This Stylish Filipina Bride Shares How They Pulled Off Their Festive Destination Wedding in Mexico

A bright, fun-filled, beautiful wedding is what we have in store for you today. Filipina artist and designer, Paulina Paige, tied the knot with Clark in sunny Mexico, and everything looked just fabulous! From the fun festivities leading up to the big day to the chic and unique details of the wedding, you’ll surely love everything about this one. We also asked Paulina to share some tidbits about this vibrant affair, so read on and enjoy the photos from Joseph Pascual and Your Evil Twin while you’re at it!

“My partner Clark and I have been lucky enough to have lived in several cities together, over the years, which meant that our friends and family were sort of scattered all over the world. In light of that, we always knew we wanted to do a destination wedding. We also love experiencing new places and thought it would be fun!

After coming from one of our best friend’s wedding in New York in 2017, we went to visit Mexico and really fell in love with the place. During that trip we made our way out to the different Coqui Coqui residences and their perfumery, out of sheer curiosity and love for what their brand has done over the years. And, well, everything kind of just happened from there! Mexico felt so much like the Philippines in so many ways, but was just different enough to be a new experience for everyone, a beautiful holiday destination for all our friends and family. Coqui Coqui is also breathtaking in every way, so that detail kind of made the decision easier for us.

We really spread our events out across different parts of the Yucatán to imbibe new energy into every part of the entire experience. It was also great for everyone to get to see different parts of the Yucatán. We started off in by the beach, in Tulum, with our bachelor’s and bachelorette’s, then had our welcome party (a Welcome Merienda) in Cobá, which was in the middle of the jungle, next to Mayan pyramids, and finally had our ceremony and reception in Valladolid, a small, charming colonial town inland.

We found out later on that we were the first couple Coqui Coqui agreed to have marry in one of their residences, and felt incredibly lucky and honored. We had our ceremony in the beautiful garden of Coqui Coqui La Perfumeria (their perfumery in the Yucatán), and had a celebratory callejoneada (traditional mexican street parade) down the historic street of Calzada de los Frailes to Coqui Coqui Mesón de Malleville where we ate and drank and danced the night away.”

“Very few. Haha! We wanted to keep things intimate and surround ourselves with the people who have been really a part of our lives as a couple over the years. There were about 70 people in total.”

“I fully hate all things super bridal. Not that there is anything wrong with that at all! I love it on everyone else. Really just not me. That said, I love a good fashion moment! Haha. So I approached things like I normally would when shopping for myself, albeit things were levelled up a few notches. Above anything else, what was important to me was to pick looks that made me feel like myself. I tend to dress in a way that is pared-back and feminine, and that was sort of my guiding force throughout the maze that is the wedding dress selection process.

Bride:

The dress for my wedding ceremony was by Roksanda Ilinic. It was the first dress I saw and fell in love with when I was shopping around. I kind of fell into the trap of ‘don’t get the first thing you like’, and so I went into a vortex of looking through more dresses. I must have looked through over a hundred! At the end of the day though, I returned to the first dress I loved. It felt perfect and right to me. It’s true what they say, go with your gut!

I paired the dress with these delicate pearl drop earrings by Natasha Schweitzer, minimalist white sandals by The Row, and a custom designed veil with painterly sampaguita buds by Gabbie Sarenas. It was wonderful working with Gabbie to create my veil. We selected sampaguitas because we found out, in the process of researching for the veil, that sampaguitas are traditionally a Filipino wedding flower, deriving their name from ‘sumpa kita’, meaning ‘I promise you’. My bag was custom-made for me as well by Filipino brand Baùl.

For the reception look, I wanted to make things a little more fun! I wore this weird but wonderful dress from Jacquemus’ La Bomba collection that was so fun to dance in. I wore the dress with a handmade headpiece from Columbian designer Lucia Echavarría, of Magnetic Midnight, and sparkly earrings from Miu Miu.

Groom:

Clark loves to dress up as well. He wore a custom-made suit from Melbourne-based tailors Trunk Tailors. He wore a tonal tie with a shirt by Carl Jan Cruz, a bolo tie-clip, a scapular necklace by Nami, and metallic brogues by Thom Browne. It was important to him to look formal and dressed-up but also veer away a little from the typical groom look.”

“Well, we’re both not big on weddings, but we love a good party! So we approached things in this manner.

I definitely took on most of the initial coordinating and planning, and as a graphic designer, I jumped on all of the printed and digital ephemera–emailers, website banners, invitations, and menu designs etc. But Clark is definitely the more organized of the two of us, so he was kind of the ‘closer’, if you will, and made sure all contracts and logistics were ironed out before the big day. It was certainly a challenge for us both, given the distance and the different timezones, but we made it work in the end.”

“The beautiful old houses in the town of Valladolid. The whole town looks so festive and celebratory, we wanted to bring that spirit into our wedding festivities.”

“The celebration after! Haha!”

“We did our best to avoid things that were expected of us, but that didn’t feel right to us. For instance, it was important to us to have the ceremony be meaningful and sincere, so instead of having an officiant we didn’t know, or a priest we weren’t close to, we asked a really good friend (the husband of the friend who introduced me and Clark to each other) to officiate for us. We also wanted to make sure every step of the whole event was fun and celebratory for everyone who trekked all the way to Mexico for us, and that we’d have a fantastic dinner, overflowing drinks, and a amazing DJ. Those were definitely non-negotiables!”

“The time difference between Mexico and Australia (where we live) was definitely a big obstacle we had to work around. There was also the challenge of not having too many local contacts beforehand, so picking suppliers involved a lot of research and good faith.”

“Don’t do it. Just kidding! It was truly one of the most rewarding and magical moments of my life, and was worth all the effort and planning.

I would say always be two steps ahead of everything, be very thorough and meticulous when planning, know that you will be a demi-tour guide, and most importantly, build good relationships with the people you are working with remotely. You are entrusting so much to your on-ground team and suppliers, it’s important to establish good rapport with them. Also, think of the festivities and trip as a holistic experience for everyone. People are flying a long way to celebrate with you, make every moment worth it for them as well as for yourself and your partner.”

“I sort of wanted to do without a lot of super traditional elements, so my bridesmaids wore dresses they picked out for themselves, in the same color scheme as the rest of the guests. They wore a mix of Viven Ramsey, Jacquemus, Derek Lam, Reformation, Dries Van Noten, etc. I fully wanted everyone to pick things out for themselves and feel good about what they wore!”

“A hundred percent. Apart from having our friend officiate for us,

We had our mothers speak at the ceremony, to give us their blessing, in a way, and have them impart their wishes for us. It was so wonderful and meaningful to incorporate this into our ceremony.
We had a huge Momofuku Milk Bar birthday cake as our wedding cake (which is our favorite cake, as a couple haha). You can skip the traditional fondant-covered wedding cake and go for something you really wanna eat.
Our bridesmaids did not have matching dresses (although they did have a color scheme to work around).
Place cards don’t have to be plain. Because it was an intimate wedding, we made sure to make it feel as intimate as possible for everyone by adding small details like descriptions for each of our guests on their place cards. It allowed them to use their place cards to sort of break the ice and introduce themselves to people on the table. We made sure to have fun and interesting descriptions, of course!
I don’t know what happened at the bachelor’s but for the bachelorette’s we kept things unconventional for sure. My friends planned an amazing night. We had a model strip down for a tasteful nude drawing session which was done to live electronic violin music and freeflow wine and cocktails. They really outdid themselves!
We skipped the bridal car and instead opted for a callejoneada, where I somehow ended up riding a horse, where we surprised guests with freshly baked empanadas and mezcal shots and a mariachi band. Haha! Together, we all walked and danced towards the reception venue. It is a memory I will treasure for the rest of my life.
Oh! And as a designer, I will say, skip the typical wedding fonts! Go with whatever feels right to you and the kind of wedding you are putting together. Let go of how you think people expect wedding stationery to look, and go with how you and your partner actually want things to look.”