These days, 10 percent of Americans hold their weddings in far-flung locations, according to The-Knot.com. "It's one thing to have your wedding at the Minneapolis Marriott," says Liz Zack, the site's senior online editor. "It's another to have it during sunset in St. Lucia." The Sandals and Beaches Resorts chain, for example, held 11,527 weddings at its 18 properties in Jamaica, Antigua, Bahamas, St. Lucia and Turks and Caicos in 2003.
Besides the patented romantic setting of many exotic locales, all-inclusive resorts like Beaches have the added appeal of ease -- nearly everything needed to build a wedding is on-site, including at least one coordinator -- and smart economics. Beaches, for one, offers free wedding packages (including a cake, reception for four, "Just Married" T-shirts, etc.) to guests staying five nights or longer (for less than five nights, weddings start at $750, plus the nightly rate from $245 per person double). Sandals, its sister property, has a similar deal, though many couples opt to marry at Beaches, which allows families and singles, and then honeymoon at Sandals, which is couples only.
Andrea Luckoo-Edwards, a wedding coordinator at Beaches Negril resort in Jamaica, prepares Washington bride Rhonda Spears for her walk down the aisle.
(Asa Gauen)
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"This is my second wedding. I had a big-church traditional wedding the first time," says Spears, who picked Beaches because of its family-friendly bent. "We had heard that Sandals weddings were great. "That you didn't have to deal with anything, you didn't have to plan. That was the reason for coming down here -- to not worry about anything."
And that's where Luckoo-Edwards and the Beaches wedding staff of four come in -- to make that fantasy wedding happen. Or at least some variation of it.
Couples usually don't convene face-to-face with Luckoo-Edwards until the day before their wedding, after they've settled into their suites and started counting down till their wedding time. Spears and Bell met with her a scant 19 hours before their trip down the aisle, while their 22 guests were arriving in boisterous clumps.
Luckoo-Edwards's initial contact begins months before The Day through e-mail, during which the pairs sketch out their vision and the coordinator tries to match it. Most of the unromantic details, such as pre-paying, are handled through a travel agent in the States or the resort's Miami headquarters. Luckoo-Edwards's expertise is in the frills and flourishes -- flowers, hair styles, music, cake.
"Oh, she has my list. I don't have to go through it again," exclaims Spears, discovering that she and Luckoo-Edwards both had folders filled with the stacks of e-mails and notes detailing months of co-producing. "And she highlights, too!"
For many couples, Luckoo-Edwards is more than just hired help; she is often a friend, a confidante, a fashion consultant. She always carries a box of tissues to mop up sweat and tears (sometimes her own). At the smallest of small ceremonies (bride, groom, minister), she acts as a witness and signs the marriage certificate. And during the reception, she leads the toasts and cake-cutting ritual, not budging until she is certain they can manage without her.
It's early Saturday morning, and while most guests are sleeping off their hangovers, Edwards-Luckoo is deep in preparations for the five weddings she will handle today. She's ticking off the items on her "Things to Do by 9:30 a.m." list for her first ceremony of the day: Spears/Bell at 10:30.
The sun blazes for the couple's wedding, making the groom sweat in his black formal attire (or at least that's his story). Luckoo-Edwards pins a purple boutonniere to his lapel and escorts the entourage to the gazebo, which she had turned into a jungle of plants and flowers just minutes before. After depositing Bell, his 12-year-old son and Spears's brother/best man beside the minister (his first of the six weddings that day), Luckoo-Edwards heads to Room 404, where Spears waits in her white-and-lace armor and tiara-ed updo.
