Since travel has been, and will be, such a huge part of our relationship and both our parents have history with Barbados, we decided to get married there – specifically the area of Oistins in Christ Church. With 30 of our closest friends and family, we travelled five hours to one of the most beautiful Caribbean islands I’ve ever been to. We went for a full week but we stayed at a resort where guests could come for as long or little as they wanted or they could stay at somewhere else on the island. Throughout the week we did deep-sea fishing, nightly trips to Bert’s Bar to watch the Sen’s games, walked the beach, had way too much fun in the pools at the resort, and we took everyone on a private catamaran cruise (which was a very close top highlight next to our wedding day).
For our wedding, we planned a simple ceremony by the beach followed by dinner, dancing, cigars on the beach and then clubbing in town. The day was sunny and warm – really warm! I remember wishing that it would rain just to cool down as it was the hottest day during our time there. We were all dying from the heat and I felt so bad for everyone wearing pants or long dresses.
Getting ready was easy and relaxing (we didn’t get married till 4:00pm so we had all day to relax). We had opted not to do a “first look” and also made sure not to see each other all day – we were restricted to different areas of the resort, I had the pool area with my friends and Robin had the beach. He spent his day boogie boarding and I spent it playing in the pool.
I remember the days and weeks leading up to our wedding I had been an emotional mess. I cried the day before we left for Barbados. I cried on the airplane. I cried when we got there. I cried when we got our marriage certificate. So on the day of our wedding I tried really hard to hold it together. When my dad and I were waiting to walk up to the alter I had a moment where I was alone with my thoughts and the weight of how special that moment was, where I was marrying my best friend all came rushing at me. I quickly forced myself out of it and didn’t cry again until the reception when I was listening to the amazing speeches from my best friends, family and Robin.
Since we hadn’t seen each other all day, when we saw each other for the first time we both had huge, goofy, excited smiles on our faces. We wrote vows ahead of time that we each repeated and we had some funny laughs throughout our ceremony. Once the “I dos” were done we had a little cocktail hour with a steel pan player, lots of rum punch for our guests and we took photos on the beach with our wedding party. One of my favourite moments was after the cocktail hour when Robin and I jumped into the room where he got ready just to make sure we had everything and we had a moment alone to say “hi”, give each other a hug, and then a high-five.
The reception was held in one of the resort restaurants. It was so beautiful with high ceilings and open air windows. We had a great meal and enjoyed amazing speeches – and even a video from a friend who couldn’t make it. After dinner we started the dancing and even though it was crazy hot, we didn’t hold back! And when it was time to vacate, anyone still wanting to party with us was invited to the beach. We had cigars, more drinks and made our way to a club in town. After partying the night away we headed home around 3am and finished off the night with a stop for some street meat! The next day waking up married felt incredible and surreal – and the hotel had saved our cake for us in our mini-fridge so we sat in our room and ate it for breakfast.
It was the perfect celebration and was made even better by the fact that we had a week to relax and connect with all our guests. When we returned home we had a mini stay-cation/honeymoon touring the Prince Edward County wineries and then a few weeks later, a huge reception party in our condo party room in Toronto.
PS: You can read about our engagement here, our planning here, and my shower here.
These wonderful photos were taken by Gina Francesca Photography
