From Destination Bride to Destination Wedding Planner

Get to know your specialist Diana and her Destination Wedding Story

My love story is a unique one as I met my now husband when my oldest daughter was 2.5 years old. We were everything but traditional and even moved in with one another about a year after dating. One thing was for certain though, and that was that we were madly in love with one another.

We were engaged on Christmas Eve in December of 2016. Well before we were engaged we always dreamed of having a destination wedding. Not knowing exactly where, we just knew that we wanted to say “I DO” in paradise alongside our nearest and dearest. As I mentioned earlier, we were everything but traditional, so the thought of having a traditional wedding back at home just didn’t have a ring of excitement to it at all.

Deciding on Punta Cana as our destination was easy, but we were extremely indecisive on whether or not we wanted a resort wedding or to have it at an offresort venue. I knew of couples who had a destination wedding but they had resort weddings, and the fear of the unknown started to set in when it came to off resort venues. After much research, and speaking to different venue planners in the Punta Cana area we settled on Huracan Cafe. ‘Til this day I am forever grateful to the Huracan Wedding Team for providing me with the wedding of my dreams!

So the venue was locked in… and my immediate thoughts were, how the heck was I going to manage logistics? How were all 120 of my invited guests going to get to the Dominican Republic? Resorts? Booking? There were too many options and it all felt too overwhelming. I came across the Barefoot Bridal travel agency within the Punta Cana Wedding Group and I reached out to them to inquire about their services.

I was sold after the first call. They not only promised to manage all of my guests' bookings for me but they took away every bit of stress that came with this side of the destination wedding process. I went from overwhelmed to stress free and literally just focused on planning the vision for my big day. I had 75 in attendance at my wedding including my husband and me and Barefoot went above and beyond to ensure my guests and I had an exceptional travel experience.

Fast forward to June of 2018 - my destination wedding week came and went, and it was the BEST WEEK EVER! I would love nothing more than to relive my wedding week again, as it’s truly so special. For my pre-wedding activities, I had an all white welcome party and a pool party. After the wedding we had a party boat as a farewell which was so much fun. The Punta Cana Wedding Group was so helpful when it came to planning all of these activities. I highly recommend you become a part of these groups.

When returning back home, I was on cloud 9 but also depressed that it was all over. Natalia from Huracan Cafe contacted me a few weeks later and offered me a planning position with her at Huracan, and without hesitation, I said yes. I get to relive vicariously through so many new destination brides? I was all for it. Fast forward a little more to January of 2022 and Barefoot approached me to offer me a position as a Destination Travel Specialist, and yet again without hesitation, I said yes!

My compassion and experience with my own destination wedding allows me to connect with brides on such a personal level. It brings me such joy to talk about all things destination wedding planning and hear the excitement in each one of my brides voices when it comes to speaking about their visions. I want nothing more than to ease their worries by knowing that we have their back every step of the way! Just like Barefoot had my back when it was my time.