When the Destination Wedding Became the Family Drama Solution

Abena wanted to invite a thousand people to her wedding. Joshua's entire guest list could fit in a mini-van. They'd been together since they were teenagers, together for an entire decade by the time Joshua proposed, and the guest list math just wasn't working.

In this episode of Passports and Promises, Shalene reconnects with Abena and Joshua to talk about their 2018 Moon Palace Cancun wedding and the problem it solved: brutal family dynamics, massive guest lists, and the reality that not everyone who raised you needs to watch you get married.

Joshua's exact words? "The destination wedding was a good excuse to invite people we didn't want to come."

Abena doesn't dispute the strategy.

When a Thousand People Meet Twenty People  

Abena comes from a big African family. Not "we have a lot of cousins" big. Actually big. The kind of family where wedding drama from someone else's celebration three years ago is still being discussed at every gathering. She'd watched what happened when certain relatives didn't get invited to other family weddings. She'd seen the friction, the hurt feelings, the long-term fallout.

"Even if we decided to have a wedding back in Ontario, I started thinking about, what if it's still not enough?" Abena says. "And then there's still friction."

Joshua had been with Abena for ten years. His philosophy was simple: "If we've been together for a decade and I haven't met you, I don't think you need to come to the wedding."

Not out of malice, but because when you're looking at potentially hundreds of people and trying to figure out how to pay for chicken or steak for all of them, the math has to make sense somewhere.

They started planning a traditional wedding. Joshua's list stayed tight at around 20 people. Abena's list kept growing. That's when they remembered attending a friend's destination wedding in Jamaica back in 2016. The seed was planted.

They Invited Everyone and Nobody Complained  

Here's the brilliance of what Abena and Joshua figured out: a destination wedding doesn't just reduce your guest count. It reduces your guest count without anyone being able to claim they were excluded.

"We were able to invite a lot of people knowing that almost none of them are going to come, but then they can't say they weren't invited and they can't say that they weren't included," Joshua explains. "So it helped keep the peace."

Abena's mom understood immediately. She'd seen the drama too. She knew that in their family and their community, not getting invited to a wedding carried weight. But not being able to afford the trip to Mexico? That's logistics, not a slight.

The people who truly wanted to be there found a way. Anyone who would have caused drama or felt obligated to attend had a built-in excuse. And nobody could complain that they'd been deliberately excluded.

Shalene met them at Canada's Bridal Show at the very end of the last day when everyone else had already packed up and left. That late-show magic Shalene always talks about? This was it.

They looked at Hard Rock resorts initially, even tried to win a contest. When pricing didn't work out, they pivoted to Moon Palace Cancun. Far enough from party-central Cancun that they wouldn't be disturbed by spring break energy, close enough to the airport that travel logistics wouldn't be a nightmare, and large enough to accommodate whoever actually showed up.

When Rain Became the Photo Hero  

Once they locked in Moon Palace, planning moved forward. Then wedding week arrived, and so did the weather.

Abena's original plan was everything on the beach. Then it rained.

The outdoor wedding became an indoor wedding in a semi-enclosed glass pavilion. At the time, Abena was stressed about the location change. Joshua noticed something different: "I actually think having it where we had windbreak ended up helping the pictures of the actual ceremony."

No glare forcing everyone to squint. No hair blowing sideways in every shot. No guests sweating through their formal wear in direct Mexican sun. The glass pavilion provided protection while maintaining the beautiful backdrop they wanted.

The photographer kept promising he could fix things in editing. Different shade on one bridesmaid's dress? "We can fix that." Hair going the wrong direction? "We can edit that."

None of it was.

When they got their wedding photos back, Abena was crushed. The promised edits didn't happen. They never hung the photos up. Never got them printed. For years, they didn't even look at them.

Then, five years later, they were going through old flash drives trying to figure out what was saved where. They stumbled across the wedding photos. Started clicking through.

"Actually, I really like these," Abena said.

They made a whole folder of favorites. Joshua's computer screensaver is now one of their wedding photos. Time and distance from the disappointment of unmet editing promises revealed what was actually there: gems worth keeping, moments worth remembering, photos that captured exactly what happened that day.

The YouTube Cover the DJ Tracked Down  

Moon Palace's in-house DJ became one of the most stress-free elements of the entire wedding. They gave him their list of must-play songs, but their first dance request was unusual: a cover version. Not a professional recording. A random person's YouTube cover of a song they loved.

"We can send you a link," they offered.

"No, no, no, no problem," the DJ said.

Spotify didn't exist yet to make everything instantly accessible. He took the time to track down the specific version they wanted and delivered. Throughout the entire reception, he read the room and adjusted the energy accordingly.

The wedding food somehow tasted even better than the already-excellent resort restaurants. Maybe because it wasn't sitting in warmer trays. Maybe because extra attention went into plating. Whatever the reason, Joshua ended up taking leftover cake back to their room and eating it straight from the container with a fork during their honeymoon.

Abena doesn't remember eating at all. She was too focused on making sure everyone else was having a good time, moving around the room, checking in with guests. Joshua kept telling her to eat. She kept meaning to. Classic wedding day experience regardless of where you get married.

Abena's well-traveled father raved about the marble floors. Guests kept commenting on the aesthetic. The visual quality of Moon Palace lived up to every expectation without the cracks, chips, or paint-over jobs that sometimes plague resort properties.

Everyone Jumped in the Pool  

After the reception, after the cake, after the dancing, the entire wedding party jumped into the pool in their wedding clothes.

Picture it: Abena in her full wedding dress, Joshua in his tux, bridesmaids in formal gowns, everyone running toward the water together. Full formal wear. Everything.

"It was really fun," Joshua says. "Just a very unique experience."

That's the thing about destination weddings that's hard to replicate at a traditional venue: the experience extends beyond one day. They had a couple of days before the wedding where family and friends hung out at the resort. They had a couple of days after where everyone was still there, relaxing together.

"It's the most fun experience I've ever had at an all-inclusive because you're going there and there's family and friends around," Joshua says. "It's a really unique experience of having everyone there, where it's not just celebrating one day; you're all just hanging out and spending time with each other."

The guests seemed to have just as much fun. Everyone was relaxed. Nobody had to worry about driving home or finding a hotel. The celebration could extend naturally without anyone watching the clock.

Zero Regrets, Ten Years Later  

When Joshua talks to people about their wedding, he hears a lot of advice about stress and regret. People who didn't enjoy their own wedding day. People for whom it was a blur, or stressful, or disappointing.

"After the day of our wedding and coming back, we talked about how everyone said you're gonna regret this or that and we didn't really regret anything," he says. "We loved it. We had a great time."

Their advice? If you truly need a massive wedding with hundreds of people, a destination wedding might not be the right fit. But if you're looking for something smaller and more intentional, or if you're trying to navigate brutal family dynamics without creating lasting hurt, the destination wedding filter works.

It worked for them. They're planning to renew their vows in 2028, ten years after their Moon Palace wedding. This time, they're considering the new Grand property that has been built next door.

The photos they hated for five years before falling in love with them again. The pool jump in wedding clothes. The DJ who tracked down a random YouTube cover. The polite filter that let them invite everyone without the drama.

Zero regrets.

SOMETIMES THE BEST GUEST LIST IS THE ONE THAT FILTERS ITSELF.

Listen to the full Passports and Promises episode to hear about Joshua's honeymoon cake consumption, why Abena's mom understood the destination wedding strategy immediately, and what it's like rediscovering your wedding photos five years later with completely fresh eyes. Ready to plan your own celebration without the drama? Reach out to Latitude Concierge Travels to start a conversation about what's actually possible.

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