Designer and Brand Strategist Elida married Lawner and Non-Profit Consultant Peter’s classy, modern destination wedding was held in April at the Acre Resort in San Jose del Cabo, Mexico.
Described as a lush sanctuary set on 25 acres of abundant greenery, this incredible wedding venue played the perfect backdrop for this modern couple to exchange their vows in the presence of their family and friends. Elida wore dress by A La Robe and chiffon bow jacket by Pronovias combo and shares openly and honestly on her experience of wedding dress shopping and visiting a bridal boutique – bride’s, there are some fabulous words of wisdom in this article if you’re about to embark on the hunt for your wedding-day look.
Much gratitude to the very lovely British wedding photograper, Chloe Mary for sharing these gorgeous images.
Acre Resort, San Jose del Cabo, Mexico
We originally planned to get married in Palm Springs California. A co-worker of mine had gotten married there about a year or so earlier and was kind enough to send me this amazing spreadsheet of all the places they looked at with stats and pricing. It was so generous of her to share and gave us a huge head start. They had looked at a few outlier locations outside of California and when I saw the Acre website I fell in love with it instantly and sent a link to Peter right away.
The architecture was gorgeous, the food looked amazing and we were dead set on a destination wedding. We wanted a really wow location and experience and it ticked all the boxes and more. It was a bit of a gamble to book sight unseen – we’d never even been to that part of Mexico before. But we felt pretty confident and just took the leap anyway.
We used About Love Events out of Cabo. Andrea Guttierrez was the person who we worked with throughout the process. They were great to work with and walked us through the whole process of having a wedding in a different country.
I had an unpleasant hair and makeup trial six months before the wedding. I don’t think I’d ever felt more unattractive. I cried for hours after. It sucks to spend so much money to feel bad about yourself. I’m thankful Peter was really supportive and helped me to problem solve. He sheduled a hair styling tutorial with his stylist who travels globally teaching other hairstylists his techniques. Honestly, that was money well spent. I know how to do my hair better than ever now. That’s a gift that gives long after the wedding is over.
I did my makeup in a small hand mirror on top of a turned upside-down trashcan on the terrace of our hotel room – if you can believe it! And it was great.
I think doing your own hair and makeup is under-rated. I felt great and exactly like myself at our wedding. I only got one hand manicured, but I laughed about it and no one cared.
The Groom
I tend to feel more comfortable in double breasted suits, which happened to go along with a lot of the inspiration I was drawing from what Gucci was putting out at the time. Our budget didn’t allow for us to spend Gucci prices so we looked for creative ways to incorporate the elements they were using more affordable pieces in a playful way.
I buy my everyday suits from Suit Supply so that was a natural place for us to start. Wearing a tux wasn’t always the idea but it started to max since when thinking about how it would look with Elida’s dress and with the backdrop of tropical greens. I worked with the people at our local suit supply to have a custom double-breasted tuxedo made. Elida found some fun more affordable silk shirts online that were great quality. We bought new buttons for the shirts and had a tailor add them to give it a slightly more elevated look for a small tailoring charge.
I had really fallen in love with the silk western bow ties that Gucci was using in their campaigns. We searched Etsy and found some artists that were creating them for a fraction of the price. I liked that it created a more playful wedding look than might have been expected, while still looking nice.
Photography
Our photographer was Chloe Mary. Photography was one of the main elements we wanted to focus on for our wedding. We wanted a very documentary feel, again like the shots you see from Met Gala after parties. Pictures of messy table clothes, high flash, and unposed. Someone that would catch all of the little details and deliver great pictures.
Elida found Chloe on Instagram when searching travel wedding photographers. Her portfolio seemed to be exactly what we were looking for, however, she lived in the UK, we live in the US, and the wedding was in Mexico. I decided to send her an email to see if she would even entertain the idea saying basically we were just looking for cocaine chic. It became immediately apparent that she was going to be a perfect fit for us.
Hiring Chloe ended up being one of the best decisions we made throughout the process. She served as a therapist and guide when wedding planning got tough. She also meshed perfectly with our family and friends to the point where she honestly felt like a guest at our wedding.
All of that is said before her photography which was great. I’ve been in a lot of weddings and always hate when the festivities grind to a halt because of photography. She guided us through great portraits and found unique nooks and cranies to shoot in. She delivered great portraits and shot fast so we weren’t running around while all of our friends were partying. We absolutely love her and consider her one of our close friends now.
I don’t even know where to start when it comes to expressing how in love I am with Chloe and her extreme talent. One of the best decisions we made was reaching out to her to see if she would shoot our wedding. It really felt like we were shooting our shot asking her to come half way across the world to shoot our wedding. One tidbit of advice I found on a destination wedding blog post was to search #destinationweddingphotographer on instagram.
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The local photographers in Cabo weren’t available for our dates and we were looking for something specific anyway. Through our research we also learned that most destinations weddings fly in their photographer so it wasn’t totally out of the realm of reality. When we saw Chloe’s work though it just clicked instantly.
It’s artistic, but raw, glam yet grounded. Her work has so much life and layers. When I told my dad that we’d hired a photographer from Bristol England he was totally aghast. He said, “you really couldn’t find any other photographer on the whole continent?!” and obviously the answer was NO.
She was so much more than a photographer for us though. She was an amazing resource, such a joy to have around and my in-laws said they’ve never seen me chattier than when I was talking with Chloe. Like I said, I’m obsessed with Chloe in a totally non-creepy way.
I would fly Chloe half way across the world again in a heartbeat just to hang out with her. I still get comments from random people a year later saying that our photos were the most beautiful they’ve ever seen. Acquaintances share our photos with strangers and then we meet them and they tell us how beautiful our photos are. It’s bizarre in a lovely way. She has an eye and a charm that just can’t be taught. Worth every penny and more.
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How They Met
Elida and I met through a mutual friend. It started with a very awkward set up where we both didn’t know what was intended. However, I thought she was beautiful and interesting so I decided to slide into her DM’s later that week to ask her out on an actual date.
We had been dating for for two years prior to getting engaged and I asked her to marry me toward the beginning of the pandemic. Thus, we really didn’t start doing any wedding planning for another year until vaccinations, gatherings, and travel started to happen. Our engagement was roughly two years long. – Peter
It was so awkward when we first met! Like Peter said, a friend from my work invited us both out for drinks and made us basically interview eachother over martinis. He was wearing a suit and I was in sweatpants and no makeup. It seemed like a very unlikely paring at the time.
The first date was much more successful and I feel lucky that our friend had enough foresight to see that we’d really hit it off. I’ve never met anyone else like him. He’s so caring and so funny. – Elida
Evening & Dancing
I have very strong opinions about music and what is playing. We decided to make a Spotify playlist for the wedding reception. For anyone that loves music and doesn’t feel the need to have a DJ I would highly recommend this. It was fun to have happy hours prior to the wedding to choose music together. Personally, I love having the playlist from the day as memory that we can go back to after the fact.
We didn’t do a first dance. Getting the party started after dinner felt more like us. We did choose a lot of 90’s club tracks (i.e. Be My Lover by La Bouche and 100% Pure Love by Crystal Waters) because of they reminded Elida of her Dad working out as a child and they bang. – Peter
Words of Wedded Wisdom
It goes by so fast. We’ve also reflected on this a lot and there was so much about the day that was perfect that we didn’t fully appreciate at the time too.
The timing of everything was well paced, it was pretty stress free and we put money into the things that mattered to us most. We constantly talk about how lucky were that things went as well as they did.
