowing what will happen and what is to be expected for every event. some have called me a perfectionist, some have lovingly noted the anal retentive side of me. with that being said, let it be known that this is the only event where i literally allowed/made myself "let go and let God," so to speak...as much as i could anyway.
when my now husband and i were in the middle of spending a year and a half planning our wedding (which took place last november), we, like many couples during their wedding-planning stages, were met with monsoons of others' wants, needs, demands, obligations, etc. it was tiring. it was more so tiring because we did not feel like we were planning a wedding we wanted. so in the middle of planning a wedding for 300+, we began planning a wedding for two. i know--planning a wedding in the midst of planning another wedding is absurd and can be suicidal. we did it anyway. we figured if we have the wedding WE wanted, planning a wedding THEY wanted wouldn't bother us as much.
having traveled so much during the duration of our relationship, we thought it was unnatural not to travel somewhere to get hitched. we decided on a destionation -- playa del carmen, mexico. we decided to invite our closest group of friends to come along for the sun, tan, and margaritas. the friends who were able to make it, booked their flights and everything began.
one of my maids-of-honor took over researching and booking our hotel for me, so i could concentrate on the november wedding. not only was our hotel located right on the beach, but it also was a block away from the main town strip. each room had its own hammock hanging out front. our room's balcony faced the beach and received such a nice breeze all day and night that a groomsman opted to sleep on our hammock instead of sleeping in his room. on top of it all, the rooms were affordable for everyone's budget.
the only research i had to do was find a restaurant for our celebratory dinner after the ceremony and a bakery for our sweets. my two maids-of-honor and man-of-honor came over to do a few workshop nights with me.
one of our groomsmen, who ended up not being able to go, had shirts we designed custom-made for all the groomsmen during his trip abroad. one groomsmen took care of our website to keep our guests informed on where and what to book. our party of two became a cozy party of 15.
i couldn't give up all the details, but i did cut back immensely from my usual. we worked with a printing company to have our invitations the way we wanted and then i lined each envelope by hand with a selection of specialty paper to make it more personal.
we put together linen welcome bags for each guest. i wrote "hola!" on each bag with a pale blue highlighter to match with our theme colors: pale blue, yellow, and red.
we handmade fabric boutonnieres for the gents and fabric flowers for the bridesmaids and me to wear in our hair. we also designed buttons for the occasion. everyone had "h+p" while the then-fiance and i had "i <3 p" and "i <3 h," respectively. that was it, i promise!
no, that's a lie. i forgot about our handmade burlap flags. each heart was carefully traced and cut out by my man-of-honor.
i also forgot about the pillow pockets we made to hold some of our welcome bag items. okay, now i think that was it.
it all came together, sand and all.
the dress was bought on a whim. after returning a disappointingly long-awaited dress i had ordered from jcrew, i walked into french connection and saw this dress hanging and grabbed it (i also grabbed on in teal and a similar one in black because i'm that kind of shopper--the kind husbands worry about).
our party made a pit stop in cancun for a day and a night before making our way to playa del carmen. our friend and photographer offered to be our photographer as a gift to us, which is why you get to see these stunning photos.
photo by hieu tran
we hit the beach and the strip, had our street tacos and fair share of tequila and readied ourselves for the main destination the next day.
upon arriving in playa del carmen, we found a dock located right in front of our hotel, so we decided that would be the wedding venue--no reservations, no fuss, no muss, no speakers, no artificial lighting, no decorations. it was just a plain wooden dock with a simple terrace and turquoise water and blue skies as the backdrop. it was nature's perfection.
the then-fiance and i walked deep into town to find a local flower shop that had a limited supply of fresh flowers available. i grabbed a simple bunch here, a few stems there and called it a day without asking to go into the cooler or back to see their inventory. i must have spent less than thirty minutes there--a record for me at any floral supply venue.
i made four bouquets out of my loot and wrapped each with lace and tied them with the same red string my then-fiance and i were to tie on our ring fingers a day later.
we asked one of my bridesmaids to officiate the ceremony however simple and short she wanted. being a perfectionist herself, she came well-prepared with typed notecards. as the bridesmaids and i began our procession from the hotel to the dock, a group of young brazilian vacationers from the hotel next to us broke out into a celebratory song as they watched from their balcony, providing us with cheerful acoustic music. the random tourists who were awaiting the sunset on the dock, smiled and made way for us as they snapped pictures of us walking by. the local men fishing on the dock left the center end clear for us.
and as the sun began to set, we tied the knot.
the hotel's housekeeping staff found out about our ceremony and snuck into our room to surprise us with a lovely display. it was a memorable, long and relaxing weekend with our crew and we don't regret planning it one bit. we do, however, regret not being able to stay there longer and ordering more macarons to take home!
photos by ikigai
