Joy on your wedding day comes from the blessing of the love and commitment you share and looking forward to this beginning of your own family. Joy on the wedding day also comes from having a hassle-free wedding that brings your vision of your dream wedding to reality. You must realize your dream wedding and enjoy it too.

Hire a professional wedding planner. For the bride and groom, their wedding is a first-time event and hopefully a lifetime highlight. A professional wedding planner may arrange hundreds of weddings a year. So with her help you won't have to experiment on your big day. The wedding planner is your troubleshooter. She also will be sure the people she hires to serve you have proven quality and reliability, so you won't be looking out the back door waiting for a cake, or shedding tears because your bouquet doesn't match your dress.

A wedding should be your fantasy come true and a gala celebration. A bride's dream is nurtured as she integrates images from magazines, movies, weddings, and her imagination to come to a vision of her wedding day. All who love her and her wedding planner want the bride to realize her dream on this special day. So it was imagined, so it will be done.

A budget is very important. Be realistic when you set one so that you can live happily ever after and not start your new life with a financial burden. Discuss the budget with your wedding planner so she knows the limits. A professional wedding planner is your advocate. Speaking from experience, the wedding planner should be able through her experience and professionalism to optimize your budget and stretch it to cover the most important parts of your plan.

Set priorities as to what is the most important part of your vision. I recommend as a tool, the couple get a notebook to create a "dream book" to log in the elements they want for their wedding. You will use it to plan everything with your planner for how your taste and style will be incorporated. A professional planner will take care of processing the legal paperwork so your marriage will be correct and recognized worldwide. I guide my brides to the right location and time of day - our island provides dream seascapes for locations and everyone becomes radiant in the golden light of sunset.

List the elements for the fun and remembrance; beauty and fashion, flowers, toasting, food, music, reception, cake, and photography and/or videography. Pick a color, a theme for the decorations or a special bloom for your flowers. A wedding planner's expertise will allow you to realize your dream while keeping to your budget.

You will be planning your wedding for sometime and you can use that time to put into your dream book: everything from a picture you have from another wedding to magazine clippings and notes, a poem or song, so you don't forget. Use your imagination. The dream book will help your planner share your vision and bring it to reality.

While wedding planning software can assist you, a local wedding planner will insure what you can do with the local possibilities, can customize your wedding, and will make sure you don't forget doing things on time, but most importantly your planner will help you optimize your wedding in St. Maarten/St. Martin.

Set your priorities with the most important first, and the least, last, so your planner can help you cut if you must keep to your budget, without diminishing the glow of your wedding. You don't want to trim off a rose if your mom's name was Rose and you carry it for her. Take your first dance to your favorite song played by one of our great local entertainers in the arms of your loved one.

I recommend that you put a high priority on photography. After the bouquet is tossed and you've left your wedding party in a shower of petals, the photographs are what survive forever. You'll show them over and over again and use these to remember why you got married, re-savor your love and joy as time goes by. If you are blessed with children, photographs give them a chance to see you when your love was in early bloom and you made your commitment to each other. Somehow we can be re-inspired on an anniversary and experience our young love again when we look at those pictures. Now photo technology has brought us DVDs so we can also hear our emotion-filled voices as they pledge vows to each other. Yes the wedding day is the big day, but you can best relive your memories over and over through pictures, then shed those tears of joy again.

Share also with your planner any unique ideas. One of my brides planned a starfish and shell theme for her cake superbly executed and she said, by the way, "My groom's favorite treats are champagne and chocolates." So I arranged for her to give her groom a wonderful champagne and a silver shell of chocolates that were hand and custom-made for her in shell shapes filled with aphrodisiac flavors to indulge in after the last dance. "If you can dream it, I can make it happen," is my motto as your wedding planner. I am very proud that my clients have nicknamed me their "Fairy Godmother," as they said I "must have waved a magic wand to make their dream wedding a reality."


-------------------------------------Weddings in St. Maarten
------------------------------------------------ Simpson Bay, St. Maarten, N.A.

------------------------- Your one-stop information source for planning a Wedding in Paradise!

If ever there were a picture-perfect place to get married, the island of St. Maarten is it. Blessed with some of the most breathtaking beaches anywhere in the world, St. Maarten also offers all the first-class amenities you could ever ask for:

1. World-class restaurants, ensuring that every meal can become a long-lasting, pleasant memory
2. Fifth Avenue-class shopping in Marigot, and exquisite jewelry shopping on Front Street in Philipsburg
3. Perfectly clear turquoise waters for some of the world's best snorkeling
4. Modern airport with wide-body jet connections from many US gateways

Tying the knot in St. Maarten means enjoying all the benefits of a beautiful tropical wedding with none of the planning hassles. How so? Because Jean Rich, a Rhode Island native who has been living in St. Maarten for more than 20 years, handles all the details for you. As the Manager of the renowned La Veranda Café at Pelican Resort, Jean brings unsurpassed culinary experience to your wedding reception. As the planner/coordinator of literally dozens of tropical weddings over the last 15 years, she has fielded and successfully responded to all kinds of requests. No matter what flavor of tropical wedding you want, Jean Rich has the experience and creativity to make it happen.

For example, you could select from any of the following:
Beach wedding. We do all the planning for a beautiful wedding right on the beach, under the palms, on a gorgeous Caribbean day. Get married at whatever time of day you like -- even right before a breathtaking Caribbean sunset.
Gazebo wedding. How about a ceremony inside a beautiful gazebo, overlooking the beach? Our gazebo even has a pool nearby, so you and your guests can switch to bathing suits and cool off after your reception.
Ocean wedding. Some of our clients prefer to be married at sea. We charter a sailboat or a yacht of virtually any size, and you get the wedding of your dreams right in the Caribbean Sea.
Church, hall, or restaurant wedding. No matter what location you prefer, we'll plan it from start to finish. No problem!

It's easier than you think and less expensive. Why shouldn't you enjoy a wedding in paradise? Still have questions, then email us at jeanrich@caribserve.net. We'll relieve you of all the stress and worry; and, we'll make it happen for you!
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