The New Storybook Destination Wedding: Tropical, Beautiful, and Unimaginably Affordable

Let’s be clear from the start about Rachael and Lane’s wedding at Sandals South Coast: It was not the wedding Rachael had always imagined. It wasn’t prim. It wasn’t processed. And it wasn’t proper in the traditional sense either. Rachael did not wear a $5,000 dress, and her shoes were so cozy she felt as if she were walking barefoot to the altar in the face of a gentle ocean breeze.
“I think I’m among the few brides who can honestly say my wedding was far better than I ever imagined,” Rachael says, ticking off her list of “far betters”:
“The beauty. The energy. The people. The comfort. The location. The cost.”
Wait. Did she just say “cost?” She and Lane were married in a Caribbean paradise. A wedding there comes with a high price … doesn’t it?
“We had everything we wanted,” Lane says, confirming his wife, “without the cost.”
No, this was not the wedding of Rachael’s little-girl dreams. In fact, it wasn’t even her idea. Lane didn’t suggest it either. The first mention of a destination beach wedding at Sandals came from the person they least expected to bring it up.
“My dad,” Rachael says, as if revealing the identity of her secret hero.

Rachael and Lane’s wedding plans didn’t start out so beautifully. Soon after their engagement, Rachael and Lane figured they’d be married close to home in San Antonio, perhaps in an ornate church, followed by a fancy reception with a tower of cake tiers as the centerpiece. The moment they began shopping for venues and vendors, however, they felt their joyful anticipation harden into the weight of stress. They discovered first-hand what so many couples are discovering: The most basic traditional wedding has become untraditionally and outrageously expensive. Rachael and Lane heard stories of couples — and parents — maxing out credit cards to pay for modest weddings and receptions.
“We considered a cruise wedding,” Rachael says, “but realized there’s too much volatility on a crowded ship.”
That’s when Rachael’s dad spoke up with a piece of advice out of the blue.
“Why don’t you have a destination wedding?”
“I couldn’t believe what he was saying,” Rachael explains. “So, I asked, ‘Dad, are you sure?’ He’s always been careful about finances and he knows I’m careful, too. He didn’t want anybody to go into debt over a one-day wedding event, so he told us to look into a wedding at Sandals.”
Rachael and Lane started to line item a celebration at Sandals South Coast. The list was short.
“A room and airfare,” Lane says. “That’s pretty much it. We could pay, be done, and then just enjoy ourselves.”
One big question about a destination wedding at Sandals still loomed for Rachael and Lane: would their family and closest friends be willing to travel to the Caribbean for it?
“We were a little hesitant to ask,” Rachael says, “but one by one, we kept hearing, ‘Absolutely, we’ll be there.’ Our family and friends saw it as more than a wedding invitation. They saw it as an excuse to take a great vacation. When we heard their reactions, the stress disappeared and our excitement came back. We were about to do something we never thought possible: have our wedding in Jamaica.”

For clarification, Rachael and Lane would not have a wedding day at Sandals. They would have a wedding week.
“We saved money because we stayed more than three nights,” says Lane, “but I mean, who would get married at Sandals and not stay more than three nights? Plus, Sandals gave us a few extra perks because so many guests came.”
A total of 26 guests came, to be exact — not too many and not too few.
“For us, it was the perfect number to keep everything intimate and fun,” Rachael says, “with zero worries.”
While the Sandals team prepared during the week for the ceremony and reception, Rachael and Lane’s wedding party was free to try Sandals South Coast’s nine restaurants for breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. They took private beach walks on two miles of perfect sand whenever the mood hit and relaxed in the resort’s four pools. They snorkeled in the vibrant aquarium known as the Caribbean Sea and took excursions to spectacular waterfalls and to Rick’s Café on an iconic cliff in Negril.
“Aside from being in Jamaica, you know what made our wedding week most unique?” Rachael says. “We had time to enjoy our friends and family. I hear friends say they go table to table and spend maybe five or ten minutes with guests who travel to their weddings from out of town, and then they’re exhausted as soon as it’s over.”
Rachael and Lane were exhausted, too.
“But our exhaustion wasn’t from rushing around and making sure everything was perfect,” Lane says. “We were exhausted from having fun. And then came our wedding day.”

“An out of body experience.” That’s how Lane describes the actual wedding day. “We were getting married in a place we never thought we could reach. All we had to do was show up.”
Rachael had arrived at Sandals with a $300 dress that she could happily get sandy and damp during a photo shoot in the surf. In that dress, she looked like a natural fairytale princess as her friends from Sandals drove her in a wedding chariot through a corridor of palm trees and well-wishing guests and staff, all the way to the seaside venue.
“The venue …” Rachael says, pausing to take a deep breath at the thought of the overwater chapel where she and Lane exchanged personal vows. “We didn’t need to do anything special to make the venue beautiful — just let it speak for itself.”
The smiling, tanned faces looking back at her and Lane at the venue spoke, too. The message: We have never felt so content and relaxed. Thank you for inviting us.
“Knowing how good everyone felt,” Rachael says, “made the happiest day of our lives even happier.”
The process-oriented wedding she once imagined had become instead a celebration of possibilities. A tropical island. The Caribbean Sea. Jamaican hospitality. Pure love. It had taken Rachael less than 10 hours of planning for her and Lane to experience more than 100 hours of forever moments.
“When we talk about our wedding, we can’t believe we can say, ‘We were married over the ocean in Jamaica.’ We used to think that kind of wedding was just for eloping or for people with big budgets. We never imagined it could be us until we did it. And now here we are, with this amazing wedding story to tell for the rest of our lives.”

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