WE PLANNED TO ELOPE IN ONE MONTH IN PUNTA CANA

If you’d have told me, at any point in my 20s, that I’d be married before I was 30, I’d have laughed in stubborn and sour disbelief. In the ‘olden days’ when my parents were my age, if a woman wasn’t married or have plans to marry by the time she was 30, other women would assume there’s ‘something wrong with her’. To be quite honest, I was leaning more towards accepting a life as a lonely spinster, until I met my other half, Brendan.

After only a year of dating Brendan, because of all we’ve been through, I knew he was ‘the one’. The idea of marriage had been brought up as a possibility, however, because of complicated situations, I assumed it would come with many challenges and a lot of stress. Planning a ‘big wedding’ was something I had no interest in, and neither did Brendan.

On March 11th 2020, I married the person I love, have been through the most with, and am confident is my other half. On the beach of the RIU Republica in Punta Cana, Brendan and I had a beautiful ceremony, and spent the entire day, just the two of us. With only one month to plan, we decided to elope on our trip which we booked on February 8th, 2020.

This is Part 6 of what I plan to be a series of blogs describing the different parts of the planning, lead up to, ceremony and celebrations, and returning home to a world which COVID-19 changed forever. In this blog, I will discuss ‘the proposal’ and how we acquired our wedding rings.

You can read the first post here.

I’ll admit, as a woman, nothing seems more romantic than the idea of our partner proposing to us in some unexpected romantic way, like a ring at the bottom of a champagne glass, a message on the big screen at a sporting event, or on a banner casually trailing behind a blimp in the sky as we lay on a picnic blanket in the park… but the reality is, most guys dread the idea of proposing. Whether they fear the commitment of marriage, shiver at the thought of planning a wedding, or possibly worry they will get rejected, it’s not easy for a guy to get down on one knee, let alone plan some big, romantic proposal. As for the girls, many grow bitter as time ticks on, waiting for their man to propose, becoming all the more sour with every engagement announcement which pops up on their Facebook feed.

Fun Fact: According to Transitlite.com, renting an airplane banner with a personal message costs between $425 – $900. USD per flight, depending on the location.

My proposal doesn’t have a big romantic story behind it, and it certainly wasn’t expected. If you’ve read my past blogs on our elopement, you’ll know that the idea to get married came up the day after we booked our trip. While we were looking at the resort’s website, I jokingly pulled up the weddings tab and said ‘hint, hint’.

Had I not done this, the likelihood of me being a married woman today would be highly unlikely. Though I don’t doubt the possibility that after making it through multiple pandemic lockdowns together, Brendan would be considering it, I know the actual ‘proposal’ part would not be easy for him. I would be sitting here growing more bitter by the second as I approach my 30th birthday without a ring on my finger.

I’m so happy the above photo was not my future…

But, that’s not the case.

After we arrived at the RIU Republica, had our meetings with the wedding planner and photographer upon arrival, and after all was set for our special day, there were only two things left to do: find wedding rings, and of course, the proposal.

Once we’d confirmed our wedding date (on February 14th, just a few days after booking the trip on February 8th) Brendan and I started discussing engagement rings. Brendan knows my style pretty well, and figured I’d like something simple, yet flashy. I showed him a few options of the style of ring I liked: a plain silver band with one big-a$$ diamond.

I knew from the moment we arrived in Punta Cana, late Friday night on March 6th, there were only four days for the eagerly-anticipated proposal to occur. Each night at dinner when I returned from the buffet with a plate over-flowing with saucy shrimp and vegetables, I wondered if there would be a ring sitting on my placemat. Knowing Brendan and his hate for public attention, I expected the proposal to be subtle.

We also had to address ‘ring situation’, as we both needed a wedding band to exchange during the ceremony. Expecting there to be a little town full of trinket shops we could go to, we were disappointed when the only chance we had to get souvenirs was to a tourist-trap of over-priced gifts and jewelry called ‘Bella Mare’. We visited this “shopping mall” on the Monday; it wasn’t a mall, but just one large store, and of course, they didn’t have any suitable wedding bands.

Side Note: Almost every vacationer likes the idea of going to an outdoor market where they can get local souvenirs for a discounted price. I’m not sure why these Dominicans advertise “Oooh it’s a shopping mall for you to go to,” …. like we want to be trapped inside a depressing mall, like at home, when it’s warm and sunny outside. We came to escape winter and feeling trapped indoors.

Then it came the morning of the excursion we’d booked for the Tuesday, the day before our wedding. We’d booked a full day excursion which was falsely advertised as a ‘Dune Buggy Tour which visits a Dominican village and stops at a waterfall’. I figured maybe Brendan was going to save the proposal for the waterfall- now that would be truly romantic!

It’s a very good thing he didn’t propose at this waterfall- I’ll explain why in a future blog post about ‘After the Wedding’.

Well, it had rained heavily all night long, to the point where rooms on the ground floor, including ours, had water flooding in under the doorsteps. We figured that the excursion must be cancelled, and we would have to move it to another day. But after calling the Sunwing excursion desk, inquiring with the reception, and having no answer, we figured it must be cancelled, and if not, they’d have to reschedule it for us anyway.

Once the Sunwing excursion desk finally opened, we found out that the Dune Buggy excursion did go ahead as planned because apparently “it’s better in the rain”. Thankfully they agreed to reschedule us to Thursday, the day after our wedding, and the day before we would return home.

After breakfast, the rain eventually stopped, and we were able to head to the beach; I was still waiting for the proposal. Brendan was acting a bit nervous when we got there, and insisted I grab us a couple of shots and drinks from the beach bar. I guess that was to calm his nerves, as after his shots, he knelt in the sand and pulled out a beautiful shiny diamond ring from his pocket.

Even though I knew it was coming, I couldn’t help but tear up a little as I nodded and smiled and said “yes!”. A couple on the chairs next to us saw and asked, “Did she say yes?”.

“Of course!” I replied, and continued to tell them about our elopement wedding the next day. The couple took a few photos of us together with the ring on my finger.

The couple was from Argentina. We explained that we still needed to buy rings for the ceremony and had noticed a local man selling rings on the beach. We asked if they could help with the purchase by conversing with the salesman in Spanish. My Spanish-speaking skills had come in handy on our trip, but I was not confident in the purchase of our wedding bands, fearing we’d buy something made from a cheap material at a high price.

About half an hour after the proposal, the man with the rings came by and we flagged him over. The Argentinians got up and came over to help. We ended up with two beautiful stainless steel wedding bands for a fair price.

We invited the couple to attend our wedding, but unfortunately, like almost everyone else we met on our trip, they’d planned a day trip that day. The day of our wedding happened to be the only day of the week where the weather promised sunny skies.

With the proposal complete, and two rings for the ceremony, all we had to do was enjoy the rest of the day and evening as the last day before we’d be married.

Coming soon, will be a series of sub-blogs which go into detail of the planning, ceremony, and reception:

Our wedding day
The ceremony
The reception dinner
After the wedding
Honeymoon on quarantine

To wrap it up in as few words as possible, our wedding day went PERFECT. Despite having rain on-and-off throughout the week, our special day, Wednesday March 11th 2020, was sunny with a few clouds, and no rain. We spent the entire day together, with a beautiful wedding at 4pm on the beach, and had a reception dinner with a delicious cake.

Yessica was an amazing planner and ensured we had our dream wedding. We were the only two guests at our wedding, and we wouldn’t have done it any other way.