Rustic Destination Wedding at Secrets Royal Beach Punta Cana
In true Thanksgiving fashion, this destination holiday wedding was all about friends and family. From the invitations designed by a friend and hand-sewn accents from the Bride's mother, to the photography from friend, Erin Davenport, the Bride and Groom celebrated starting off their marriage surrounded by the love of those closest to them. See how it all came together in this gorgeous gallery!
From the Bride... Drew and I were introduced by friends at a University of Alabama football game and became engaged in December 2011 after both moving to Colorado. Being from Alabama but living in Colorado for the past few years, the idea of planning a wedding back home in Alabama was overwhelming. We did not want our guests to travel to Colorado for just a short weekend. This led us to the idea of a destination wedding. A week of relaxing and vacationing with our close friends and family sounded like a fantastic idea. In addition, Drew’s and my family had never met. So we chose Thanksgiving week to spend together as new, larger family.
Our only regret with the destination wedding was that we knew not all of those important to us would be able to travel. It was indeed a smaller, more intimate wedding. The wedding was planned almost entirely by email with the resort wedding coordinator. She was incredibly patient with my million questions. In many ways, our wedding was truly a friends and family affair. A friend designed our wedding invitations. Another friend was our wedding photographer and resident Colorado advisor for dress shopping and all things wedding related. My mom embroidered and sewed the table runners, chair signs, banners and table numbers. Drew’s mom and sister brought other fun, personal touches for the table settings. Even our friends who arranged our introduction were able to attend, and his wife applied my makeup.
I had always wanted to get married on a beach but wanted to bring a rustic, Southern flare to our beach wedding. We were able to do this with lots of monogramming, lace, candles and embroidered burlap décor made by my mom. We chose lots of greens as accent colors to make it fun and festive.
The beach wedding ceremony was a little windy, but everything was perfect nonetheless. Because of the weather report, the reception was moved from poolside to a covered pool and beach-side open air restaurant, Castaways. It was meant to be and turned out beautifully! Good times, good food and a lot of dancing. With a great deal of help from friends and family, we successfully pulled off the rustic beach elegance I was going for!
Our only regret with the destination wedding was that we knew not all of those important to us would be able to travel. It was indeed a smaller, more intimate wedding. The wedding was planned almost entirely by email with the resort wedding coordinator. She was incredibly patient with my million questions. In many ways, our wedding was truly a friends and family affair. A friend designed our wedding invitations. Another friend was our wedding photographer and resident Colorado advisor for dress shopping and all things wedding related. My mom embroidered and sewed the table runners, chair signs, banners and table numbers. Drew’s mom and sister brought other fun, personal touches for the table settings. Even our friends who arranged our introduction were able to attend, and his wife applied my makeup.
I had always wanted to get married on a beach but wanted to bring a rustic, Southern flare to our beach wedding. We were able to do this with lots of monogramming, lace, candles and embroidered burlap décor made by my mom. We chose lots of greens as accent colors to make it fun and festive.
The beach wedding ceremony was a little windy, but everything was perfect nonetheless. Because of the weather report, the reception was moved from poolside to a covered pool and beach-side open air restaurant, Castaways. It was meant to be and turned out beautifully! Good times, good food and a lot of dancing. With a great deal of help from friends and family, we successfully pulled off the rustic beach elegance I was going for!