A Note on Weddings

We've been busy these past few weeks talking to and touring around with prospective brides and grooms, and one thing keeps coming up every time they ask us for our take on weddings at the resort:

Weddings are about people, about creating opportunities for people to get together. Brides and grooms have a lot to be responsible for on the wedding planning, and NOTHING is more important than finding ways for friends and family--old and new--to spend time together.

Of course, weddings are about a celebration of marriage, of love, of commitment. The ceremony is the thing that inspires those who are not married to think about finding something as important as the bride and groom have found, and reminding those of us who are married what it means to be in a life-long partnership unique to any other we'll experience in our lives.

And all the other hours and days committed to the wedding celebration are about creating opportunities to get people to interact, to engage, to appreciate the un-sought-for moments in life when we find each other inexplicably.

At Roche Harbor, you find these experiences passing by a childhood friend and her family on the way back from lunch at the Lime Kiln Cafe. Or hanging out on the rooftop terrace around a firepit sipping wine for the first time with your brother-in-law. Or running into your bridesmaids at the bar when you finish polishing your wedding vows. Or a mani-pedi in the spa with your mama, talking about how her life changed after her own wedding.

Yes, people will remember the invitations, the flowers, the food...but what we all recall most affectionately is the time we were able to spend with loved ones.

My experience from my own wedding two-plus years ago at RH...It was the only time I've seen my best friend in 4 years...It was the first time in years that my divorced parents saw each other and made nice...I met my wife's best friends and mother for the first time...my brother and I had a brother-to-brother talk that had never happened before--or since...my wife brought together two sides of her family (brothers and sisters) that had never met...I won enough money in a poker game with the boys to pay for a week in our honeymoon house in Jamaica...we introduced our old friends from school with our new friends on the island...we showed everyone we care about the island that has been so important in our lives.

What ever your wedding venue, make sure that you're doing everything you can to help create these memories for yourselves...and your loved ones.

Okay. Enough mushy-ness.

I'm off to look at my wedding photos again...

Sam