Vibrant Joyful & Warm Mexico Destination Wedding

I can just feel the love and the warmth from these beautiful images sent over by Pierce Weddings, which I am so thankful to be sharing today. Crystal and Tijn are joining us with their beautiful Mexico destination wedding held at Instituto Allende on the 14th September 2019. I love how vibrant and colourful their day was, it just oozed personality too. From the bold flowers to the intricate illustrated stationery, it was all so gorgeous.

The outfits were so stylish and cool but most importantly there was so much joy. Smiles radiated all day long and it looked as though everyone had such fun!

Mexico Destination Wedding

The Proposal

As we were dating long distance, I was not expecting Tijn to arrive in NY for another day from the Netherlands. My childhood best friend was visiting from Seattle and was leaving that day so we had planned for a quick brunch. On the uber ride to brunch I realized the driver had completely missed the restaurant and kept going, he ended up pulling up to Freemans Restaurant and I was very confused. My best friend insisted I get out of the car, even though I was complaining that this wasn’t our destination. Once I got out I somewhat realized what was happening, Freemans is at the end of an alley in the Lower East Side a was the place Tijn and I had our first date. During our long distance relationship, any time he came to visit we would without a doubt eat our first meal together at Freemans, so it became our tradition. As I walked down the alley there were candles, flowers and pictures of us hung up on the graffiti walls. He then came out of the restaurant and got down on one knee. The whole restaurant staff was watching from the window and my friends also came out and congratulated us. We then continued the tradition and proceeded to have brunch, and for our civil wedding a few months later we had brunch at Freemans as well!

The Vision

As I am Mexican, we wanted to really embrace the Mexican culture and wanted a beautiful destination for our guests to enjoy as well. We wanted it to be colourful and festive but not in a loud way, and I think we really nailed it with my wonderful florist Marigold Florals (who is also my super talented aunt!) My husband is Dutch, so we also incorporated some Dutch elements like our delft blauw cake topper and even served Dutch fries as a midnight snack. We loved the venue because it was so beautiful and historic on it’s own that we only needed to highlight it’s features. In the end, I think San Miguel de Allende was our venue, it set such a colourful and festive mood for the whole weekend.

The Planning Process

We did a lot of the planning with my mom and family members (we throw a lot of family parties so there is an expert in every category), and we hired a coordinator Julia Prieto who was very helpful!

Budget

We were on a bit of a tight budget so we did a lot of things ourselves and with the help of our families. I also am an illustrator so I was able to add a lot of personal touches on a budget, like our wedding suite and place cards.

The Venue

Our venue (Instituto Allende) was in a beautiful hacienda in San Miguel de Allende that is an art institute, it has so much character on it’s own that we only really had to accent it’s beauty with the flowers. It really carried the beauty of the city within and loved that for the amount of people we had it didn’t feel too crowded.

Your Outfits & Accessories

One of my many aunts recommended we go take a look at Brides for a Cause in Portland, which is a non-profit organization that sells brides dresses and raises money for women focused charities. I found a few beautiful dresses, but when I tried mine on we ALL (all 8 of my family members) knew it was the one. It was actually a top and a skirt from Lihi Hod, so I also found an alternate top option from Monique Lhuillier for the night time! For jewellery, I work with a Brooklyn based jewellery designer Beck Jewels and we came up with a great idea. My mom’s wedding dress is covered in pearl embellishments, so we took some of the pearls and created earrings from them. I didn’t want anything too big, something dainty and they were perfect! My shoes were from Prada and had the prettiest pops of fuschia flowers. Tijn works for Suitsupply, a Dutch suit company so he found his whole look there with their team of suit experts, including his tie and shoes.

Beauty

For beauty I really wanted to look like myself as I usually don’t wear a lot of make up, so my friend of Elle Vee Makeup did my make up. All my cousins were there too helping me with my hair.

Groomsmen

Suitsupply to the rescue once again, all of our groomsmen wore full looks from Suitsupply.

Bridesmaids

My wedding party got to choose any style of Reformation dress in a certain colour, and all got to accessorise as they wanted to keep true to their style.

The Readings & Music

For the ceremony, we had a really special moment where Tijns aunt, who is a trained Opera singer, sang Ave Maria as we gave flowers to the Virgen de Guadalupe.  Our first dance song was Golden Hour by Kacey Musgraves, this song reminds us of road trips we would take to upstate NY and we both just love it so much. We spent so much time making sure we had the perfect mix of Dutch, Spanish and English music during the reception, it was so fun to see all the cultures come together and have so much fun.

The Flowers

I can’t say enough about my amazing Aunt of Marigold Florals, who did all of our flower arrangements with the help of many of our family members. Growing up, she has always done the flowers for our family events, and there is such an exciting feeling the day before any event when you walk into someone’s kitchen and there are cousins, aunts and uncles all helping, cutting stems and sprucing up petals. The day before the wedding we had that exact same feeling and with Tijn’s family in the mix as well! I told her I wanted it to be colourful and vibrant like San Miguel de Allende and she completely captured what I was envisioning. I also absolutely loved my bouquet that had these feathery like details and gorgeous mossy green ribbons.

The Cake

We honestly aren’t big cake people but we had a simple cake for those who do love it and Marigold Florals decorated it with our Dutch cake topper (we actually were dancing so much we forgot to cut it!), but with Raquel our caterer she helped us create something that was more up our alley! We ended up having fresh churros and Mexican ice cream to satisfy all of our sweets needs.

Your Photographer

The one thing I was certain I had to have the best of was our photographer. I did so much Instagram research and found Mariana of Pierce Weddings I loved her style of photography. One of Tijns biggest things was finding someone who would capture all the candid moments happening all around and Mariana hit the nail on the head with that. On top of that she is so personable and funny which makes it feel so natural when she’s taking your pictures, we absolutely loved having her and she’s remained a good friend!

Your Filmmaker

Lyeah Soland who was actually one of Tijn’s co-workers had made beautiful videos for Suitsupply. We were blown away how she perfectly captured the feeling of the whole day, it’s a great reminder of the best day ever.

The Honeymoon

We have yet to go to our planned trip to Bali, we had to postpone as it was booked for April and things have drastically changed around the world. We will have something to look forward to when things get better!

Memorable Moments

In general having all of our dear family and friends from all over the world in the same place! My family also does this crazy tradition (which I thought was quite normal growing up), where they undress the groom and make him wear an apron and make him sweep. A certain song is played which pretty much states he has lost his freedom as a single man. It’s quite hilarious as many people from Europe and the US had never experienced this before. The whole night has an amazing mixture of English, Spanish, and Dutch music and we even broke the dance floor from dancing so much!

Advice For Other Couples

Enjoy every moment, even if some things don’t go as planned!

Credit Where Credit Is Due

Crystal and Tijn thank you so much for sharing your totally epic Mexico destination wedding. It looked amazing!