Thursday, April 2, 2009

I've decided I'm going to go day-by-day in telling the story of our wedding. It just seems easier this way, and less daunting.

The official wedding dates were April 4-7, 2009, with the wedding happening on April 6, 2009. We chose this date for one major reason: there was no other choice. Jews can't get married in the 40-day period immediately following Passover, which this year began on April 8. By the time that's over, it's May and A) Russians have some superstition about getting married in May, and B) it just might be too hot to have a wedding in the Caribbean. We could have tried for March but it would've given us even less time (as it was we organized the whole thing in under 3 months) to plan and less time for our guests to figure out their own plans. We didn't want to wait until next year or worse, start again with the research for a non-Caribbean location. As for why it was on a Monday--As Jews, we can't get married on Friday after sundown or Saturday before sundown, rendering these days fairly impossible. Then, April 6 turned out to be Palm Sunday. Maybe it wouldn't have ultimately mattered but in our initial search of wedding vendors in T&C, many of them mentioned that it was a holiday and they would have to charge all kinds of overtime fees. So we decided Sat-Tue would be best.

Of course what this meant, ultimately, was that nearly everyone who attended our wedding arrived in Turks&Caicos on Thursday and Friday anyway.

We took the Thursday direct flight with 9 of our friends and a baby (which belongs to two of the previously mentioned 9 friends, not a random baby). Three other guests arrived in Provo later in the afternoon.

I love taking shots of Provo as we approach. The plane flies so low and the water is a million shades of blue and green:





We landed in Provo and the line snaked through customs. We thought about the fact that two flights were landing within minutes of each other on both Friday and Saturday and hoped their wait wouldn't be too long.

After we got our bags, Gansevoort had sent someone to pick up IC and I as well as our guests.

When we reached Gansevoort, it was even more beautiful than it had been three weeks prior. They had put some finishing touches on it and it just looked spectacular. The view from the lobby is just stunning. I'm afraid my photo can do it no justice:



They greeted us with drinks and showed us to our rooms:



Ok, seriously. I've stayed in hot hotel rooms before, I swear. IC and I had a presidential suite in Aruba over New Years which featured two balconies. We've both traveled and seen some really sick places (on my list of amazing rooms: Bahia del Duque in Tenerife, Ciragan Palace in Istanbul, various wow-inducing Vegas hotel rooms). And nothing, nothing, nothing has ever been half as phat as the penthouse suite at the Gansevoort Hotel Turks&Caicos. It's a 3-bedroom suite with panoramic windows and a wrap-around terrace with a plunge pool. Seriously.

The rest of the photos in this post were taken by our friend Cora.

This is IC and I messing around shortly after arrival. You can see one of the bedrooms in the background (and the kitchen on the right in the second one):





Some of the balcony (I'd say these two shots show a little more than 2/3rds of the balcony, there's yet another little lounge area that's not shown):





IC checking out the plunge pool:



Me and IC, just so happy to be there:


Thursday was easily our most chilled-out day despite the fact that we had meetings with our cake maker, the restaurant manager and the wedding coordinator we had hired to do day-of coordination. We spent the day on the beach with our friends and then all of us went out to dinner at Bay Bistro, a very recommendable restaurant.

Providenciales is a very expensive place but the biggest rip-off in all of Provo are the taxis. There were 11 of us and the cab cost $10 per person roundtrip for a 5 minute ride. It only got worse from there. Subsequent cab rides were $10 each way the rest of the weekend. Cab drivers should be living like kings down there. Not to get political on this blog but the protectionist laws in Provo make it so hotels aren't allowed to offer airport pick-up and drop-off to their guests, instead they have to use taxi services and the hotels just pay for the taxis. I don't know, even in this world economy, I'm a free market kind of girl. I don't like government using its heft to protect businesses which would otherwise fail.

Anyway, Bay Bistro was great and we capped the night off in our suite, hanging out with our friends and looking forward to the weekend ahead.

UPDATE:

I found two more shots of our room that I took that I just had to share: