Last year Rachelle Bell of Champagne Wedding & Event Coordination married the man of her dreams! Rachelle and Donny are perfect for each other. They love each other in a way that makes you want what they have instantly after meeting them. Here’s a glimpse into Rachelle and Donny’s wedding…

Photographs by Paul Rich Studio

Mandi: What was your favorite thing about your wedding?

Rachelle: I loved that I was able to be in a frame of mind to literally soak up all of the special moments. I think some people [my family and fiancé] worried that being a perfectionist during other people’s wedding days would transfer to me not being able to relinquish control on my own wedding day. On the contrary, I knew to simply sit back and enjoy every moment—and that’s exactly what Donny and I did, it was such a special day. I can’t say I have a favorite thing—all of it together made it so perfect. I did love my dress… : )

Mandi: What was most important to you while planning your wedding?

Rachelle: Making sure to keep our guests entertained and having fun. They all made a very long trip to be there for us, so we wanted to make sure that they were very involved in all of the activities. We planned an island tour the day before the wedding that was such a fun experience for all of us to have together. I’ve seen that island two dozen times, but having that experience with everyone there was something unique and fun for me.

Mandi: What did you like most about being engaged?

Rachelle: How excited Donny was every time he’d look at my hand and see a ring on my finger—he would literally get giddy. We were both just really happy and excited to get married to each other. I also loved how excited our families were for us too—they were all just beaming, all the time when we’d talk about the wedding.

Photographs by Paul Rich Studio

Mandi: Was it harder or easier to plan your own wedding given your profession…explain.

Rachelle: Planning was easy when it came down to getting things done, but I’m actually so accustomed to doing what OTHER people want, that it took me a while to figure out what Donny and I wanted. However, once it dawned on us that we shouldn’t be planning a local wedding with 400 guests, but should go to where we love—all the pieces fell into place. I’m a strong believer that the venue and location help dictate what the theme and feeling of the wedding will be. So I didn’t have a set color scheme or theme in mind until I had time to think about the location more. All of our planning choices simply reflected us in our everyday lives—the food, the music selections, the attire…

Mandi: How would you describe the style of your wedding?

Rachelle: Eclectic, Beach, Colorful, Celebration, Relaxed… Our biggest priority was to have a great party. The live bands really helped with that aspect, as well as the amazing people and to-die-for food!

Mandi: What are a few details you incorporated it to make it unique to you and Donny?

Rachelle:
We both had a grandmother named June—and both our grandmas were very dear to us. We wanted to honor them so we made favors that would remind us and our families of them. 

Also, we wrote our own vows, so instead of a formal program [which just wouldn’t have fit into our style of wedding anyway] we printed the vows on the program so everyone could follow along.

We also wanted our guests to know that we valued their presence during the ceremony—so we passed our rings around to everyone and asked them to instill their best advice and best wishes into them. It was a very symbolic action, but we still love the idea of it.

Photographs by Paul Rich Studio

Mandi: How did you pick St. Lucia for your destination?

Rachelle: The location was a natural choice for us, as I grew up visiting the island year after year, and Donny is such a water guy. It made perfect sense for us to get away and spend two weeks with our closest friends and family. Since I am so busy, in the Summers, with other weddings—I often miss out on the family get-togethers. I couldn’t really see myself having a wedding day that lasted only a few hours since our guest list was pretty large. So another part of the decision was in splitting the guest list up, it made it so Donny and I could [try to] spend more quality time with our guests. We had two receptions—one at my parents home and one at his parents home when we returned. They were both laid back, bbq style receptions with music, bubbly, and cake—gotta love it! I have to say, the ONLY thing that I didn’t love about our destination wedding was that Sugar [our dog] couldn’t be there.

Mandi: Any advice you’d offer to those planning a destination wedding?

Rachelle: Before you book a wedding somewhere consider a few details that will impact your planning significantly—
Do you speak the language?
Are you at all familiar with the location?
Is there a big time zone difference?
Do they provide a coordinator to help you?
Also consider where all of your guests will be traveling from- is it an accessible destination?

Photographs by Paul Rich Studio

Mandi: Thank you, Rachelle, for sharing a little about your wedding with us!

Cheers,

Mandi & Rachelle

Make sure to enter our love story contest! Details here. We will be announcing a winner on Sunday, February 14th, 2010.

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