Bringing a Chic, Modern Aesthetic to Playa del Carmen’s Blue Diamond

Erin Lepperd
October 2, 2018
Categories: Destination, Real Weddings, The Blog

When you travel the globe as destination wedding photographers, how do you decide where to host your very own Destination wedding? That choice was a tough one for this Bride and Groom (so many favorite spots!) but after careful consideration and a short list of must-haves, the most stunning tropical locale won out. The Blue Diamond in Playa del Carmen played host to this modern affair planned by Love on Top Weddings with images by Kyle John and a film by The Film Poets too. And whatever you do, you must read the Bride’s story about the love letter at the end. It will give you alll the feels.

From the Bride… Garrett and I met our Junior year of college after a football game in the fall. We ran into each other a few weeks later. I worked up the courage to make the first move. It’s been six years and we’ve been glued to each other ever since. He proposed while we were traveling to shoot a wedding in the mountains of Arkansas.

After shooting so many destination weddings together we knew we wanted to have a destination wedding for our special weekend. Once we finished shooting each wedding, we would make a list of the things we loved the most about each one. When it came time to plan our own wedding we knew exactly what details would matter to us the most and what wed need to do to create the most memorable weekend. One of those details we wanted was a tropical location that had a small, boutique hotel. Garrett said he envisioned walking around the resort and no matter where we went, we would see a special familiar face.

We decided on a location close enough to the US that still had the beauty of a tropical location. We settled on Blue Diamond Resort in Playa del Carmen. The resort is a large property filled with lush, lush greenery and wildlife even natural cenotes that flow throughout the resort between the different villas. It truly felt like we were in Bali when really it was just Mexico! Before selecting our wedding venue we took a “scouting trip” with my parents at the same time one year prior. We picked 5 venues in Playa to tour and stayed 2 nights at three different hotels. This allowed us to get a feel for the space, weather/lighting, food, etc. I highly recommend this to any bride planning a destination wedding! This was super beneficial to our planning process! We were able to meet face to face with our planner Paty and wedding site coordinator Yadira and that was also a huge help bringing to life everything we hoped for our weekend!

The beauty of a destination wedding is that we weren’t restricted to a specific number of guests or forced to make any “cuts” to who was included in our invitation list and who was not. HUGE plus so we never had to worry about hurting anyones feelings! We invited everyone and anyone we wanted on both my side and his side. We made it known that anyone was welcome to join us for our weekend and if anyone wasn’t able to make it we would totally understand! We made our wedding party large. I had 11 bridesmaids and Garrett had 8 groomsmen. Knowing it would be a destination wedding and anticipating that not everyone would be able to come – we selected our wedding party by who we wanted by our side the most. Knowing that if they were in our wedding party they would most likely come! And that was the case! We ended up having 84 guests come to our wedding – way more than we thought. Whether it would have been just our parents and our wedding party we would have been just as happy but having so many others join us was so amazing.

Aside from shooting weddings, Garrett and I get nervous having to speak in front of a bunch of people! We wanted to be fully comfortable while saying our vows to one another during our ceremony. But we had SO many people come to our wedding! The best piece of advice I can give ceremony related is to make your ceremony as personalized as possible catered to what you want out of the ceremony -whatever that means. Here are a few things we did to accomplish that. We wanted someone to officiate the wedding that made us and would make our guests feel comfortable.

We selected a very close family friend that is equally as funny as he is religious. His words were both inspiring and humorous. Garrett was very adamant about doing personal vows. He felt that speaking in front of other people – much less pouring your heart out in front of others, is something that takes a ton of courage. And professing your love to the people you mean the most makes our vows feel that much more solid and real. Neither of us are poets. We poked fun at one another during our vows – which is SO us. We never even had a rehearsal for the ceremony with our wedding party. Which may come as a shock to some since Ive directed so many weddings. But I truly wanted to remove any stiffness or formality to our wedding. When I walked down the aisle with my Dad I hugged my dad, I hugged Garrett, I hugged our officiant. We laughed, we cried, we didn’t think twice about what the “rules” were. Or what we were and weren’t “Supposed” to do. For our “readings” I had our parents write notes of “What I wish for your marriage” that we would hear read for the first time at the ceremony by our cousins.

Ceremony songs:

Wedding Party: God only Knows John Legend

Bride Processional: Here Comes the Sun – The Beatles

Recessional: Signed Sealed Delivered Stevie Wonder

Another favorite moment was when we we entered the reception for the the first time. All our guests were lined up in two lines. We picked Guns N Roses “Welcome to the Jungle” for us to run through all our guests. At the very end of the lines my sister was unexpectedly standing there with two tequila shots. When In Mexico right?!?! We took the shots and then began to dance to our first dance! To make sure we had everyone dancing all night long we had our favorite wedding DJ make an upbeat mix for the band to play during the band breaks. So everyone was dancing the entire time!

My Wedding Dress:

I selected two wedding dresses for our wedding day! If I had to describe my personal style in two words it would be both classic and bold. I love modest, simple pieces typically in neutral tones but I also love mixing it up and wearing something super bold and on trend for special occasions. I wanted my Wedding dress for the ceremony to be a sleeveless simple, modest, and timeless dress that would stand the test of time with a uniqueness to it.

The ceremony dress was from an Australian bridal designer, Suzanne Howard. The neckline of the dress came up to my neck (which worked out perfectly because I had a bit of a sunburn snafu and my entire chest was peeling for the wedding. At the top of my waist and at the bottom of my dress and veil was a ladder detail that really made a statement to such a simple dress. It clung to my body to show the shape of my figure and flared out for maximum train effect. For the reception I wanted something that was flown and fun and reflected the location of our wedding in Mexico. The second dress was a slinky lace dress from Grace Loves Lace. Head to toe lace with a full lace cape that cascaded over my shoulders. You truly have to see the images of both dresses for the full effect as they were just breathtaking!

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The Letter:

When I was in high school I was sitting in class one day and pulled out a blank piece of computer paper and began writing a letter and addressed it to “my future husband”.

I finished writing the letter and placed it in an envelope.

Years pass and I find myself dating Garrett and I bring it up to my mom one day and say, “Mom, I know that I wrote a letter to my future husband in high school and wanted to save it for my wedding day – but I haven’t seen it in years and have not a clue where it would be.” We had no luck in finding the letter after plenty of searches to find it.

While helping my parents move out of our childhood home I was going through the drawers in my old room and I pulled out an envelope. I take a peak and there it is written, “ A letter to my future husband”.

My mom and Garrett were in the room and I immediately started crying! I found the letter that I had written when I was a young girl to my future husband. I decided that I would read it to myself that evening, but Garrett would wait to read it until our wedding day.

I finish reading the letter and of course my eyes were filled with tears. Until after reading it, I notice the top right corner of the letter was dated………March 3rd, 2008 ………..….and we were getting married March 3rd, 2018!

I predicted my own wedding date 10 years ago to the day. I thought about my future husband enough to write a letter to him 10 years ago and he would read it for the first time on our wedding day.

Out of 365 days in the year – that was the date we picked! As if the letter wasn’t special enough that just made it feel like fate! Garrett read the letter privately to himself before our ceremony and I shared the letter with our guests after dinner!