Wedding Packages

By Tinley Jardine

After spending a few weeks making plans for my dream wedding, I was tired of looking at menus and reception sites. Nothing seemed to be as easy as I'd hoped it would be and no one in the family could agree on things. My fiancé and I were exasperated. He joked around about running off to Vegas and while I hated the mere thought of that, it was beginning to sound tempting.

A co-worker told me that her daughter had gone to Hawaii to get married. She said that she'd taken a handful of people and exchanged her vows on the beautiful beaches. The idea of ditching the wedding plans and going someplace exotic appealed greatly to me. So, my fiancé and I secretly met with a travel agent. Our agent calmed us down and told us about many resorts that have wedding packages for people who want to do exactly what we were hoping to do. She showed us all of the resorts and islands that had wedding packages in our price range. Whether we wanted to get married far away in the mountains or on an exotic beach, there were wedding packages galore. Now, my biggest decision would be which island we wanted to wed on.

We planned on his parents and my parents to join us, and hoped that they would all agree on it. Many of the resorts didn't just have wedding packages, but had discounted packages for our family members. Our travel agent and I exchanged many phone calls over the next few weeks getting all of the details worked out. We finally decided on getting married in St. Lucia at Sandals. Their wedding package sounded wonderful. Not only could we get married on the beach, but they took care of the flowers and photos, and had a small reception for us as well. We'd get a cake and champagne served after we exchanged our vows. There were many other wedding packages in other destinations that sounded incredibly wonderful, but were a bit out of our price range. Hawaii was one of them. All of the wedding packages sounded like a fairytale but would put us into debt in starting out our lives together.

When we told our families about the wedding packages and what we'd decided, they weren't very thrilled at first. After we invited them all, their mannerisms changed. My father could still give his daughter away. My mother would be able to still take tons of pictures. And afterwards, we could all work on our tans. Everyone was happy and it was all because our travel agent took the time to show us all of the wedding packages that were offered in every destination imaginable.