This awesome couple had a beautiful and intimate wedding at The Colony Palm Beach. The couple said they didn’t have a specific theme, but immediately fell in love with The Colony Palm Beach. It has an “old Palm Beach meets new Palm Beach” feel with its bright, vibrant colors. They said that was the inspiration for their own color palette.
Check out the beautiful details and planning tips from Jill and Joe Williams – the Bride and Groom in this intimate Colony Palm Beach wedding. You can follow Jill on Instagram at @mrs.jaws.
Married in Palm Beach Family Used
- Venue: The Colony Palm Beach
Quick Facts – Colony Palm Beach Wedding
- Guest Count: 57
- Ceremony: Solarium at The Colony Palm Beach
- Reception: Coral Ballroom at The Colony Palm Beach
Wedding Essentials
Invitations and Stationary:
For our invitations, RSVPs and Save the Dates— our save the dates we did postcards which save us money. Also, for Postage, we bought stamps in bulk from Costco at the end of 2018 before the price in postage went up. We knew we could buy fancy stamps from Minted but we knew people really wouldn’t care about the stamps. Note: We did spend extra money on the invitation suite. I knew the invitations would be photographed and I wanted something nice to scrapbook and keep!”
Dessert:
The Colony Palm Beach provided an amazing wedding cake. It fit seamlessly into our theme and was so delicious.
Photographer:
Martin and Gloria are absolutely incredible. I had found them online, and Joe and I fell in love with their bright, fun and romantic photography style. Joe and I truly became close with them and still chat with them to this day. I will continue to use them for any photos we need done in the future, and recommend them to anyone I know. They did our engagement shoot that was included in the price of our wedding package and we received over 2,200 wedding photos.
We also received our sneak peek of 75 photos within 48 hours of our wedding. We also had 2 photographers throughout the entire day of our wedding. Their photos are breathtaking. Martin is a true visionary and will focus on certain angles and will tell you when he gets the right shot. Both of them are true artists.
Flowers:
We priced out several different florists and we were quoted in several different ranges all the way up to $3,500. Sylvia with A Red Rose is great! For everything we got and the price we paid for real flowers was exceptional.
Reception and Ceremony
Ceremony and Reception Venue:
As soon as we walked into the lobby of The Colony Palm Beach, you’re greeted by the huge green glass chandelier, and feeling of old Palm Beach meets new Palm Beach. The rooms and décor throughout the entire hotel look like a page out of a Lily Pulitzer magazine. I had always wanted to get married at an old hotel with historic character and charm and that’s exactly what The Colony Palm Beach brings to the table. As soon as we finished our tour, Joe could tell this was the place that I had always dreamed about, and he immediately said “book it.”
Food and Beverage:
One of the main factors we chose The Colony Palm Beach was because EVERYTHING was included. Our package included valet parking, a hotel suite for the bride and groom the night of the wedding, passed hors d’oeuvres, open bar throughout the event, plated dinner with salad, entrée, (we had a choice of filet mignon, chicken and fish for guest—however during our food tasting everything was amazing!), and even our wedding cake was included (we even took the top tier home).
The entire staff was absolutely top notch during our wedding day and throughout the entire process, we can’t say enough good things. Our wedding day was raining and they let us use The Colony SUV with our photographers and drove us over to Worth Avenue Clock tower for photos. Kelly Seitz and Marcial Jaurejui were our event managers of the evening and they are both truly phenomenal people. We had an AMAZING wedding at a gorgeous venue!
Officiant:
She was recommended by the venue and was absolutely wonderful. We wanted a non-denominational service, so she did just that.
Ceremony and Reception DJ:
Our DJ is trusted by the venue, the up lighting looked great, none of the equipment broke, and he was engaged with crowd the entire time. Our DJ was sensational.
Attire and Beauty
Bridal and Groom Attire:
We loved our wedding day looks. I purchased my beautiful dress from Bridal Couture of the Palm Beaches. Joe rented his attire from Men’s Warehouse. We were so happy with our attire!
Hair and Makeup:
I had found our HMU artist online right when Joe and I got engaged, after pricing out several makeup and hair stylist in Palm Beach County. Tia was located close to where we lived and she was reasonably priced! She offered a Groupon for a trial service which I used for our engagement shoot, and her bridesmaids prices and bride makeup and hair packages were affordable especially for my bridesmaids that were traveling from out of states and needed to pay for their dress, flights, hotels, etc. I booked her immediately several months before our wedding because I knew with her pricing she would fill up fast.
Other Costs
Transportation:
We provided a passenger bus the day of the wedding to The Colony that way guests of the wedding didn’t have to drive or worry about drinking and driving. Instead of renting a limo or trolley, it was cheaper and more practical for us to rent a 24 passenger bus (the bus was nice with leather seats and wood flooring) and also carried more people to our wedding because it was bigger than a limo) we rented it for the minimum of 4 hrs. However, this allowed all the groomsmen’s to ride together on one shuttle, all the bridesmaids on one shuttle and then guests on the following 2 shuttles. However, we did not provide transportation back but most guest shared an Uber or the ones who weren’t drinking took advantage of the complimentary valet at The Colony.
Wedding Favors:
Joe and I went back and forth on what to do for wedding favors. Bottom line is, we knew people really didn’t want anything with our names or our monogram in their house. Also, we had a lot of traveling from out of state. We went on Etsy and found a SparklesBaby – they made gourmet bride and groom chocolate covered pretzel and bagged them individually and tied them with a gold ribbon. We thought this cute, fun, treat, guest could take home or pack and it wouldn’t be something sitting in their junk draw. Also, the cost for these when comparing to other wedding favors saved us a bunch of money!
Hotel Room Block:
The Colony Palm Beach offered Joe and I a room for the wedding night. However, the majority of our guests stayed at The Embassy Suites in Palm Beach Gardens. Our overall goal for our wedding was to make it a fun weekend for us and our guests plus make it as convenient as possible for everyone. We had guests flying and driving in from out of town and with the cost of travel, so we wanted a cost effective option for them in terms of accommodations. At The Embassy Suites in Palm Beach Gardens, our guests received a suite room, free breakfast, free parking, free Wifi, and a daily complimentary happy hour at the hotel bar. We had priced out different hotels in the area but The Embassy Suites in Palm Beach Gardens included the most amenities and ended up being the least expensive for guests overall. Also, The Embassy Suites in Palm Beach Gardens has swans, which a lot of the guests
seemed to really like!
Gift Bags:
We gave our guests goodie bags upon their arrival (some were given at the rehearsal dinner for guests staying at different hotels). These bags included water bottles, candies, alcoholic popsicles that they could stick in their mini fridge freezer, popcorn, and an itinerary of all events and times that would be happening that weekend. I think the guests really appreciated these and we got a lot of these items from Costco and the Dollar Store.
Vendor Gratuities:
We felt that giving our vendor’s gratuities was very important. They worked incredibly hard on our wedding day and truly went above and beyond. Remember to set money aside in your budget for vendor tips.
Thank You Cards:
We bought ours from Walmart, they matched the colors of our wedding and we knew our guests wouldn’t care if our picture was on our thank you card, they would just care if they received one. One of the things I did was pre-address and pre-postage the Thank You cards before our wedding and on our 8 hour flight to Hawaii, Joe and I actually wrote out our thank you cards and we mailed them out from our resort in Maui so it showed each guest that they were special, that we immediately thanked them for being at our wedding, and they got something neat with the post mark from Hawaii.
Honeymoon ($10,000 – Not Included in Total)
Honeymoon:
We booked a package through Costco Travel and stayed at Royal Lahaina Resort (included $500 food and beverage credit, $100 spa credit, $100 beach credit, 2 for 1 VIP Luau tickets, free buffet breakfast daily, resort fees waived and free self-parking), Oceanfront Room (complimentary upgrade from an Ocean View Room), upgraded flights to first class tickets, upgraded the car at the airport to a Jeep Wrangler. We also did a whale watching tour, ATV tour, Pineapple Farm Tour and Distillery Tour at Maui Gold, Helicopter Tour through Air Maui, Sunrise at Haleakela (an inactive volcano 10,000 ft. above sea level), Lavender Farm, Mama’s Fish House (Famous Restaurant), Lahaina Grill (another great dinner). The Road to Hana, and we also took the ferry over for the day to another island, Lanai, and visited the Lanai Cat Sanctuary with over 600 cats.
A BIG thanks to the bride and groom for sharing their lovely Colony Palm Beach wedding! Also thanks to Martin and Gloria Photos for the beautiful images.
If you’re currently working on your wedding budget, make sure to read through our other articles featuring real Palm Beach wedding cost breakdowns.
