I am left speechless after my dream turquoise wedding in the Dominican Republic. It was everything I had dreamed of and more. If you have been following my engagement, wedding dress shopping, celebrations, and wedding planning over the 8 months of our engagement–the big day finally came. It arrived in what felt like a blink of an eye, and passed in a heartbeat. It’s hard to believe that I married the man of my dreams on a tropical palm fringed island. Floating down a white sandy isle on a sunny day to a man standing in front of a beautiful twinkling turquoise sea with not a cloud in the sky was beyond what I had imagined. That same man swept me off my feet 5 years ago. I met him under a white gazebo on the beach to be joined together for eternity. It was one of the most spectacular moments of my life. I bet it’s no surprise to you that turquoise was the inspiration of our wedding week in the Caribbean!
The Majestic Colonial Punta Cana was the perfect location for our destination wedding and week of celebrations with our family and friends. As a beach lover and turquoise seeker, it was always my dream to get married on a white sand beach surrounded by turquoise water. As lovers of travel (Corey is a pilot and I was bit by the travel bug when I was 5 years old), it only made sense that we would get married away. We loved the concept of doing a destination wedding with our most intimate loved ones. The opportunity to spend a week with them to celebrate our commitment is once in a lifetime. After months of debate, we decided on Punta Cana, Dominican Republic as the best location for what we had been looking for based on our date, budget, and must haves. No location would be perfect, some compromise was involved, but this was as close to heaven for my fantasy turquoise beach wedding. My fantasy became reality. Our wedding pictures miraculously turned out as if they were taken from a travel magazine thanks to Alyssa Martin Photography. My totally turquoise tropical wedding was more than I imagined. How did I get so lucky? Warm weather, white sand, turquoise water, palm trees, and 5 star class–we got it all!
The Majestic Colonial Punta Cana offered the perfect setting and provided us more than we bargained for. The Majestic Colonial Punta Cana is one of the top locations for destination weddings in the Dominican Republic. With much experience and knowledgeable wedding coordinators who are fluent in English, they know exactly what they are doing. They have mastered the planning process for destination weddings. Our communication with the resort via distance and on site went more smoothly than I predicted, especially for planning a wedding in another country (and not being in that country during the planning process). Planning a destination wedding turned out to be more work than I initially thought it would be, but I’m pretty confident it is still way less work than a large at home wedding. To my surprise, planning an abroad wedding is not the same as planning a trip. Ha! Was I ever surprised. Luckily, the resort took care of the majority of things. My husband reminded me, we can make it as simple or intricate as we want. We opted to keep our wedding as simple and laid back as possible, while adding the elements most important to us. I wanted to enjoy my wedding day and not be overwhelmed by unimportant little details. One of the joys of getting married on a beach is having a basic, yet elegant wedding. The turquoise water was the perfect backdrop to highlight our special day, so we did without all of the over the top decorations. Simple is good. Basic white was the perfect colour to compliment our turquoise theme. Our beautiful location was all we needed. The basic wedding package the resort offers is everything and more than I hoped for. I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Destination weddings are the way to go–we love to travel, vacation in tropical places, save money, and we still got exactly what we wanted for our special day without all the stress that goes with weddings.
As a budget savvy lady, I found almost everything on sale or second hand. As for the rest, I made as much of it as I could. From the jewelry (mine and the girls), hair pieces, bridesmaid bouquets, my bouquet, boutonnieres, corsages, thank you gifts, and welcome bags, I either made them myself or adapted them to be exactly how I wanted. I did my own makeup after a summer session with a makeup artist and got my hair done at the resort spa. I incorporated the age old tradition of something old, borrowed, blue, and new. It was fun searching for vibrant memorable items for each category. Nearly every aspect of our wedding had some significance and a story behind it. Our turquoise vintage beach themed wedding turned out without a hitch. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world and often question how I got so lucky. The only answer I can come up with is that I am blessed. Our wedding day came and went in a flash. Although it is a day that feels like was in fast forward, it’s also a day that plays out in my mind in slow motion; it is a day forever engrained in my memory and one I will remember until the end of time.
With waves lapping gently on the beach and palm trees swaying in the distance, I held the hands of my love in mine on the afternoon of August 19th and said my vows in one of the most beautiful locations imaginable. As I said on my wedding day, “I most definitely do”!
Jessica, Turquoise Compass
Just lovely Jessica!!!
Thank you so much Cheryl. What’s your favourite picture? It’s hard to pick just one! I like the candid photos the photographer snapped, especially the one of me and my girls hiding behind the stone wall before I walked down the isle.
Jessica, Turquoise Compass
Yes, it is hard to pick just one, each share in the happiness, excitement and joy on a gorgeous day. I like Corey barefooted LOL
haha I love you noticed that small detail! We both love being barefoot on the beach!
Jessica
I do so every evening Jess when I take my sunset evening walks on the beach! (I carry my flip flops along)! LOL
Sounds perfect to me.
A favorite time for me in solitude to reflect, distress, relax…
My dream is to own a house on the water!
Yes, it is fabulous-we had help from my Parents 12 years ago and we have added on several times as the family grew. I never take it for granted Jessica we are blessed!
Yes, you are very blessed. It will happen for me too (I need to stop traveling first). hehe I’d like to live on the east coast of Canada preferably.
Jess
Yes of course, Canada is home for you! Yes, you’ll settle down now that you and Corey are married. Priorities shift and life changes-all for the better. It’ll happen you’ll see. Hugs, Cheryl
As much as I’d love to live on a turquoise tropical beach somewhere (or Florida of course), my heart is telling me I’d be happier on the coast in Canada, even if it means I need to compromise and live through 4 seasons. Oh winter! I think it would be worth it in the end. We have fabulous summers. It will happen…eventually! As for now, we’re in it for the adventure!
Jessica, Turquoise Compass
Yes life is a very good adventure. If you are not use to 11 months of very hot, humid (even on the Ocean tide winds and breezes) it is the lifestyle here. A lot of swimming, water sports, boating, et cetera. Where along your Canadian Coast you will deal with rough winters; it is all about what you are use to and accustomed too. We are groomed for our weather patterns here and maintain a level of comfort year round with that comes a huge price. Like anywhere. It’ll work out Jess!!!
I grew up on the east coast (southern Nova Scotia—right at the end of the province), so I’m used to the life style…yes, even the gale winds, humidity, rain, hurricane season, and the winters. Eastcoast lifestyle all the way! Even with all of that, I wouldn’t want it any other way. The summers are amazing. I could take 11 months of hot humidity any day though! hmmmm Maybe I do want the tropics!? haha I wonder what island… You’re right though, it will all work out. No matter where I go.
Jess
Nova Scotia is beautiful, we were in Lunenburg many years ago to see friends. I have an Uncle in Halifax, NS. Home is wherever your heart is Jessica I am only 30 minutes south of where I was raised-a mere 30 minutes still on the beachfront. Ha-its all I know my friend.
Yay! So you understand how my heart remains in Nova Scotia, just as your heart remains where you are from. I couldn’t agree with you more—home is where you make it. Right now I’m making home in the north!
Oh yes I surely do understand Jess!
Very beautiful! And congratulations!
Thank you so much! It was a beautiful day! I still can’t believe I got married on a turquoise beach.
Looks beautiful! What better way to say “I do” than while in Paradise? Congratulations!
You understand me exactly! I said “I do” in the one place my heart desires…a tropical turquoise beach!
Beautiful wedding Jessica: -D
Thank you so much! I loved all the little turquoise details we added. Did you notice my turquoise jewelry? I made them!
Yes, I noticed your jewelry Jessica 😀 Very well done.
I figured you would miss Irene…the queen of turquoise jewelry designs.
Jessica, Turquoise Compass
Yes, but also your blog. Now you mention jewelry, I brought a Turquoise necklace the other day 😀
Awesome! I LOVE bold turquoise pieces.
Love it all! It was a gorgeous wedding!
Thank you so much. It was everything we dreamed of and more. It was fun adding our small personal touches.
Personal touches are the best thing because it makes it your own. I totally think yours was perfect for you!!!
Exactly, I got to make it perfect for us! There really wasn’t anything missing! Doing our wedding away helped us focus on the big picture and not so much the little details.
I love your dress, as well as the fact that the wedding was at the beach! I can feel it was special, intimate and funny at the same time! Wish you both a lot of luck, health and laughter. I hope you have a long and happy life together! 🙂
Thank you so much. I tried on over 40 dresses before I found “the one”. It was always my dream to get married on the beach with sand between my toes and it was better than I expected (my husband was bare feet the majority of time). We had 21 people join us so it was nice to have a small intimate yet FUN and RELAXED wedding. Thank you again.
Jessica, Turquoise Compass
That’s incredible Jessica, you are an inspiration to all of us. You chose a good guy, and he is blessed to have you by his side forever more. I never did have a guess at guessing your wedding dress, sorry about that, but I don’t think I would have guessed that the right one anyway, as there was one on the actual blog post that I thought may have been the one, and it’s not that one. You look stunningly beautiful. The photography, location, and everything, is fantastic. So are you. I like the snogging photo.
I’m an inspiration? Wow, that’s a lot of pressure. Thank you so much for your comments! I’m a very lucky lady, or blessed lady rather. Our wedding day was more than I dreamed of. The photographer did an amazing job capturing our special day–the big and little things! What’s a snogging photo? 😃
The one where you are passionately kissing. So your love is tilting you back to kiss you. I am a heteroromantic asexual and personally love kissing, so I thought that was a very great and powerful photo.
Ah, ok! Thanks so much! We’re quite partial to that one as well. We’re very affectionate and no shame in showing it! He totally dipped me after the big “you may kiss your bride”. We got some applause after that one. I’m going to need to do some research on “heteroromantic asexual” because I am not even quite sure I’ve heard it phrased like that before.
Jess
Hi Jess, yes, please Google it, asexuality is a form of sexuality which is the lack of sexual attraction. The are variations within that. To be precise, I called myself a Heteroromantic, Grey A, Asexual (younger) Cougar. So I am romantic attracted only to the opposite sex – male, my Grey Area (Grey A) is I love passionate kissing with the tongue, but never sex, I have had sexual relationships in the past, but would rather not have done, I just like kissing. I am predominantly attracted to younger guys and mostly foreign actually, and there is a lack of romantic asexual foreign guys in the UK, so it’s tough to get a romantic match, and until I do, and if I do, I am happily single forever. I have a second YouTube channel called Asexualise My Asexual Life, if you Google it, you will see videos of me explaining my very personal coming out story and videos about asexuality. As well as videos explaining the various orientations. I run the Asexual Business Gurus and Entrepreneurs group on Facebook, have a new newsletter call Asexualise Your Life – What’s happening? I have bought Asexualise.com that is a new site for asexuals. I have yet to create it and it will have products, services and resources on it for asexuals. My main product will be asexual T-Shirts and they will be available on Amazon too. 2 designs are finalised already, I am just waiting to sample one before it goes live. I am partnering with Amazon to start a T-Shirt business and will have inspirational T-Shirts too and many more to come. One inspirational T-Shirt is ready to go live, i just want to check my sample Asexual T-Shirt first to check the quality is okay for customers – and I love all 3 designs so far. I will want to buy many of my own T-Shirts as and when I can afford them. I can only partner with Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk is not offering this partnership service. I have to pay full-price for my own T-Shirts – plus packaging, shipping and importation costs for each one. The T-Shirts are worth the money as they no doubt will be great quality because I am partnering with Amazon, but my designs are exclusive, I have paid a graphic design to design my own creative ideas for the T-Shirts. It’s such an exciting time for me.
I did google it Sandra. I also watched a few of your suggested YouTube videos on your channel and they were very helpful! Your honest and candid videos are very informative and an excellent way to spread awareness. I applaud you for your passionate journey in sharing your story with others, while helping & supporting others as well. Its also a unique business model. It’s interesting to see how your passion is turning into a business plan–the T-Shirt idea is ingenious and a great way to spread word of your message (and other inspirations). Way to go! You have big dreams and you are busily making progress. You are one busy lady with all of your social media pages. I hope all of your business efforts work out for you! What’s next?
Jess
Hi Jess, awww that is so sweet of you to say. It really is. I never thought of incorporating asexuality into my businesses at all, it just happened to work out like that. It’s really hard to fit everything in, but I know I have to have asexuality as part of it, I believe I am the person to be able to turn this around for people in their life. I am still working on the printed version of my book and I still want to help redundant workers get back into work. I pretty much have my outline of what I want to do with all of my businesses in the coming year/s and months – I intend to do online digital training courses for people in how to social media for business, health and happiness, and also T-Shirts for every one of my current businesses. I may sell more products on Amazon in the future, however I really love T-Shirts and thinking up new designs for them, so there will be more coming soon. I just received my first T-Shirt Design – I ACED IT T-Shirt and will be doing an unwrapping video hopefully tomorrow to put on my channel. I have been way in London for a business seminar for two days, then went to Thorpe Park and to see Elf the musical, before returning home at about 4am this morning, and then I had a huge sleep. Thanks for your support and encouragement. I cannot tell you how much it means to me. I told 3 business people while I was there about asexuality, so 3 more are educated about it. The more the merrier. Thanks for taking the time to watch my videos, it’s very good of you. My Coming Out video was very hard to get because of the memories it brought back and the personal stuff I disclosed, however, it’s worth it to get messages/comments back of saying I am inspiring. Xx
You’re making major strides! You have brilliant ideas so it only makes sense for you to go and create these amazing businesses geared around your passion(s). It must be hard managing all the social media pages!? Wow! You are incredible!
Hi Jess, it’s incredibly hard, two hours sleep yesterday and it’s already gone 2am now. Thanks for your gorgeous words and confidence in me xx
How can you function on so little sleep? If I don’t get a minimum of 8 hours of sleep or more per night I’m a nightmare. haha
Jessica, Turquoise Compass
Well, it’s a case of needs must. I have a mission/s in life that I have to fulfil and the clock is ticking. It’s 3am and I have to go to sleep soon and get up at 7.30am for my day job. I have worked on all 9 of my Twitter accounts tonight as well as replied to friends emails and messages earlier. I also promoted my new T-Shirts on there. I sold another one yesterday!! It feels fantastic and I will have more to come. I hope you enjoyed my unwrapping/unboxing video of my I ACED IT T-Shirt. I have two asexual design T-Shirts on Amazon and an Inspiration Inspired Your Destiny Is In Your Hands one. I don’t get much chance to comment on blogs these days, which is always on my mind, but to find time to blog is hard. I always will find time to try to blog at least once a week on here though, as this is my original blog and I love all of you dearly to my heart xx
Well, you are doing what you set your mind out to do and that takes guts and motivation to stick with it! You know what you want and you’re going after it and not giving up–that takes courage and a certain kind of person. You must be very proud of yourself for accomplishing your dreams. You’re living it! Proof that hard work & success can happen! Go girl! Keep up the good work. Congratulations on T-Shirt sale! I’ll be following your journey!
Jess
Hi Jess, thank you so much. It’s fantastic to have your support. I two T-Shirts in first 3 days, so that bodes well. I was going to go to sleep early tonight, but then I stayed up to watch sad new about Paris attack. I have a friend who lives in Paris that thankfully is okay. Xx
Yes, it’s nice to be supported in our journey. It looks like your moving in the right direction and your product is wanted. That must make you feel good. Yes, we are all praying for Paris. I’m glad your friend is okay.
Hi Jess, thank you. I definitely think this T-Shirt business is for me. I can make people happy, give them something they need or want, and I love creating the designs – then working with a graphic designer to bring my ideas to life, it’s so rewarding. I am going to be creating T-Shirts for writers/bloggers too, and many more xx
Sounds like the perfect scenario for you!
That and writing more books xx
mega congratulations! iT looks like it was perfect for you
Hi, love your wedding dress and the turquoise theme. Turquoise is one of my favourite colours 🙂
Thank you so much! I love all things turquoise and it was always my dream to do a turquoise inspired wedding in a turquoise destination! What’s your favourite turquoise spot?
So far in my travels thus far, the favourite turquoise spot is Iran..lots of turquoise colours in their mosaics Persian architecture 🙂
Iran, wow! I wouldn’t have thought of Iran to be a turquoise hot spot, but that makes sense. I’d love to see that! Thanks for sharing.
Jess
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Gosh! these photos are amazing! so bright and colourful. I like turquoise too. this year me and my fiance will organise destination wedding too, in Dominican Republic. we’ve already chose our photographer here http://www.wedgo.net/photographer-in-dominican-republic.html
Exciting! All the best with the wedding plans.