Choosing a location

Sean and I live in California but we are not from here originally.  My family are far away in Ireland.  Sean's family currently live in Tennessee.  We met in New York and have lots of friends who still live there.  There are a lot of places there to choose from when deciding where to get married.  Because we'll be asking many people to travel to celebrate with us, we figured why not hold the party somewhere that everyone would be on vacation.  And I love the idea of getting married on a beach.  That's why the Caribbean seemed a great location.  It's in the middle between the west coast of America, the east coast of America and Europe.

But that's just the beginning.  As it turns out there are lots of islands in the Caribbean and I started my research without really having a favorite.  I began by contacting a travel agent who specializes in organizing travel to the Caribbean.  She writes a Caribbean wedding blog so it seemed a good place to start.  Following an exchange of email, she sent me the names of a few resorts and the wedding websites of a few former clients.  She explained that she would be happy to negotiate a good rate with a hotel and to arrange the travel plans for all the guests, provided everyone worked through her to arrange their trip.

When Sean and I checked out the hotels she recommended, a couple on Antigua, one on the British Virgin Islands and a few on Aruba we started to get a feel for the type of location we liked.  I found the blog of an amazing wedding photographer on Antigua, Vanessa Hall, and this post with photos of Antigua itself just absolutely captured my imagination.  It's amazing how a beautiful photograph can transport you to a place. Looking at these photos, I let out a deep sigh, closed my eyes and felt the sun on my face and my whole body relax.  Perfect.

We got back to our travel agent and asked for more information about the resorts in Antigua and when she replied, I realized that she simply emailed the hotel asking for information and then forwarded their email to me.  Wait a minute? I can do that myself.  I don't need an intermediary.  In addition to that when reviewing the references she sent us, I realized that the 'great rates' she negotiated with the resorts were way out of our budget.  Her clients were asking their guests to pay $200/person/night. Yikes! My job often involves conducting lots of communications with many different groups on a similar topic, so I'm used to keeping track and managing different threads.  I figured I could handle this so I decided to dispense with the travel agent.

But Vanessa Hall had really captured my heart with her photos so I was stuck on Antigua.  I used the Antigua Tourist Information site to find other resorts there and Sean and I spent a few nights looking through the websites of hotels until they all started to look alike.  In the next week I emailed all the resorts we liked and bought the travel book about Antigua.  Soon enough I began to think that Antigua wasn't for us.  The places we liked were all way out of our budget and I wasn't ready yet to compromise on our criteria and go with a place within our budget.  It was time to expand the search again beyond Antigua. Sorry Vanessa.

Planning

There is some big news I'd like to share with you.  I hope most of you already know but for all those who don't, here it is.  Sean and I got engaged! We're so excited.

The goal is to host the wedding in the Caribbean next Summer and since the engagement I've been furiously emailing potential venues with requests for information.  There are a few challenges we're facing.  The first is clear - it's a destination wedding.  I am trying to plan an event that will take place many months in the future in a place I've never been to and probably won't get to visit until shortly before the wedding itself.  It's subject to all the usual issues that any other destination bride has to work with.  I need to depend on many different sources to get a feel for a location.  I can't take the resort's website at its word because everyone has one horror story about a destination not living up to expectations set by photos taken to show only the best possible angle.  Luckily with the recent rise in social media, getting a range of opinions is easier than ever.  And as long as I'm prepared to put in the time to investigate thoroughly and vary my sources I should be OK.

But there's another destination angle on all of this planning.  I also live very far away from most of the people that are interested in participating in the planning and want to be kept up to date with the latest findings and decisions.  I come from a family of planners all of whom are dying to help and share the fun of soliciting information, comparing options and making decisions.  While gathering all of this information about the destination (that I haven't even narrowed down further than "The Caribbean"), how do I share it with them?

Well, I'm going to try here.  At least to the extent that I can.  Here's a start.  As mentioned previously on this blog I'm a book buyer, a manual reader, a believer in the wisdom of others and not reinventing the wheel.  So what do you think is the first thing I did as soon as I said, "Yes!" and called home?  Of course I went to the bookstore.  Given that this is the biggest event in my life to date I gave myself free reign to buy as many books as I wanted, promising to donate them all to charity when I don't need them any more.  So here's the book list so far:

Frommer's Caribbean 2011
Destination Weddings for Dummies
Antigua and Barbuda: Island Guide
Your Wedding, Your Way
Explore the Virgin Islands
Destination Weddings and Dream Honeymoons Magazine

Frommer's Caribbean 2011 is fantastic for giving a brief run down on each island, providing an overall feel for the place.  It covers Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, Aruba, Barbados, Bonaire, The British Virgin Islands, The Cayman Islands, Curacao, Dominica, The Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Martinique, Puerto Rico, Saba, St. Barthelemy, St. Eustatius, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Maarten, St. Vincent & The Grenadines, Trinidad & Tobago, Turks & Caicos and The US Virgin Islands.  Phew!  Who knew there was so much choice? 

In the past 3 weeks I have emailed more than 40 resorts on many of these islands and right now I'm sorting through replies and trying to add up the different costs based on what they have quoted me.  Many hotels send detailed outlines of all the possible costs and options but with "All items are subject to 18% service charge" and "There will be a surcharge for each additional item over those quoted," sprinkled liberally throughout it is nearly impossible to know what the final tally will be.

I am slowly finding myself attracted to one island more than the others and have just sent another 10 emails to all the hotels I can find on that island to make sure I really understand my options.  But I'm not telling you which island yet.  I want to reserve the right to change my mind and that's harder to do when you've written it down and published it on the Internet.

Watch this space.

Knee Problems

This is a picture of what my knee looked like after I left the physical therapist this afternoon. Physical Therapist, you say? Oh no! Let me be a lesson to you all. This is what happens when you don't train the way you should.

I don't know if you know but I ran a marathon in June. That's right, A Marathon. So therefore I can do anything now. I could rule the world if I wanted to. Running a half marathon, a paltry 13.1 miles shouldn't be a problem, right? I don't really need to train. Well I mean, I can run a bit here and a bit there but I don't have to REALLY train, right? Wrong.

Of course that's wrong. Everyone knows that's nonsense. Even I knew that was wrong and yet that's exactly what happened. When October 3rd showed up and I found myself on the start line of a half marathon I hadn't trained for I thought, 'I'll be fine', 'It's all in my mind' and 'I ran twice this before, I can DO this'. Well as it turns out it's not all in your mind. Your body actually has to do the running. And sure you can run through the pain if you're focused on that finish line but it's what happens AFTER that, that people don't talk about on race day.

So, on October 3rd I ran a pretty great time in my half marathon. When the pain started at mile 3, I ignored it. As it got worse at mile 8 I put my head up high and kept going. When my knee started bobbling at mile 11, I walked for 30 seconds then pushed through it. When I nearly fell over with the abrupt piercing pain at mile 12.5 I gritted my teeth, growled a little at the pain and sprinted to the finish. Hurray!

3 weeks later I'm still in pain. I rested for a week thinking that would do it but my knee got its revenge the first time I went out for a jog by flinging the pain in my face. I jogged for 10 minutes and eventually turned around defeated and walked back to my car. After a similar outcome the next few times I ran, I eventually made an appointment with a PT here at work.

During my appointment he watched me run, walk, squat on both legs, squat on one leg, rise up on my toes. He twisted and turned my legs and knees in all directions and moved my kneecap (patella) around and winced as it crunched a bit. In the end he said that as the pain was quite localized and given the symptoms of when it occurred and how long it lasted he thought it was probably a problem between the patella tendon and the fat pad. He recommended targeted soft tissue massage for 5 minutes, 3 times a day. The specific massage is quite painful so I'm really counting down the minutes but hopeful that it will help. There's no running for the moment either. Bummer.

I have plans to run at least one other marathon next year though and maybe two, so I'm furious with myself that I let this happen. Next time I am reluctant to go for a planned run because I'm too tired or too busy I'll read this post again and remember that every time I skip, I risk taking away the option of running in the future.