Shawn & Trisha's wedding at Gran Bahia Principe Akumal

Shawn & Trisha were Married on April 11, 2008

Trisha, Tlseege, used the BDW Community to bring her destination wedding to life.

Trishagives back to the BDW Community as she kindly shares the details of her perfect day in an interview below.

*Wedding Profile*
The Bride	Trisha Seegert
The Groom	Shawn Faber
Hometown	West Bend, WI (Just north of Milwaukee)
Wedding Date	April 11, 2008
Wedding Location	Gran Bahia Principe Akumel Resort in Riviera Maya, Mexico

Why did you choose to have a destination wedding?

I absolutely love to travel. I have been traveling since I was a very small girl. I would always tell my parents that I would get married on the beach some day. In fact, I was a BDW bride BEFORE I was engaged! (You can read my engagement story here!) Shawn came into the picture in 2004 and we were inseparable. He loved traveling too, so a destination wedding just seemed natural. In our minds, there was nothing better than getting married with our toes in the sand, the waves crashing behind us, and our closest family and friends there to support us.

Why did you choose your location?

Oh my! What a hard question! I'm extremely type A. I have spreadsheets for my spreadsheets! So when it came down to choosing a wedding location it was very hard for me. I had spreadsheets with wedding offerings, prices for accommodations, and prices for airfare.

I made a list of the things that were most important to me:

Must be affordable so as many of our friends and family can come as possible
Must allow children
Big enough that our group doesn't HAVE to be on top of each other, yet close enough we can find each other
I HAD to get married with the sand beneath my toes and waves crashing
I wanted an outdoor wedding reception
In a location that offers excursions for my guests

When I combined all the things that I wanted the Gran Bahia Principe Akumal turned out to be perfect! It's an extremely affordable, highly rated hotel. It was very child friendly with children buffets, play areas, and shallow pools. It's a very large complex, but has three smaller sections within it, so finding each other was easy. The ceremony site was on the sand with a rocky area in front of it, meaning I'd get my waves crashing! I was able to have a poolside reception. The Riviera Maya is FULL of amazing excursions that we all took part in!

What were your wedding colors and/or theme?

My theme was tropical paradise. So our colors were bright blue and pink with touches of green. We had palm trees, hibiscus flowers, and star fish as small touches throughout the event. But mostly, we relied on the gorgeous scenery to provide our theme

Every wedding is special in its own right. What made your wedding unique?

It's what makes every wedding special, the love between my husband, myself, and our families. Having our family and friends there to support us was amazing and truly showed how much they cared for us. But just looking into my husband's eyes while we said our vows, that was about as special as it gets.