Advertisement
Published: September 6th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Kim's Wedding
A fabuulous summer day for beautiful wedding. Destination Wedding…..Chicago
Starship Travel, Inc. in Arlington Heights, IL. specializes in Destination Weddings. A destination wedding is usually a planned wedding with family and friends to a tropical island in the Caribbean, Hawaii, Mexico or any number of romantic places. A destination wedding is planned for a number of various reasons; the main reason a bride wants to invite only her most important family and friends. A local wedding venue usually attracts a lot of people the parents invite and the bride and groom hardly know. Therefore, instead of inviting hundreds of people, a destination wedding will bring the best of the best, the people most important to the bride and groom.
But a destination wedding not does necessarily have to be far away, which is what occurred this past summer for my very special niece! She got engaged and immediately we thought about a destination wedding, in fact, we went so far as to plan a Caribbean cruise. We had all the cabins reserved but…it occurred to us to have a destination wedding right here in Chicago because…most of the bride and grooms friends and family were coming from out of town already.
A little history is needed here because this is such a romantic story. The bride, Kimberly, was an exchange student studying in Santiago, Chile while unbeknown to her the groom, Luciano, lived in Santiago but was studying in Barcelona Spain. In October 2006, Kimberly went on a family cruise to Barcelona but never crossed paths with her groom until many months later when she went back to Barcelona to complete her studies. This is her story in her own words:
The Love Story -The Introduction "We met while studying law at the Universitat de Barcelona on the Spanish Mediterranean Sea. A friend introduced us at a nearby coffee shop & the rest is a magnificent history! We spent endless hours, day after day, exploring the old city of Barcelona by foot & getting to know one another. It did not take long to learn about our similarities, discover our passion for international travel, fall in love, & decide to spend the rest of our lives together! No matter where we study, work, live, or travel, we will continue to discover new cultures and each other".
The proposal Kimberly traveled to South America in July 2007 to visit Luciano while he was in his home country during summer vacation from law school in Spain (wintertime in Chile). They spent six weeks together in Santiago & Arica. Luciano announced that Kimberly is the perfect woman for him, & Kimberly agreed that Luciano is the perfect man for her. Luciano proclaimed that he never wants to spend another day without Kimberly in his life, so naturally they planned to marry! The proposal was poolside at a Chilean hotel on the Pacific Ocean. Kimberly said "Yes!" to the man of her dreams.
After Kimberly completed her studies in Barcelona she returned to finish law school in Florida; Luciano returned to Barcelona to continue his studies but had to go back home to Santiago for family business. The romance continued when these two world travelers decided to get married, but where? When or where were they to meet to be together? Where would be a good place mutually agreeable for a wedding? How about a Destination Wedding in ….Chicago. Chicago is home for Kimberly so Chicago it was. The plan was born: bring everyone from New York, Washington DC, Florida, Spain, Chile and Bolivia to one of the greatest cities!
Kim was born in the Chicago northern suburbs and has family here. Her childhood years were in New York with family and friends, her college years were in Washington DC. After graduating law school in Florida she returned to the Chicago area. Kim's friends are from all over the United States. Luciano's family is from Santiago and his sister lives in Bolivia.
Because it was summer, a beautiful facility was found in the northwest suburbs that could accommodate a gorgeous outdoor wedding in a beautiful garden and gazebo, exactly what could be found on a Caribbean island but so much more convenient. Family and friends were notified via "save the date" cards.
The venue was chosen, the flowers were ordered, the invitations were mailed, the photographer was booked, the wedding dress was fitted, and the tuxedo was purchased!
The bridesmaids, all out of town, coordinated their dresses via email! The airline tickets were purchased, everyone and everything was on schedule.
The weekend was a blur of picking up people at O'Hare Airport - all flights were on time - check in at hotels and dinners with the new families and friends. August 17th turned out to be the most beautiful day of the entire summer. The sun was shining, the garden was blooming, the birds were singing and the bride and groom said "I Do" with the best of the best of family and friends. The Destination Wedding was perfect.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.226s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 6; qc: 42; dbt: 0.0711s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb