Wedding planning is in full effect! We just got engaged two months ago and we already have our dates... two dates! We are going to do one destination wedding in Punta Cana, and then a small home wedding in Chicago. My mom wanted me to get married in a church in the States and whatever mom wants, mom gets. Many of my family members asked why we chose Punta Cana so I thought I'd make a list here for all that are debating on doing a destination wedding. In my opinion it is so worth it!!
1. Virtually no planning!
I cannot believe how much more work it is to plan the Chicago wedding than the Punta Cana wedding. The resort in Punta Cana has a wedding coordinator that is at your disposable and all I did was send her pictures of what we wanted, filled out more info of our ideas, and essentially she does it all! That's all! It's crazy. They have a DJ they use, catering, decor specialists, and they're there to make it easy for you! For Chicago I need to find all these vendors on my own (since we're having it in my cousins backyard), catering and staff, tent, dance floor, chairs, china, bartender, bar, tables, tablecloths, sweets, cake, ugh the list goes on and on!
2. Not be like everyone else.
Everyone I know has always done a banquet hall wedding and for Colin and I, we never envisioned that for ours. I know that we don't have many other options living in a 4 season city that you never know if it'll rain if you tried to do it outside, but I just never wanted my own wedding in a dark banquet hall. That's why we opted to have it outdoors on the beach in Punta Cana and hopefully it doesn't rain!
3. Save on decor and a lot more!
The location is beautiful enough that you don't need so much decor! You don't need a tent, no draping, and that alone you save so much money and having it on the beach with just tables, chairs and a dance floor. It is also SOO much more cheaper than doing a banquet hall wedding in the States. The only downside is the price of the flights and hotel but it is also a mini vacation for guests!
4. It could feel like a huge family vacation.
To bring both sides of the families together to spend more than only 5 hours dancing, it's so nice for everyone to get to know one another! Having all of your family there will feel like a massive family vacation and be so fun! (that is if your family is low on the drama haha) I'm mainly so excited for this part because I've never been on vacation with so many family members and I think it'll be so fun!
5. Invite people that you actually know.
For Polish weddings, people usually have 300-500 people at their wedding so for us, this was the best way we could really only invite people we know! I love the idea of having it intimate and only people that I could talk to and call aside from this day!
6. Photo ops galore.
You know the wedding week is going to be FULL of amazing backgrounds for photos. I LOVE taking photos and I am so excited about the location and how beautiful our wedding photos will be.
If you haven't seen any of the engagement photos/videos- here are all the links!
We got engaged in Poland, (Poland travel video here) days before going to Positano) I was SO surprised. You can find out more about our engagement in my engagement Q&A, and watch the proposal here.
We then went to Positano and shot our engagement pics (video here)!
Hope this helps you!
xoxoo ela