Winter is upon us New Englanders so I’m officially in hibernation mode. For the next several months I’ll be daydreaming of warm weather and beaches, starting off with this beautiful wedding in Jamaica. Under the guidance of Travel & Events With Style and captured by Dwayne Larson Photography, this celebration has me soaking up every single seaside photo and craving more.
From The Bride… Sean and I wanted to chose a destination that would reflect us as a couple – Sean has been brought up with a Jamaican influence and it has shaped his life since he was a child. When we decided we wanted a beach wedding it seemed like a natural choice for us. Plus it gave everyone an excuse to escape one of the coldest cities in Canada!
As a graphic designer, I started with the stationery design, and the everything else seemed to roll out from there. We wanted our wedding to evoke simple, casual elegance and compliment the gorgeous natural backdrop of Negril. Our color palette was coral, greys, white and a light seafoam green. I based our invitations off a casual handdrawn script I made of our names, and since it was a beach wedding I chose to incorporate stripes to give it a nautical feeling. I chose coral as our main color because it felt tropical and I knew it would look great with the clear blue water as a backdrop. I had custom rubber stamps made with a graphic of the island with a heart overlaying Negril to customize various items. I had the main invitation letter pressed, and tied the pieces together with grey and white bakers twine.
Once the invitations were tackled I got to work planning craft nights with my friends to ensure we had decor that reflected us as a couple. One of our favourite things to do as a couple is to go to see live music, and travel to music festivals. My maid of honour found vintage sheet music at a thrift store that we used to make table runners, and pinwheels to label the bride and groom chairs. We made a backdrop for the guest table out of garland made with music sheets and paper in the color palette I chose. I chose to incorporate shells to tie in the beach theme, and made boutonnieres for the wedding party and family with starfish, grass and music sheets.
We had our ceremony on the beach with the waves crashing just feet away from us. We wanted an intimate feel for the ceremony. The aisle was lined with white lanterns with ribbons flowing from the chairs, and flowing white curtains on bamboo framed the altar. For our guestbook, we really wanted something that would encourage guests to write something more personal, so we made a book with various questions for guests to answer on each page.
Making sure our friends and family had fun at the reception was really important to us, and our choices for music reflected that. We had prepared our own playlist with a wide range of motown, soul, reggae, funk and hip hop, and had spin the bottle dance offs. A highlight of the night was when guests wanted us to kiss, we made them hula hoop. To end the night we set off Chinese Lanterns over the ocean.
My friend Dwayne Larson did our photography, and my maid of honour who is lead photographer with Victoria Anne Photography couldn’t help but snap a few shots for us when she wasn’t fulfilling her attendant duties. It was so great having two people that we feel comfortable with there to capture our day.
I cannot express enough about how much our wedding planner Jaime Valdes- Riench did for us. Planning an event from so far away adds a lot of stress and she made the process unbelievably simple and stress free – she kept us on track with decisions, gave us honest feedback, coordinated meetings with hard-to-nail down vendors and seamlessly planned the flow and sequence of our event.
Photography: Dwayne Larson Photography | Floral Design: Tai Flora | Wedding Dress: Justin Alexander | Bride's Shoes: Badgley Mischka | Beach Set Up: Riu Palace Riviera Maya | Invitations And Stationery: Jaime Alissa Design | Photography - Assistance: Victoria Anne Photography | Wedding Planning And Travel Agent: Travel and Event With Style