Wedding Date on Jul 24, 2015

From The Bride: Sam and I met while working at the same company - but in different cities. He was in San Francisco, and I was in Chicago. For our first date in 2009, we met up in NYC on New Year's Eve, and have been together ever since. But it wasn't always so easy -- we endured a year and a half of long distance between our respective cities before finally moving to NYC together. Sam is from London, and I grew up in Connecticut, so we decided a destination wedding would make the most sense. With a mutual love of travel and an adventurous group of family and friends, it was natural that our wedding would be in an exotic destination. Mexico had been the location of our first vacation together and the Riviera Maya was the perfect spot to tie the knot. Our vision was to create a weeklong celebration with family and friends, culminating in an elegant but vibrant wedding and an incredible party. When we came across Hacienda del Mar and Hacienda Corazon, we knew we had found the perfect location for our destination wedding. These two villas perfectly combined a vintage, old world atmosphere with a modern relaxed beach vibe. For our welcome dinner, we choose the Indigo Beach Club in Playa del Carmen where we hosted a fun Mexican fiesta-themed party for seventy of our family and friends. As mariachis greeted our guests on arrival, ice-cold beers and margaritas were passed around. The venue was decorated with brightly colored flowers and papel picado and our guests thoroughly enjoyed making their own tacos by combining ingredients served in traditional Mexican pottery. The following day, we invited all our guests to a day out in Tulum: we started with a tour of the ruins for a morning of Mayan culture, before heading to La Zebra Beach Club to spend time frolicking in the sea and relaxing in hammocks. Now for the wedding: I choose a blush Monique Lhuillier dress, which was not what I had in mind when I was initially looking at options. I ended up falling in love with the color and details of this particular gown. Due to its unique shade, most bridesmaids’ dresses just did not seem to work with my overall vision, so I decided to reverse the color schemes and put my bridesmaids in ivory, while I wore blush. My husband wore a midnight blue tuxedo from Tom Ford, and dressed his groomsmen in black. Our dear friend and officiant wore a vibrant blue suit and the colors came together quite nicely. To complement the colors of the bridal party, my wedding planner, Lucy Gallagher, and I wanted to keep a crisp and elegant look of ivory and blush tones. The bridal bouquet was comprised of pink roses to bring out the peach and pink tones in my dress. We decided to stage the wedding ceremony under the natural palm tree canopy in front of the infinity pool at Hacienda Corazon at sunset. Instead of a traditional arch, we wanted to let the beauty of the Caribbean Sea speak for itself. After the ceremony and cocktail in Hacienda Corazon, we walked up two steps into the garden of the adjacent villa: Hacienda del Mar. Here, we sat at long mahogany tables where we feasted by candlelight and enjoyed the speeches. As we did not want to rush our guests into finishing their food, we opted to have the party begin after the cake was cut. Finally, dancing took place in the courtyard back at Hacienda Corazon. I had a local artist make a hot air balloon inspired piñata, in honor of our shared love of travel. We set up a cigar roller at the back of the dance floor and a tequila bar added yet more Mexican flavor to the event. We served late night tacos and churros to keep guests going, and our DJ played until around 2am. All in all, the week was spectacular and the wedding was everything we had imagined.