Grand Palladium Wedding Jamaica – Replacing the Rehearsal Dinner
Todays Blog is brought to you from Fusion Events very own lead planner ArthurK. Not only was he the planner for this wedding but also the groom…enjoy:
Well the dust has settled and I am now a married man! I wanted to share some tips and tricks with you that I picked during the planning process. This will be done over the course of several blogs. I did want to jump right to one of my favourite parts of our Destination Wedding week at the Grand Palladium and Lady Hamilton Resort and Spa. In lieu of having a traditional “wedding rehearsal” I really wanted to do something that included all the guests and not just our immediate families, and I wanted somethign fun. Not just a group dinner in a restaurant….boring!! This gave us an opportunity to spend more time with all our guests as a group. So what did we do? We had a beach party with a live Mento Band and Bonfire! Since we didn’t really have much of bridal party and since I have conducted many rehearsals in my day, we went over the ceremony quickly with those involved before hand and it went off without a hitch!
When I booked the “bonfire” I had no idea what I was getting. I was expecting a camp fire that we would all sit around. No. It was a massive display of a bonfire. It was breathtaking and certainly a “WOW” factor. As guests entered the Gully Beach their breath was taken away by this beautiful bonfire set up at the edge of the Ocean. They were serenaded by a traditional Jamaican Mento band and were presented with a plethora of authentic Jamaican cuisine and an open bar right on the beach. It was fantastic.
At the end of the night my bride and I took an unplanned dip in the ocean. It was one of the most fun and romantic things I’ve ever done. Thank goodness for our amazing wedding photographers from Jamieson Dean Photography. They saw what was happening and both jumped in the ocean with us to get the shots. I still can’t believe they did it. It was certainly not your typical trash the dress shoot. The images speak for themselves!
When reflecting back on our wedding week at the Grand Palladium resort in Jamaica, my wife and I agreed that the beach party and bonfire could have been the wedding and we would have been happy. So in closing, think outside the box when it comes to rehearsal dinners for destination weddings. Try hosting a beach party instead…you won’t regret it.
