Planning our Wedding abroad was so easy, we actually found our return home party the most stressful thing to organise. As you will know if you have read any of my previous posts, I love to travel and planning where we were going to go was all part of the fun.
I looked at the Florida Keys, Spain, Bled Island in Slovakia and the Caribbean. And finally we settled on St Lucia. The main resaon being, we assumed we would be pretty much guaranteed good weather, the ceremony would be conducted in English and many of the resorts were all inclusive, so no one wouldn't have to worry about spending too much on top iof the cost of getting to the destination.
We chose Almond Morgan Bay in St Lucia as it was the only resort on the island that allowed children and we had a 6 month old nephew that was also attending. We chose a date, booked our flights and accomodation and immediately the wedding planner from the resort was intouch to confirm the date of marriage, In St Lucia, you must be in the country for a few days before the ceremony itself, always check this with the foreign office. As part of the holiday a free wedding was included, but there are extras available to personalise this further. Our wedding planner emailed all the details of the extra packages available, but we were advised there was no need to decide until we arrived in St Lucia. When you book your wedding from the UK, you forget that these resorts hold weddings everyday, often more than once a day (another thing you should check before booking a destination weedding), so they are unbelievably efficient in co-ordinating everything. There is absolutely no need to worry. At the Almond Morgan Bay resort, they had everything covered.
On arrival at the hotel we had a letter from the wedding co-ordinator to arrange an appointment the following day to provide our legal documents and meet with the minister. Here we discussed the extras we required, which for us were extra champagne, chair covers and pink sashes. We picked the flowers and location as there were a few avaiable; the beach, a pergoda and the pier. We also booked the end of the pier for our dinner party.
The Almond Morgan Bay resort was certainly a good choice as all our guests were happy. My Fiance and I (now husband!) had an excellent rooftop suite with a great view of the pool and sea, whilst our guests also enjoyed a beautiful sea view. The food was excellent at all on site restaurants and the bartenders were great at creating all sorts of cocktails. My father in law is now a big fan of B52's.
The Weather. As we flew over to arrive in St Lucia, we noticed alot of rain and lots of flooded rivers with brown water running into the sea. Having visited other tropical climes where you get turrential rain for an hour or two, for it then to be dryed away by the beautiful sunshine, I persumed St Lucia would be the same. Oh, was I wrong! I researched the weather before choosing our wedding date to ensure we would fall into the 'dry season' but it was anything but dry. Global warming really is playing hovok with the worlds weather system. 5 out of 8 days were pretty much turrential rain :-(. As the rain went on, I started to get a little conserned as we had planned to get married at the pergoda on the hill, but the wedding advisor said not to worry, if it rained she said they would just move everything into the pier which offered full shelter.
Surprisingly, I was so happy it did rain on our wedding day. Not only because everyone kept telling me it meant we would have good luck, but the pier was the most amazing location. The long pier created a beautiful aisle for me to walk down and our choice of music blended with the panoramic sound of the sea made it a wonderful experience. I couldnt stop smiling through the whole ceremony.
The only thing I did find weird was the suggestion by our photographer to smash cake in each others faces, I had never heard of this before but it is a tradition in the US. My husband and I do love our cake but this was taking it a bit far.
After the ceremony we had photographs taken at various locations around the resort and then went back to the bar for more wedding cake and drinks.
We had a wonderful wedding day with none of the stresses you would get at home. The wedding co-ordinator was so relaxed, we felt there really was nothing to worry about. I had my hair and makeup done at the Spa prior to our wedding. Not really being a 'girlie girl' I had no idea what to have done with my hair but the haridresser created wonders with my hair. Even though i was running a little late for the wedding, the beauty therapist relaxed me saying 'you can afford to be late the wedding won't happen without you!'. Whilst I was getting ready my husband enjoyed a morning of wakeboarding on our wedding day as watersports were also included at the Almond Morgan Bay.
We didn't do much exploring in St Lucia, mainly due to the weather. We took a visit to pigeon island and although I can imagine it to be beautiful on a good day, we had turrential rain and it wasn't a fun day out! On a clearer day we took the Ziplining and Canopy Tram Tour in St Lucia's Rainforest, this was a great experience not to be missed, you can do either or both experiences and I would recommend both if you are able as they each offer very different views of the forest. The canopy tour is more educational whilst the ziplining is more active.
