Why a Villa Wedding May Be Perfect for the Exclusive Ceremony You’ve Dreamed Of

Privacy and Luxury at a Villa Wedding

Sometimes you know exactly what you want down to the last detail. And sometimes you have an idea…but haven’t thought about the specifics. In this case, if you’ve chosen a destination wedding, you may want to consider the possibilities available in your ceremony location.

When you’ve selected a destination for your wedding ceremony, the next decision will be your venue for the wedding, the reception and the accommodation available for you and  your guests. There are a wide selection of possibilities, from outdoor weddings to church ceremonies to weddings in a villa or hotel. Many hotels in the Caribbean offer all-inclusive vacations sometimes with a standard wedding package if you stay over seven days at the resort. If you’re on a limited budget, this can be ideal. However, it’s good to note that you will be staying at a resort with hundreds of other holiday makers so the services available for your wedding will be limited to what the resort can offer to you.

Because of this, wedding couples looking for a more private, customized ceremony may find that renting a villa is the perfect alternative. There are many properties throughout the Caribbean that specialize in destination weddings, particularly in the US Virgin Islands, including St. John, St. Thomas and St. Croix. These villas offer all the facilities of a five-star hotel as well as the luxuries of a high-end mansion. You and your wedding guests can stay at the villa and all enjoy the grounds together as the exclusive guests. This allows you and your guests complete privacy, with villa managers and staff dedicated to making your experience exquisite.

If you choose this solution, you will also want to hire a personal wedding planner to organize all the details of your wedding day, the ceremony, and the reception. A wedding planner can help you with everything, from arranging for entertainment, making reservations, ordering flowers, hiring catering and planning transportation. The planner can also help with any extras, like planning the wedding menu with a private chef and suggesting ideas for excursions for you and your guests.

For privacy and exclusivity, for feeling like a princess in the highest regard, consider the advantages of a villa wedding in a destination location. You may be surprised how easy and how fun it is to dream your perfect day and have it realized without having to do more than selecting a location and calling a destination wedding planner.

Eye Candy: Favorite New Year’s Wedding Photos

I make no claims for ownership to any of these…I enjoy them and wanted to share!

Planning a Gay or Lesbian Destination Wedding in the US Virgin Islands

Whether you reside in a state with legalized gay marriages or if you’re planning your own commitment ceremony, we have a few tips to help same sex weddings or same sex unions go smoothly.

One of the first steps, like with any major positive change in life, is sharing your good news! Telling your loved ones that are most supportive of you first will build your confidence so you will feel comfortable sharing with ones that may not be so enthused. Feeling the support and excitement of others will make the planning all the more fun.
Next comes planning your event! As your ceremony is representing you and your commitment, you should personalize it in all the ways that are special to you and your partner. Aspects of traditional ceremonies may work well for you, but you may want to add or modify them. For instance, you can search for traditional and religious wedding vows online but you may want to add to them with parts from poems or songs.

The ring exchange will be one of the main parts of the ceremony to consider next. This is basic enough…picking your rings beforehand will be where you spend your time with this. Then comes any readings, songs or rituals you and your partner want to include. Finally, there’s the declaration and presentation of you and your partner, then…the kiss!

Often same sex couples choose to exchange vows with a small ceremony or in front of the justice of the peace. Then they’ll plan a destination wedding celebration to kick off their new commitment, usually with friends and family. A resort or Caribbean island getaway is perfect for this. Here at Katilady Events on St. John in the US Virgin Islands, we often work with same sex couples to plan a magnificent celebration. Sometimes couples are looking to stay in a private villa and then have a beach ceremony for friends to join them. Other times they’re looking for a large villa where the whole wedding party can stay and hold all events on location.

We handle both beach and villa events, as well as ceremonies in churches or at landmarks like the Annaberg sugar plantation ruins.

If you’re planning a same sex wedding celebration, we’d love to share ideas with you and offer our services. Please check out our website, www.katilady.com, for more details or send us an email at kati@katilady.com.

Planning Your Ceremony: Choosing the Best Colors For Your Dream Winter Wedding

Planning a wedding around the holiday season can add celebration to the already-festive months. It can also help you and loved ones remember the anniversary more easily in the future. Choosing appropriate winter wedding colors and decorations can take more consideration due to the holiday time. The tricky part about this is you have to create a mood that is both appropriate for a wedding and will also bring out the festive moods of the holidays. You need to consider how to incorporate these two occasions into a one, grand theme that will wow guests and onlookers. Here are some tips on how to choose colors for your winter wedding.

• Take into consideration the place or the venue of the wedding. Most winter weddings are held indoors because of the cold weather outside. Think of colors that will make the atmosphere warmer and will make the cold season cozy and inviting…or, plan a destination wedding to a warm climate location, like the Caribbean. At Katilady, as wedding planners based in the US Virgin Islands, we can help you.

• The most popular color motif for winter weddings is a combination of warm colors such as red, orange, yellow, and dark purple or grey with a touch of red. This will be a sharp contrast to the colors outdoors.

• You can also use cool colors such as ice or navy blue and forest green. This will greatly complement your warm colors. If you are planning on a winter wonderland theme, you might want to use ice blue with white and silver accents as your color motif.

• Metallic colors such as gold, silver, and bronze can be great color accents for your primary colors. This will make the entire room and decorations glitter magically. You can pair these colors with any other basic winter wedding colors.

• Formal weddings in winter require rich winter colors such as deep red with gold while casual weddings can use lighter colors such as light blue or purple.

• Consider flowers that complement your color scheme-poinsettia, hydrangea, white roses, lilies, red amaryllis, tulips, delphiniums, and muscari, to name a few.

• Metal colors give formality and elegance to a wedding reception. You can use them as color accents for the flowers and the bridal bouquet and the table settings. If you have proper lighting using electric lights or candles, the lights will reflect the metallic colors and will provide a romantic and magical glow in your wedding party.

Take advantage of the richer, darker colors of the season to be bold with contrast, if that suits your style. Considering non-traditional wedding dress colors can also be exciting. Check out http://www.winterweddingideas.org/ for more on this topic, or visit http://katilady.com for information about destination weddings in the US Virgin Islands.

Skype is Changing My Wedding Planning Business on St. John.

Are you curious about St. John or planning a wedding here or want to speak with someone personally rather than wade through webpages of information?

You’re talking to the right lady.

As a destination wedding planner on St. John in the US Virgin Islands, my business relies on the internet for 90% of new business. Learning about the critical impact of a successful online marketing campaign and using a website to build business, I wasn’t thinking that Skype would also play an important role.

But it’s changing everything!

With Skype and online conferencing, I can participate in web meetings with potential clients, my marketing team and my vendors. We can schedule around a time to meet online rather than coordinating meeting in person. Living on an island, this is a big relief.

When I have a web meeting with future brides via Skype, I can share my desktop with them and show example photos, reference articles or information from websites as she watches what I display on her screen, and discuss order forms and pricing details by sharing files. She can even see me in my office if she wants to, simply by turning on the webcam.

It’s seamless, saves lots of time and makes it fun for both of us.

Just over a year ago I wouldn’t have imagined I would be blogging about Skype and my business in the same post. Change can be a very good thing.

If you want to try an online meeting with me, please just drop an email with your Skype name and we’ll connect. Thank you!
Email me at kati@katilady.com.

Suncelebrations of St. Croix

Kati may well be one of the busiest owners we know. She seems to be constantly on the go and is just wrapping up a visit to St. Croix where she attended as the guest of West Indies Corporation, a local whole sale beer, wine & liquor distributor, to audit St. Croix’s version of Flavor’s called Suncelebration. The events last all week and have brought in various vendors and food participants blossoming with creativity.

http://www.suncelebrations.com/blog/2010/04/14/eat-drink-and-savor-the-flavors-of-st-croix/

” My purpose here, as the executive chair for flavors of St. John, is to see how we can improve flavors to raise more money for the college fund. Rotary pays for tuition to college for local kids that could not otherwise go to college.”, says Kati.

Certainly her expertise on destination weddings and long career in the catering business set her up to be a perfect “go to” for local businesses on St. Croix and really opens up the possibility of doing more business with vendors and even locations on this often overlooked island.

While St. John will always be the heart and soul of KatiLady’s Wedding business the opportunity to expand into other markets within the Caribbean has been growing as Kati becomes more involved in the Wedding Planner’s International Association.

Further emphasizing Kati’s role in the industry is her recent founding, along with Island Style Wedding’s owner Mary Bartolucci, in the Virgin Island Chapter of the Association for Wedding Professionals International. The group held their first meeting on April 13 from 6 – 10 pm at Norbu on St. Thomas. Future meetings will be held on St. John & St. Croix on a rotating schedule.

As many industries are struggling to compete, amazingly destination weddings continues to grow and behooves not only the business owners but also the potential clients to have a united industry in which to work within. As an international organization it also gives credit to the quality and professionalism provided by USVI organizations and businesses.

All parties benefit as the professionals build networking and referrals and brides & grooms get free information on their options. This only encourages friendly competition, which is welcomed by owners like Kati & Mary.

As a KatiLady team we are proud of our owner for taking such enormous steps in furthering the industry in the USVI and as individuals we are grateful for the constant effort she exudes in helping us grow our own careers.

Travel safe Kati and see you when you get back!

Kyle & the Lobster

We admit that we are almost closer to next year’s Flavors of St. John event that last year’s but coming across this photo is worth the delayed posting.

Nothing says decadence like lobster smothered in cheese!

The highlight of the event, for us, and apparently for many of the guests as we have heard over the past few months, was Kyle’s divine creation of Truffled Lobster Mac n’ Cheese! There really isn’t much more you can say about this utter indulgence beyond….manifique!

So as we gather inspiration for next year’s show and our countless drop off and in villa dinners between now and then our roots come back to what we know to be true. Goodness comes from familiarity paired with a little bit of richness – in other words: welcome to the era of sophisticated comfort food a la KatiLady!

Cater Source Trade Show

With 2010 in full swing the KatiLady team headed off to Vegas to participate in the 19th annual Cater Source trade show.

http://www.catersource.com/conference-tradeshow/recap

From dawn past dusk Kati, Vicki and Chef Kyle explored the show partaking in the various treasure trove of classes and seminars and just networking within the industry. It was hard to see everything but the team gave it a shot.

From the moment of their arrival it was non-stop. Kati found quite a lot to take home in the trends section of wedding planning noticing that Destination Weddings, despite a sluggish economy, remain a leader in inspired wedding themes.

Surprising to some, but certainly not this established group, was that Destination Weddings are in many ways more affordable than large scale home weddings. This is due to the fact that guest counts tend to be more reasonable when traveling is required of guests as many opportunists stay home. Beyond that expenses like liquor, flowers and transportation are often radically reduced because of fewer taxes, and in St. John’s case, the already exquisite tropical flora and fauna that fills in the gaps of a venue compared to an otherwise bare wedding hall that requires numerous displays.

While the team took a few days to recoup from the travel (almost 15 hours from St. John to Vegas!) and get used to the sun again (there are NO windows in Vegas – what’s with that?) they were glad for the experience.

Las Vegas here we come!

Vegas is beckoning….

Cater Source Event Solution 2010

Kati and the team are headed to the Cater Source Trade Show in Las Vegas, Nevada for a week of intense informational sessions on weddings, catering and events planning. It is a industry must for those in the know.

This will be the second time the KatiLady team has attended and they will be taking advantage of every hour in their schedule. With courses and seminars throughout the week they will have plenty of fresh ideas upon returning to amp up any bride’s wedding.

We expect big things from the show as we hope our clients expect big things from us!

Go team go!

Champagne Wishes for Villa Provisioning Dreams

There is nothing sweeter than having your favorite beverage and nibbles on hand after traveling, no matter how easy and convenient your trip was. (Which seems to be the case when traveling from the East Coast 0 making it an ever better destination choice for vacationers and destination weddings!) Our provisioning packages are designed to meet that very need. And should you require something in addition to what is in the packages then Vicki is the person to contact. She will find your favorite food or suggest an alternative.

For our guests arriving over the winter we have spared no effort in arranging for every snack and edible item to be available when provisioning their villas.

The Robb family, recent guests at Florian Villa overlooking the Caribbean Sea, didn’t forget how they felt when arriving to their delectable treats….even after returning to the snowy mess in the states. They had requested non-French Champagnes/Sparkling Wines to be chilled and ready to pop once they plopped into position appreciating the vistas from their wind swept deck. We were more than pleased to meet there needs.

Provisioning a villa is like an art, the more you commit to the process the more vibrant affect the presentation has on it’s intended audience. Kudos to the Delivery staff for being so astute in this medium.

Vicki remains the best in the business (see our Face Book page for extended gratitude by our clients) as she follows through on every inquiry and Chef Kyle can’t be forgotten either as we dole out praise. While Champagnes technically come from France Chef Kyle found some excellent alternatives that we are able to procure in our region:
Domaine Caneros- French champagne grapes grown in California
and
Eclipse – same, but grown in South America – owned by Moet Chandon

We hope you’ll be toasting with us soon. These sparkling wines make excellent choices for wedding celebrations too!
Cheers….