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You're invited to the Real Wedding of... Priyanka & Cliff Wedding Details Bride Priyanka (BDW user mizpriya) Groom Cliff Wedding Date April 23, 2013 Location Gran Caribe Real Cancun, Mexico Hometown Milton, Canada Pictures from Priyanka & Cliff's destination wedding (click to enlarge): Why did you choose to have a destination wedding? There were several reasons why we decided to do a destination wedding. Cost was the major factor. Our priority was not to spend a fortune on a beautiful wedding because we wanted to have a house and a home to live in before doing so. We bought our house before getting married and spending thousands of dollars on one day was not in our budget. Another reason we decided to go this route was because we saw how laid back weddings were for other couples who did destination weddings. I had been to 3 and Cliff had been to two of our friends. It was really inexpensive for them. Lastly, we have friends and family all over the world- people were coming from India, Singapore, Dubai, USA and all over Canada. It didn’t make sense to just have one day for the wedding to spend time with all these people who came from all over the map just for us. We wanted to ensure we were able to spend time with all of our guests…for some of us it was a reunion because we hadn’t seen each other in years. This was the perfect setting for all of us to connect and spend quality time by the beach just chilling and relaxing. Why did you choose your location? When we were researching resorts and venues for our wedding, there were a few things that were really important to us, and we really stressed this with our travel agent who was helping us find the perfect location. Number one was it had to be under $1500 (for flight and hotel stay) for those of us traveling from Canada since the majority of people were coming from here. For those who were coming from out of town, the cost was pretty decent for them as well- and the fact that so many people came from out of Canada is a true testament to that! Secondly, we wanted a small, intimate resort. We both had been to destination weddings where the resort was so big, it was hard to find people. And since our priority was to spend quality time with everyone, the smaller resorts were key to us. We also hated walking everywhere just to get somewhere! Lastly, we are big foodies, so good food was important to us. Gran Caribe Real Cancun was the ideal location as it met all of our requirements down to a T! What were your wedding colors and/or theme? We selected red and yellow for our colours. We were making our wedding website and we had a picked a theme from the templates we had and they had the colours red and yellow. I knew I wanted red as one of the colours- being half Indian, it is a colour you would see traditionally. And when we saw the template, we were just like “Oh, that’s a nice combination!” So it really was by fluke that we made that selection, but it worked out very nicely when we saw the pictures. It was quite unique as we had never seen anyone do that before. We also wanted to keep it very relaxed with the décor. We just played up with the beachy scenery and added seashells and burlap all over the place. Every wedding is special in its own right. What made your wedding unique? Our wedding was special because of all the small details that we put into it. We wanted to do unique things that had a lot of meaning for both of us. From the beginning stages of the wedding planning, we wanted to add our own touches that were not your cookie-cutter wedding details. We made our boarding pass invitations together as a couple. I designed it and personalized it according to our personalities. We wanted everything to reflect the love we shared with each other and spread it with the group. We wrote our own vows and even edited the script that the officiant read to suit our personalities. Our wedding was definitely not your traditional, run of the mill kind of wedding. I had a Man of Honor rather than a Maid of Honor. None of the groomsmen had boutonnières - just my Man of Honour. My bridesmaids had no bouquets, instead I made them red clutches to hold that had a flower on it and was personalized with their names on the inside. My Man of Honor was the ring bearer as well and he held the rings in a Mexican painted pottery that was filled with sand. We had no DJ. My best friend sang our first dance song. We had no mother-son, father-daughter dances. It was very simple and perfect for us. Even for the bouquet and garter toss…we had everyone get up to participate instead of just the single guys and girls. We wanted to have fun and make the day be a celebration of our love. AND we even had fire dancers at the wedding! No one in my group has ever had that so we thought we were pretty cool and special to be the first couple to do that for their wedding! One of the major challenges of putting together a destination wedding is finding and working with your ideal vendors from afar. What wedding vendors did you use to put together this spectacular wedding? Photographer: Tony di Lorenzo http://www.tonydilorenzo.ca/ Videography: Mike Cantarell Films http://www.mikecantarellfilms.com/ Wedding Coordinator: Elsa Torres (email correspondence) and Flora de la Garza (onsite coordinator) from Gran Caribe Real Wedding Dress: Elizabeth Stuart Discount Bridal store (Mississauga) Save the Date invitation: made by a friend who happens to be a graphic designer Invitations: materials bought from Michaels, dollar stores and ebay Groom and Groomsmen: Linen Shirts from Express; Linen pants from Old Navy Custom Clutches for Bridesmaids: Etsy (CordesCreations) Custom Bridesmaid Hoodies: hoodies and iron on came from Ebay Man of Honor Custom Shirt: Etsy (CustomTeesForTots) Custom Guestbook Poster: Etsy (InkedMemories) Custom Hanger for Wedding Dress: Etsy (Inspiredbykenadi) Rings: For Her- from Charm Diamond Centres; For Him – can’t remember the store name but it was in Pacific Mall (Tungsten and Carbon Fiber ring) Flower Bouquet & Boutonnieres: Renata K. in Brampton Your wedding was absolutely beautiful! Your posts and reviews will be extremely helpful to our new brides. Thank you for sharing you special day with us at BDW. Dear members, if you planned your wedding with the help of our community we would love to hear from you! Contact us at [email protected] if you are interested in sharing your wedding experience with BDW. For more information here is the "BDW Real Weddings | Featured Wedding Submission Information Thread". Thanks!