Mexico Wedding by Sheri Whitko Photography
Ger ready for a totally vibrant, totally colorful, and totally gorgeous Central Mexico wedding that will have you re-thinking your plans for a destination wedding on the beach. Yup, that's right, there's no water in sight here and it's oh-so refreshing. Sheri Whitko Photography captured this gorgeous wedding and the beyond beautiful town of San Miguel de Allende to perfection. I seriously can't stop staring at all that beautiful bougainvillea! Click here for more.
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From the bride... Kevin and I knew as soon as we got engaged that we wanted to have a destination wedding in Mexico, but we never really saw ourselves having the typical Mexican beach wedding. Upon a friend's recommendation, we checked out San Miguel de Allende, an old colonial town in central Mexico. It was love at first sight. San Miguel is a fairy tale little town filled with cobblestone streets, romantic alleyways covered in bougainvillea and enchanting doorways. It transports you back in time and makes you feel as though you walked into another world. We knew instantly that it was where we wanted to get married. We have always loved Mexico, and we hoped by getting married there, we would be able to spend more time with our guests and create a more personalized experience. We were also on a pretty strict budget and knew that our money would be able go a lot further in Mexico than in California.
We wanted our wedding to feel as personal as possible, but more than anything we wanted to make sure that our guests knew how happy and grateful we were that they had come all the way to Mexico to celebrate with us. We had suitcases completely full of snacks and goodies that we used in our welcome bags, and other suitcases full of just decorations. We wrote handwritten letters to each guest, thanking them for coming and expressing how lucky we felt to have such great people in our lives, and used these as our escort cards. As part of our ceremony, we wrote letters to each other and sealed them away in a wooden box with a bottle of wine, to be used as a sort of “time capsule” that we will open years from now on a later anniversary. Our budget restricted us from getting a photo booth, so we made a faux photo booth that doubled as our guestbook and had everyone take pictures with a Polaroid camera and then write us a note.
Our goal was to have a wedding that was colorful, vibrant and reflective of the local culture, but still representative of us. One of my favorite parts of the day was the celebratory tequila parade that followed immediately after our ceremony. It is local tradition that after the ceremony you and your guests walk the streets of San Miguel so that the locals can come out to congratulate you and wish you a long and happy marriage. We started off this parade with a tequila donkey and huge ten-foot tall puppets called mojigangas and then followed behind an amazing eight-piece mariachi band as they led us throughout the streets. To say it was fun is an understatement. There were so many times that we wondered if we were crazy for having a destination wedding, in central Mexico no less, but it was the best decision we could have made. Our friends and family got to genuinely know each and become friends themselves. The sheer enormity of having that many people travel so far to celebrate with you was the most incredibly powerful, overwhelming, and happy feeling I have ever experienced. It was completely worth any stress and anxiety that came with it, and we would do it over again in a heartbeat.
Wedding Photography: Sheri Whitko Photography / Event Coordination: Alicia Villar of San Miguel Weddings / Venue: Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico / Wedding Dress: Romona Keveza / Bridal Belt: Twisted Crystals / Bridesmaid Dresses: Amsale / Groom's Tuxedo: Hugo Boss / Hair Flower: Presumptuous Me / Wine Box: Naturally Aspen / Guestbook Backdrop: AngelG / Polaroid Guestbook: The Handmade Boutique / Faux Photo Booth: DIY