The Island’s Wedding Planners

By Pat Cantor

Even if you're lucky enough to live on St. Maarten/St. Martin, a wedding planner will ensure that your wedding goes off seamlessly. These locally based professionals are well connected, understand the pace of life here and know every "who, how and when" to get things done as smoothly as possible. They also have amazing resources at their disposal to create your fairy tale wedding.

Sint Maarten Marry-Me
Fairy tales always have beginnings, and for Emily and Logan Tamres it began with their first vacation together in 2007. They chose Dutch Saint Maarten as their base and then spent time exploring the beauty and fun of the island. This very personal moment, filled with relaxing time on the beach, partaking of the island’s lively and varied nightlife, plus the sightseeing opportunities, created long-lasting and fond memories for Emily and Logan. “When we decided to marry, we could not imagine a more exquisite, fun and convenient (only three-and-a-half hours from New York) location to exchange our vows than on one of the island’s breathtaking beaches,” says Emily. “And to help us visualize our dream, we used a planner: Sint Maarten Marry-Me by Artemia.” Milagros, one of the charming and talented planners from Sint Maarten Marry-Me, helped Emily bring her fairy-tale wedding to life.

Their wedding was a bit more “complex,” as Emily and Logan wanted a Jewish wedding with traditional touches. They also wanted fun and exciting St. Maarten/St. Martin–style events for the 60 family and friends who flew down to help them celebrate this fairy-tale moment. To help them realize this goal, Emily and Logan spent time getting to know the island on additional visits. Three months before the wedding, they were totally prepared to dive into the details with Milagros from Sint Maarten Marry-Me. The combination of “doing their homework” plus the local expertise of Milagros ensured that all the aesthetics and events matched their vision. As Emily suggests, “I would recommend that the bride and groom make at least two trips to St. Maarten/St. Martin. It is so helpful and makes you feel very comfortable with all your plans.”

The glue that brought everything together was the planner. “Milagros did an exceptional job at bringing my vision to life for our entire wedding weekend, from having her design team create the most exquisite chuppah to working with the florist to make the perfect floral arrangements. Sint Martin Marry-Me was a pleasure to work with over e-mail and the phone and in person on the island. They are extremely professional and are experienced in every area from transportation to wedding favors. They can do it all!” raves Emily.

As a religious ceremony is not a legally binding contract on the island, Emily and Logan were married in a civil ceremony in New York prior to their formal wedding/religious blessing in St. Maarten/St. Martin. Their family friend who is also a rabbi flew down to perform their ceremony, making the wedding even more personal to them. Emily and Logan exchanged their vows on La Samanna’s beach, a stunning and peaceful location. “I loved looking right into the ocean with our feet on the sand. It was my absolute dream beach wedding. Our guests could not get over how gorgeous, intimate and unusual the ceremony was,” comments Emily.

Milagros at Sint Maarten Marry-Me arranged the special details for the ceremony, including the beautiful bamboo chuppah (a special canopy under which a Jewish couple stand during their wedding ceremony) decorated with flowing shell curtains. The aisle was lined with flowers and petals. Emily, escorted by her parents, walked down the aisle to Caribbean steel drum music. After the ceremony, the cocktail hour and dinner took place around the main pool at La Samanna to the music of local Percy Rankin and BonFire band. It was a tropical fairy-tale ceremony.

All the events leading up to the ceremony added to the joy and fun. Upon arrival, guests were presented with charming welcome bags filled with local favors and a fabulous dinner at Saratoga. Next day, off to the beautiful nature reserve Pinel Island via private boat to enjoy the sun and pristine beaches, plus local food and tropical drinks at Up on the Key restaurant. Then back to La Samanna where guests gathered around a big evening bonfire on the beach lit by tiki torches and indulged in s’mores, drinks and more music. It was a great opportunity for Emily and Logan to “bond with their friends and family under the amazing starry sky.” They partied until midnight.

Milagros at Sint Maarten Marry-Me arranged the special details for the ceremony, including the beautiful bamboo chuppah (a special canopy under which a Jewish couple stand during their wedding ceremony) decorated with flowing shell curtains. The aisle was lined with flowers and petals. Emily, escorted by her parents, walked down the aisle to Caribbean steel drum music. After the ceremony, the cocktail hour and dinner took place around the main pool at La Samanna to the music of local Percy Rankin and BonFire band. It was a tropical fairy-tale ceremony.

All the events leading up to the ceremony added to the joy and fun. Upon arrival, guests were presented with charming welcome bags filled with local favors and a fabulous dinner at Saratoga. Next day, off to the beautiful nature reserve Pinel Island via private boat to enjoy the sun and pristine beaches, plus local food and tropical drinks at Up on the Key restaurant. Then back to La Samanna where guests gathered around a big evening bonfire on the beach lit by tiki torches and indulged in s’mores, drinks and more music. It was a great opportunity for Emily and Logan to “bond with their friends and family under the amazing starry sky.” They partied until midnight.

Although they are the largest and most experienced wedding planning company on island, your relationship with the planner is very intimate … as if they were working for you alone. Sint Maarten Marry-Me planners can create beautiful fairy-tale weddings within a variety of budgets from small to grand. All you need is a dream.

Two of the most recent and interesting weddings were Emily and Logan’s tropical Jewish ceremony and a traditional, yet modern, Persian wedding complete with everything Persian, including the food. The planners for Sint Maarten Marry-Me helped each bride organize all the steps necessary for a perfect, yet complex, wedding. “Our customized wedding planning services are tailored according to your style, dreams and budget to make your fairy-tale wedding a reality,” says Brenda.

The secret to Sint Maarten Marry-Me by Artemia’s ability to execute a wide variety of wedding venues stems from the synergy created by the merger of three well-known companies. Under the unique umbrella of year-old parent company Artemia, the divisions of Sint Maarten Marry-Me, for destination weddings; CCS-Caribbean Concierge Services, a destination and travel management company; and Artemia Events, an event-planning company, blend their specialties together to meet the demands of today’s more discerning bride.

The new Artemia trilogy gives the bride access to anything she wants. Tapping into the creative expertise of their seasoned sister divisions, Sint Maarten Marry-Me has entrée to the design specialists at Artemia Events for endless décor and venue possibilities, giving Sint Maarten Marry-Me the resources to deliver a more refined and stylish product.

To further simplify the planning process, the Sint Maarten Marry-Me planners work with the services of destination managers at Caribbean Concierge Services, or CCS. Utilizing the expertise of all three divisions, Sint Maarten Marry-Me can turn your wedding into a fabulous holiday, an endless celebration and a fairy-tale experience for everyone. You need not lift a finger.

Another unique aspect of the Artemia Events synergy is the ability to create more exotic and unusual events and weddings. Within the combined company, there are nine planners. You have access to unlimited ideas. With two certified design members on staff and one more to be added, Artemia Events takes the bride’s ideas, holds design inspiration sessions and then presents the bride with “mood boards” to help her visualize the look and feel of the wedding.

This very sophisticated approach is even better and more creative than what you might experience back home. You are working with experienced pros that are constantly on top of trends in both North America and Europe in order to find new ideas to offer their clients. Although the bride has access to everyone in this three-part company, you always have a personal partner, the wedding planner from Sint Maarten Marry-Me, who will hold your hand and guide you through the entire process — from the pre-planning to your day of departure after the wedding.

Sint Maarten Marry-Me is also a cruise ship wedding specialist and handles 95% of the cruise weddings. The bridal party arrives by cruise ship the day of the wedding and their planner has everything ready for a one-day, jam-packed tropical wedding. The planners at Sint Maarten Marry-Me are very buttoned up, no matter what type of wedding, and are especially so with cruise ship weddings. When you only have one day in port, it is critical to work with a planner who has access to almost unlimited “fall back” plans. The Artemia company gives each planner incredible support to make each wedding a dream despite almost any interference. All you have to do is sail off into the sunset!

Sint Maarten Marry-Me by Artemia
Brenda Wathey
www.artemia-sxm.com
customerservice@sintmaartenmarry-me.com
Fouress Building, Suite 4A
Emmaplein, Sint Maarten
Tel: 011 (721) 542-5245/2726/7140/2179
U.S.: (954) 889-6134/35

For an island that is a mere 37 square miles, St. Maarten/St. Martin offers an incredible array of locations for your ceremony, parties and dining, entertainment, pre-wedding accommodations and your honeymoon.

Cheers

By Jean Rich

Why is Champagne the traditional toasting beverage at a celebratory event? Surely it has been so for centuries, ever since its accidental discovery in the 1800s by the monk Dom Pérignon and the perfection of the process by the widow ("Veuve" in French) Cliquot. The process of opening the bottle with its "POP!" and possibility for the cork to arc out across a room makes you feel celebratory.

The name "toast" comes from the Greco-Roman times when wine was rustic and didn't taste good; a piece of burnt toast was spiced and dropped into the wine to make it taste better. The charcoal in the charred part helped change the acid balance of the wine, improving it.

When we toast to each other, we usually clink the glasses together. The clink, in superstitious times, was meant to scare off the bad spirits and leave the good spirits. We also clink to add sound—another sensory dimension for added festivity to the occasion. Clinking symbolically joins the participants together. In some circles, rather than reaching across a big table, people clink from left to right around a group.

You can toast with any beverage, but in seafaring cultures, among sailors, it's considered very bad luck to toast with water because it would suggest wishing the toasted person into a watery grave.

Different cultures toast distinctively. A Georgian (formerly of the Soviet Union) toast is a shot glass of vodka, downed in one gulp. It's requisite to then hold the empty glass over your head upside-down to prove it's been drained. A succession of toasts at a Georgian banquet leads to a crowd that literally is drunk "under the table," where drunken guests end up.

The toast itself is a gracious gesture that creates an occasion out of any event. It involves the giver, called toastmaster, uttering a few words or a speech in someone's honor. The best toasts are short and inject some humor or evoke emotion, and are simple, easily remembered statements. It may also be a single word or phrase that reflects a wish like, " To your health," which is universally known in every language and every culture. Cheers! Skal! À votre santé! Salud!

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