A Destination Wedding That Refused to Be Anything Less Than Perfect
There’s something about a topical destination wedding that just hits different, and shooting my first Cancun destination wedding for Janae and Joe’s celebration at Secrets Mirabel Cancun might be the best example of that! But to tell this love story right, I have to back up a little further than the wedding day itself.
Jynae and I have known each other for six or seven years. She was a wedding planner back in California where we crossed paths on a couple of jobs together and fell in love with each other. It’s the kind of working relationship that turns into a fast friendship before you even realize it’s happening. (Seriously, she made weddings so much easier.) So when she got engaged, somehow I got lucky enough that she called me to capture it. Getting the message that she wanted me to photograph her wedding was one of those full-circle, this-is-exactly-why-I-do-this moments!
Hurricane Plot Twist
Fun Fact: Jynae and Joe weren’t originally supposed to get married in Cancun at all. Their wedding was planned for Jamaica, until a major storm hit just four months before the big day and badly damaged the resort where they were set to say “I do.”
If there’s anyone who knows what to do if your destination wedding gets relocated, it’s a professional wedding planner marrying into her own industry. Between Jynae’s own expertise, and the invaluable help of Timeless Events by Tia, the entire wedding was relocated to Cancun and pulled together in a matter of months. And somehow, impossibly, everything about the finished product felt effortless!
A Sports Themed Welcome Party
The celebration kicked off with a destination wedding welcome party, overlooking to ocean, that set the tone for the whole weekend. Destination events provide a wonderful opportunity to shower your guests in love and kick it with them all weekend long, not just on the day of the wedding. Guests showed up in their favorite sports jerseys, and Joe’s family had custom Hawaiian shirts made featuring the couple’s faces printed all over them. It was a super cute destination wedding party idea that Jynae and Joe knew nothing about until they saw everyone wearing them. My favorite kind of chaotic surprise!
Saucy Cancun Beach Photos
Since neither of them wanted to risk their wedding-day outfits in the ocean, we carved out time the day before the wedding to head beach engagement photos before the wedding day. Golden morning light, turquoise water, zero stress about ruining anything, it was a 10/10 session, albeit a little early. Some of my favorite images from the whole weekend came out of that session because of how relaxed it felt. I could not recommend pre/post wedding portraits enough during your multi-day wedding coverage!
Wedding Day Bliss
The wedding day itself was stunning with 80 degree clear blue skies, a gorgeous resort backdrop, and plenty of room to play with light and location for portraits. Truly a perfect day for a Cancun destination wedding! Everything ran close to flawlessly, save for one very real moment of panic right before the ceremony when the rings went missing. A few tense minutes later, they turned up, and the ceremony went on without a hitch, proving that even the smoothest weddings have at least one moment that keeps everyone on their toes.
After the ceremony, cocktail hour brought a live saxophone player, gorgeous cocktails, and a handful of resort wedding photos in between all the mingling. Their goal was to get a few quick snaps and then get on with partying with their people, so that’s exactly what we did!
A Rowdy Reception
If the rest of the day was relaxed elegance, the reception was pure celebration. Jynae and Joe made their entrance and went directly into their first dance, surrounded by to cold sparks. I LOVE cold sparks, they really do go off with a bang. That was followed by a full-on choreographed father daughter wedding dance between Jynae and her dad that had the whole crowd laughing and cheering.
The toasts were genuinely moving, the kind that remind you why you do this job in the first place. And then the party REALLY started. The dancing spilled straight from the reception floor into the resort’s on-site club and kept going well into the night. Easily one of the best parties I’ve ever had the pleasure of photographing.
A Weekend, Not Just a Day
The best celebrations often aren’t just one day. This was a true elongated event from the welcome party to the beach session to the wedding and reception, each part of the weekend had its own story to tell. If you’re in need of a Cancun destination wedding photographer for a multi-day event, know that Katherine Elyse Media built for exactly this kind of coverage, capturing the whole arc of the celebration, not just the ceremony. Check out Laurel and Mike’s extravagant 4 day wedding in Zhangjiajie, China to see more multi-day wedding coverage!
Janae and Joe’s wedding proved that even when the universe throws a hurricane at your plans, the right people around you can turn chaos into something even more beautiful than you imagined. Congratulations to this incredible couple and thank you for trusting me with your story!
Interested in booking your wedding? You can find a list of my services and pricing here.
CANCUN WEDDING VENDORS
Venue @secretsmirabelcancun
Coordination @timelessevents.bytia
Photo/Content @lovekemedia
Video @dreamartphotography
Floral/Decor @planner1events
DJ @encoremex
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