Puerto Vallarta Destination Wedding
At Casa Valerie
Real Wedding: Kilee and Adrian
A beautiful woman meets the handsome man of her dreams in a chance encounter 10,000 miles from home. She then falls in love and marries him in an intimate wedding ceremony at a breathtaking and romantic destination. It sounds too good to be true… But it really is. Here are the details of Kilee and Adrian's amazing courtship and wedding.
How they met:
We met in Sydney , Australia in 2001. I decided after six years of living and working in New York City that I needed a break and off to Sydney I flew. We met in a bar in Darling Harbour and had a chat and a couple of laughs that night. Our brief encounter would prove to be fate because after I moved back to New York we continued to remain in touch. It was in 2004 where we rekindled our friendship and decided to start dating. Adrian was traveling through the states and slowly we began to manifest a relationship. Over the course of six years we maintained it from a distance.
The Ceremony:
The ceremony took place at a very sweet chapel known as Hacienda San Angel in Puerto Vallarta , Mexico . The church had breathtaking views of the ocean and overlooked the city. The ceremony was very simplistic because the beauty of the church was all we needed so we kept the flowers minimal to allow for the natural environment to come forth. The ceremony was personal, intimate and filled with lots of laughter.
The Reception:
Our reception was held at a private villa known as Casa Valerie in the hills of Mismoloya , Mexico. It is a multi-level villa with 180 views of the water and Los Arcos formations. What I loved most about the villa is that it was all white which provided a blank canvas for the setting. My favorite detail at the reception were the following: each placecard provided the meaning of our guests names, the mirrors on the tables to reflect the beautiful decor arranged by Prisar, the photo booth which allowed for our guests to get cheeky, the fire dancers and of course the midnight taco stand.
I wanted the natural elements to be complimented by the surroundings and not overwhelmed by it. One secret that many didn't know about was that our cake was fake. Well, not quite, the bottom layer was fake while the top two layers were real. We did this because we had mini dessert trays placed on everyone's table after dinner and because I've been to plenty of weddings where half the guest never ate the cake because they were too busy dancing, socializing or waiting for a drink. No one seemed to miss it. Another favorite part was we received a gift from a wedding coordinator of a private fire dancer show. That was a huge hit with our guests and a very memorable one for us.
Kilee's Advice for Other Brides:
My advice to other brides would be: don't sweat the small stuff, but place yourself in your guest's shoes. As they enter the church what do you want them to see, feel, smell, etc. What would they want, what would they desire. For instance, our families had never met so we decided to book one hotel so that everyone got the chance to socialize and meet one another but to insure that this took place we made up wristbands and included them in the “welcome bags”. Everyone wore them and it was easy for our guests to identify who was who at the all-inclusive resort we booked. We have also been to weddings where at 11pm or midnight you get the munchies again and only wish for more food so our wedding coordinator arranged for one of the best taco stands to come to the villa and set up a taco stand for all our guests to enjoy while they enjoyed the late night festivities. For the parents in the group we arranged for a two nannies to watch them so that our guests could enjoy themselves regardless the time. That was a huge hit with the parents of little ones.
Never under estimate the power of negotiating, but do it with a smile and pick three things that you will not skim on no matter what. We chose the following: food, alcohol and videographer/photographer. We booked our videographer from Well Spun Weddings and flew him in for the event because we knew that his work would last a lifetime. We also had 40% of our guests were flying in from Australia (a 26 hour flight) so we wanted to make sure we had plenty of food and drink to serve throughout the night.
