Wedding Music Playlists, Part III

For our destination wedding, we took our iPods and portable speakers and played after the reception dinner (for background see To DJ or Not to DJ).

Here is the playlist for our wedding iPod (in random order):

1. Reunion – Indigo Girls
2. Beautiful Day – U2
3. Take A Chance on Me – ABBA
4. If I Had a $1000000 – Barenaked Ladies
5. Stuck in a Moment (acoustic version) – U2
6. Long Time Gone – Dixie Chicks
7. Walk On (live version) – U2
8. Listen to Your Heart – Roxette
9. Friday I’m in Love – The Cure
10. Kokomo – The Beach Boys
11. Become You – Indigo Girls
12. Yellow – Coldplay
13. When The Stars Go Blue – The Corrs
14. Boulevard of Broken Dreams – Green Day
15. I Believe in Love – Dixie Chicks
16. City of Blinding Lights – U2
17. Anna Begins – Counting Crows
18. Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters (live version) – Indigo Girls
19. Build Me Up Buttercup – The Foundations
20. Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad – Def Leppard
21. The Boy with the Arab Strap – Belle & Sebastian
22. Take On Me – a-ha
23. Cherish – Madonna
24. A Sort of Homecoming – U2
25. Water is Wide – Indigo Girls/Jewel
26. All You Need is Love – The Beatles

Also see Wedding Music Playlists, Part I and Wedding Music Playlists, Part II.

Wedding Music Playlists, Part II

For our destination wedding, we took our iPods and portable speakers and played after the reception dinner (for background see To DJ or Not to DJ).

Here is the playlist for our wedding iPod (in random order):

1. Sullivan Street – Counting Crows
2. Big Yellow Taxi – Counting Crows
3. With Or Without You – U2
4. Nashville – Indigo Girls
5. Calling All Angels – Train
6. She’s Got a Way – Billy Joel
7. 100 Years – Five for Fighting
8. The Reason – Hoobastank
9. Bad – U2
10. She Will Be Loved – Maroon 5
11. Come Away With Me – Norah Jones
12. Stay (I Missed You) – Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories
13. Smooth – Santana & Rob Thomas
14. Favorite Adventure – K’s Choice
15. Jack & Diane – John Mellencamp
16. Miss You In A Heartbeat – Def Leppard
17. Tainted Love – Soft Cell
18. Let It Be – The Beatles
19. Drift Away – Uncle Kracker
20. When You Say Nothing at All – Ronan Keating
21. In Your Eyes – Peter Gabriel
22. American Pie – Don McLean
23. Wild World – Cat Stevens
24. Dancing Queen – ABBA
25. U Make Me Feel Loved – Zucchero
26. The Boys of Summer – Don Henley
27. We Belong – Pat Benatar
28. I Won’t Back Down – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
29. Hold Me Now – The Thompson Twins
30. Here Comes The Sun – The Beatles

Also see Wedding Music Playlists, Part I

Wedding Music Playlists, Part I

For our destination wedding, we took our iPods and portable speakers and played after the reception dinner (for background see To DJ or Not to DJ).

Here is the playlist for our wedding iPod (in random order):

1. All I Want is You – U2
2. Montpelier – Girlyman
3. Somewhere Over the Raindow – Israel Kamakawiwo’ole
4. Rain King – Counting Crows
5. Paino Man – Billy Joel
6. Only New York Going On – Francis Dunnery
7. One – U2
8. Someday – Nickelback
9. Crazy For You – Madonna
10. Clare Island – Saw Doctors
11. Sweetest Thing – U2
12. Let Me Go Easy – Indigo Girls
13. When She’s Around Me – James Taylor
14. Bitter Root – Indigo Girls
15. Give A Little Bit – The Goo Goo Dolls
16. Gone Again – Indigo Girls
17. Meet Virginia – Train
18. If You Could Only See – Tonic
19. Fireflies – Lori McKenna
20. Share The Darkness – Saw Doctors
21. Come To My Window – Melissa Etheridge
22. The One I Love – REM
23. Point Hope – Indigo Girls
24. Come on Eileen – Dexy’s Midnight Runner
25. Margaritaville – Jimmy Buffett
26. Life Is a Highway – Tom Cochrane
27. Amaze Me – Girlyman
28. You’re Beautiful – James Blunt
29. Postcards from Mexico – Girlyman
30. My Girl – The Temptations

Specialist Travel Agents

The video killed the radio star. And the Internet killed the travel agent. Or so, that’s what we thought.

Like most people, several years ago we gave up on the travel agent, the paper tickets, the hassle of telephone tag and the fees travel agents charge. Like most people, we moved exclusively to web-based services. And for a while, it worked real well for us. More specifically, it worked well for very simple travel plans.

Looking back on our wedding planning experience, our single biggest time investment was researching locations and travel logistics. Looking back, we should have brought in professional travel agent who deals in destination weddings to help simplify the process. We knew we wanted the Caribbean, but it had to have reasonable flights from New York, Philadelphia, Dallas and Denver (where most of our guests were coming from). A professional travel agent could have narrowed down the field considerably and then we could decide on the location from there.

Another challenge we had was all of the guests making their own travel arrangements. The bridge’s grandmother used her favorite travel agent – and despite the very specific wording on the invitation – the agent ended up sending her to Nassau, Bahamas instead of the correct location on Grand Bahama Island.

Our concern with utilizing a travel agent is that they push the venues and packages where they make commissions or where they are most comfortable…not necessarily what is in your best interest. So, it’s critical to find a vendor you feel comfortable with.

So, we were pleasantly surprised when we discovered the Caribbean Journey Destination Wedding Blog. The woman, Laura Sangster, is a travel agent, but also planned her own Caribbean destination wedding. While, we have not actually used her to plan either our own destination wedding or any travel (so therefore cannot actually recommend her), we’ve been impressed with her thoroughness, aesthetic, and quality information. We are trying to get a scuba dive trip together for later in the year and may use her, so we’ll let you know how it goes.

When you are just starting the process, the idea of planning your own destination wedding can sound like a lot of fun – dreaming of all those fancy resorts and beautiful beaches. We thought so too, but the stress it caused between us was considerable. In retrospect, having someone help us and make the process much more manageable would have been a good idea.

Downside to Engagement Rings

Many single women dream for the day they receive their diamond engagement ring. Yet for many people, there’s a downside to the rings.

First is the cost. Diamonds are precious, but are far from rare. In fact, the price of diamonds is propped up through a legal cartel system where the supply of diamonds is artificially restricted (although the DeBeers cartel recently settled a class action lawsuit related to its price-fixing scheme). The leading force behind this is the DeBeers diamond cartel the world’s largest supplier of diamonds, which has a near monopoly throughout the world.

As we looked into purchasing our engagement ring, we wanted a diamond that did not come from the DeBeers diamond cartel. We didn’t want a “blood diamond”—a diamond that is mind for the purpose of paying for nasty civil wars in Africa.

You can also learn more at Stop Blood Diamonds.

You can also learn more about fair trade diamonds, diamonds that are not tainted through blood and murder.

Getting Your Documents in Order

After the glow of your honeymoon subsides, you need to settle into your new life together. You’ll likely name each other as beneficiaries on your 401(k)s or Roth IRAs. You might need to go through the process of changing your name (more on this in an upcoming post).

One important thing you will also need to do is get your legal documents in order. You should probably have a will, a living will and a power of attorney. A major health crisis in my family (my grandmother had a massive stroke) really brought this to our attention.

Having spent tons of money on a mediocre attorney in the past, I wasn’t anxious to do so again. After a lot of online research, I found LegalZoom, a cost-effective approach of fill-in-the-blank documents. There are other companies, both online and off-line, that offer this service (some are better than others). This one-size-fits-all approach probably isn’t going to serve you well if you have kids, complex estates, but if you’re relatively young and just starting out (like us), it should work for you.

If anything like what happened to my grandmother ever happens to us, I just wanted to be prepared. We waited almost two years after our wedding to do this, which was way too long. Shortly after your wedding, you should look into getting these legal documents in order.

The Anniversary Trip

Doing a destination wedding was one of the best decision we’ve ever made. It was exactly our personality.

Couples who choose a destination wedding already have a love of travel (of some kind) and a desire to get away from the bland/ordinary. Why not keep it going and take an anniversary trip every year? That’s exactly what we did.

For our first anniversary, we took a trip to Italy and spent our anniversary in Rome. For next year (second anniversary), we’re looking at Paris. We tend to travel abroad and see next and exotic locations, but your anniversary trip celebration doesn’t need to nearly as elaborate.

This is a wonderful tradition we’re starting and looking forward to many, many years of anniversary trips!

A Wedding Gift

In this age of couple’s paying for their own weddings, you don’t have a lot of excess money. We had agreed on not buying each other a present for our actual wedding day. One of us lived up to that agreement…

Mr. groom thought a surprise gift would make his bride happy. He brought (and snuck in his luggage) a beautiful pair of black Tahitian pearl earrings from Nordstrom’s for a wedding day surprise.

Doing something nice for each other on your wedding day is important! Even if it is a card, you should do something to start your new lives off on the right foot. It doesn’t have to be expensive, just meaningful.

Marriott Frenchman’s Reef, St. Thomas

I found an interesting YouTube video that I thought I would share.

The video is essentially a 1 ½ minute infomercial for the Marriott Frenchman’s Reef in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. However, the wedding director there, Norma Kennedy, offers a couple of suggestions that are worth your time in watching the short video.

Namely, she counsels:

• Get the right person at the hotel
• Hotel must have a dedicated area for weddings

She also notes that the trend in destination weddings is being driven by economics. According to Kennedy, and depending on the time of year, couples can have their wedding and honeymoon at the resort for under $2,000.

Early on in the process, Marriott Frenchman’s Reef was one of our leading contenders. However, given where a lot of our guests were coming from (Texas and Colorado), the travel became quite expensive to get to the Virgin Islands.

The full Norma Kennedy video is on YouTube:

Our Policy on Vendor Reviews

As we start to review more vendors and companies, we thought it would be worthwhile to briefly discuss our policy.

• We’re not wedding planners.
• We don’t sell destination weddings.
• We don’t have a financial interest in whatever you choose to do for your down destination wedding.
• We’re just an ordinary couple sharing what we learned planning our destination wedding.
• We do accept suggestions on vendors and locations to review from readers of this blog.

If we are ever given something in consideration for a review (i.e., free anything – hotel stay, trip, book…anything), we will disclose that. We don’t say nice things about companies just because they give us free stuff or pay us.

The Atlantis (a video)

We found this YouTube video on The Atlantis resort. It does a great job of providing an accurate accounting of the resort and showing the pretty scenery. (It’s kind of infomercial for our tastes) Sure sounds appealing, doesn’t it?

It’s from a Canadian outfit called Romantic Planet. To be fair, nowhere in the video do they show a destination wedding at Atlantis in progress (something we had the opportunity to see). We didn’t find much, if anything, about The Atlantis to be romantic with all the young, screaming ultra-entitled children running around. (See previous post Our Honeymoon – The Atlantis) Although, we thought we would post this video here to give you some balance.

At the end of the video, Romantic Planet makes an excellent point – there are many islands in the Bahamas and you can surely find one your speed. For us, we were on our honeymoon and we wanted to enjoy each other (it’s a honeymoon after all). However, if you are the kind of people that need things to do and stuff to buy, go to Atlantis. However, if you can create your own romance by long moonlight walks on the beach, followed by cocktails and then heading back to your suite, you should probably look someplace else.

Engagement Gifts for Men

As the courtship comes to a close, it ends with a proposal of marriage. As a symbol of his love (and honoring tradition), the man presents a diamond engagement ring (thereby keeping the DeBeers cartel happy).

But what does the husband get? What does the future bride offer her future husband?

In our family (and in many others), shortly after engagement, the woman purchases a nice watch for the husband. These are luxury watches, not a mall special.

For us, we fancied luxury, automatic watches. Watches like Patek, IWC and others are super high-end…and out of our budget. We determined that Raymond Weil (Don Giovanni line) offered the nicest watch at a mid-level price.

The watch is a tradition in our family going back generations. You should decide what you will do for your tradition.