The bride and groom! This will be a non-traditional wedding, with no formal bridal party. The ceremony will be short and sweet, and will involve only the couple and the officiant. This way we get to the fun part faster!

We completely understand that it is a large undertaking to plan an international trip. However, asking you to confirm your attendance early is how we will manage our guest list and waves of invitations. Flight information should be available in March, and we kindly ask you to do your research early. We have also provided a lot of information in the Logistics section of this website. We will ask you to confirm your attendance for optional activities later; the RSVP simply tells us whether or not you will be coming to Miami for the wedding. Please make your RSVP decision based on the realistic probability of your attendance. If you think it is realistically unlikely that you will be able to attend, please pull off the bandage and tell us right away. We promise we will understand! Your confirmation will allow us to extend an invitation to other guests on our list, and we sincerely appreciate your assistance with this.

We recognize that, for many, travelling to Miami is a big trip and a big expense. We hope that by creating several days’ worth of activities, it will help make the big trip worthwhile. We invite you to make a mini vacation out of it! We have curated these particular events in the hopes of appealing to a vast palette of interests, and to create affordable, informal, low-pressure situations for our guests and families to get to know each other better. While we hope everyone will attend the optional events, they are indeed optional. Each event will incur extra cost, and participation will be entirely up to you.

Our wedding will be non-traditional, with a much larger focus on the celebration than the ceremony. Everything will be taking place in the same venue, and the wedding photos will be done before the event starts, so there will be no waiting around. The ceremony should last about as long as your first cocktail, and then it’s on to dinner and the party!

We spent a very long time considering and researching where to have our wedding. With Raphael’s family in Eastern Canada, and Shaela’s in the West, no matter what, at least half of the guests would have to travel, and it didn’t seem fair to choose one half over the other. We also considered Bermuda, but it is frankly cost-prohibitive, and the lodging/transportation logistics are extremely difficult. Miami is a direct 3-hour flight from Bermuda, and features a large international airport with a wide selection of flights available from all over the world. The city boasts dazzling waterfronts, beaches, a vast array of hotels and accommodations, as well as affordable restaurants and shopping. Ultimately, we decided that this would be the best way to appeal to the largest audience and provide affordable options for our guests. The city is vibrant and full of interesting things to see and do. We hope you have an amazing visit!

There isn’t one! Your presence at our celebration is already the best gift! We will be travelling for the wedding too, and it’s not practical for us to bring home gifts. As will be confirmed later, we will be asking for advance payment for certain optional events to be able to make deposits for those who wish to participate. If at that time, you wish to contribute further to the cost of the wedding and events, you are welcome to do so. The post-wedding yacht cruise brunch, for example, is by donation, and we ask our guests to contribute at their own discretion.

We believe it appropriate to give the family and friends who are travelling the furthest the priority opportunity to accept or decline our invitation. Once the numbers from the first wave of invitations are determined, this will allow us to determine how many spaces are available for the second wave of invitations. It remains to be seen if there will be a third wave.

Unfortunately, there will be no accommodations for young children. We encourage our guests to treat this as an adult getaway, as the wedding and wedding activities are catered towards adults. Please note that the wedding invitation extends only those identified in the invitation email. If your circumstances change such that you no longer need a plus-one, or you will now need a plus-one, please let us know as soon as possible.

Grosso modo, c’est trop de travail considérant que presque l’ensemble de nos invités francophones parlent anglais ou à tout le moins sont en mesure de le lire. Puisque notre mariage a lieu à Miami on ne veut pas créer d’attente linguistique également quant au déroulement de la cérémonie ou l’offre de services.