Featured Wedding

On our special day our wedding fantasies became a reality thanks to Michele, Kayt and team from Awesome Caribbean Weddings. St. Lucia was the perfect setting for us and our guests, specifically Pigeon Island which we found by looking through many photos that ACW sent to us. We had always wanted a "custom" beach wedding and reception with our closest family and friends and ACW made it possible by acting on our ideas and perfectly orchestrating the event.

My fiancé and I had an entirely different wedding planned when we started year 2006 off. And four months before we were set to be married in Washington DC we decided to cancel the formal winter wedding and started researching the lovely island of St. Lucia where we were already locked into our honeymoon! I had started the quest by calling resorts and hotels to get the ball rolling for a new wedding plan, but to my despair I wasn't getting the responses or customer service I had hoped for and my dreams were slowly starting to slip away. I thought I was going to have to settle for something that I didn't necessarily want since we already decided to officially cancel the nuptials in DC.

Just as I was about to give up, one evening I came across the ACW Web site and found a glimmer of hope. I studied all the beautiful photos and read every single page on the Web site and was starting to feel good about things again, so I took another chance and filled out the contact form not really expecting to hear back. To my surprise, the very next morning I had a 4 page email from ACW describing all of the places to choose from for a custom wedding as well as sample packages. After going back and forth in numerous emails that week and crunching numbers quickly we signed on with ACW and knew that things were finally going to be taken care of with precision and tact.

Then it came time to plan the custom details once since we had the place and time set, I wanted to be able to plan a wedding that would fit right in with the "Martha Stewart" weddings (yet funkier) and wasn't quite sure how I was going to pull that off being thousands of miles away. Right off the bat Michele told me that they loved it when brides brought new ideas to the table and said her team was game for anything, which excited me. My ideas were not revolutionary but I wanted it to feel special and have details that reminded the guests of Frank and me. Michele went to great lengths for us over the 3.5 months we had to plan, she scoured the local markets for us on the weekends for baskets and wooden chairs. She was constantly going to the post office to pick up one of the 12 large boxes of goods we shipped over to the island. They found a vendor that would provide us with sparklers for guests to light (since you can't ship flammable goods). She also constantly challenged her vendors to see if they could do things that were out of the ordinary such as actually having the florist create/meld together bamboo flower displays, placing fairy lights throughout the trees, luminaries lining the beach/reception site on pigeon island, finding red bull and our favorite liquor to serve to our guests, and even having the caterer serve our 40 people "family style" rather than buffet style. The event was a success because Michele stayed in constant contact with us and always helped us pull off the unthinkable.

Some of the items we shipped to the island were table clothes, vases, candles, candleholders, luminaries bags, favors for the guests, pillows for our nieces and nephews to sit on in the front row of the reception, seating cards, signs for the bar and reception tables, flower petal bags and fans for the guests at the reception. When they arrived at ACW headquarters they took great care of them and quickly notified us of the contents that had arrived.

Michele was wonderful she worked with us day and night and when we arrived on the island we were so thrilled to finally meet her. She came the first day with all the legal paper work and the finishing touches in terms of schedule of events, etc. Michele even went to the trouble of taking us to the florist so that we could make sure we were getting exactly what I had been describing over email. Frank and I didn't have to worry about a thing once we arrived. We trusted that Michele had it all together and she really ran with it. She helped us coordinate everything even a last minute rehearsal in our rooms the night before which was very helpful! The flowers, transportation, food, set up crew, videographer, rentals, cake, dance floor, steel drum band, priest, fire dancers, wait and bar staff were all extraordinary and well orchestrated and planned by ACW. There wasn't a thing that I wished was done differently. The next day our guests didn't stop talking about how unique and memorable our wedding was and alas we had pulled off the destination wedding that I had been dreaming of for years. Oh and how could I forget to mention the other big hit - The Cake - our guests couldn't stop talking about the delicious ginger, chocolate and vanilla goodness! We even had our guests over the next night for the leftovers and the cake was devoured.

We did have some rain that blessed our reception but it was a non issue thanks to the tents and quick thinking of Michele. Our guests didn't even let a little rain damper their spirits as they danced on and truly enjoyed themselves. Most of all - ACW made it so that Frank and I could enjoy every minute of our trip. This was very important because we were stress free the entire day because we knew they had it under control. Thanks Awesome Caribbean Weddings!

The Vision: Funky and Colorful

The Colors: Light Pink, Fuscia, Lime Green and Orange

The Ceremony: A romantic and intimate setting on the  ocean side of Pigeon Island. Our guests were seated facing the ocean and we were facing our guests. The flower displays helped to give structure to the beach and outlined the aisles eloquently, really made it feel like a grand entrance. We had our nieces and nephews on pillows in the front row so that they could feel as if they were all a part of the ceremony and reserved seating for our family and Bridesmaids/Best Man/Speakers on the front two rows. We had two vases set up at the entrances on tables where our guests contributed sand and later we used this as our unity ceremony and poured the sand into one jar. We had the DJ set up early so that we could have a sound system out on the beach and Michele helped us play music from our iPod. The priest was excellent and made us feel at ease the entire time. The videographer was hard at work as well and really did a great job of capturing the moment without us even knowing he was there.

The Cocktail Hour: Immediately following the reception, our guests headed over to the cliff side of Pigeon Island for cocktails, hors d’oeuvre and a steel drum band. We took family photos with our photographer that we brought over from the states on the cliff side and then Frank and I headed over for some photos by the beach for sunset. Our guests really enjoyed the relaxing nature of the cocktail hour with the steel drum band the wonderful rum punch and most of all they loved the Red Bull that

Michele was able to track down (I guess the island sun had made some of the guests a little tired)!

The Reception: While cocktail hour was taking place Michele and team were busy resetting the beach with all of the reception details. They were also busy lighting around 100 luminaries in the perimeter of the beach, setting up the round tables with the pink linens and green vases with white orchids and lighting the frosted candleholders on the tables. They reset all the floral displays to the front of the tents for the DJ and the bar and it looked beautiful. The dance floor was made of plywood and worked out very well. There were two entrance tables set up with the seating cards and a guest book for people to drop us a line. When the guests made their way to the tables frank and I were announced and entered by doing our first dance. Then the festivities kicked off and we enjoyed a night full of fun festivities. We played music off of our iPod which my husband diligently worked on for the two weeks leading up to St. Lucia.

One of our favorite things was the sweetheart table that was positioned off to the side under a romantic tree. This allowed us to enjoy every bite of the delicious food that was served. We had speeches during our first course and passed the microphone around for good stories and laughs. Then after the main course was cake cutting time and dessert was served. The big surprise for all of our guests were the fire eaters/limbo dancers. They came out and got the crowd moving again! Once their routine was over the rest of the night was ours to enjoy by spending quality time with our friends and family on the dance floor. When it was time to head out, our guests lined the pathway to the car and lit sparklers to send us on our way. And the second our car left the gate there was a torrential down pour and everyone ran to the vehicles. ACW had to break down the entire event in the rain but they still wore smiles when I spoke to them the next day – what troopers they are! I think we were all quite impressed with what we had just pulled off :)

Stacey and Frank Febbraro

Virginia, USA

Photo credit

Brad and Nicole Wolf of SOTA Dzine Inc. www.sotadzine.com 703-6450900