Everyone agrees that your wedding will be an historic event. But here are five destination wedding locations where your own love, and history, will be intertwined with couples, and destinations, whose names are already in the history books.
Hotel Del Coronado, where King Edward VIII met Wallis Simpson–maybe.
HOTEL DEL CORONADO, San Diego
Built in 1888 as a celebrity magnet, the Hotel del Coronado, a red-turreted 679-room ocean-side resort, has been attracting movers and shakers ever since. Perhaps no star or royal personage among the guests has been quite so intriguing, though, as Edward, the Prince of Wales, who visited in 1920. Destined to become King Edward VIII, he abdicated his throne in 1936 to marry Coronado resident Wallis Spencer Simpson.
The rumor has always been that the couple first met at The Del, as we insiders call it. But even if the rumor were false, as rumors sometimes are, the future king, and anyone contemplating a wedding of extravagant dimensions, would feel comfortable at The Del, which seems to be about the size of England, except with more event spaces, both indoors and out.
Accolades for The Del include being named America’s number-one wedding destination by The Travel Channel and one of America’s top historic hotels by just about everybody else. And if that is too much history for some of your guests, they may be interested to know that last year Professor Steven Leatherman, Dr. Beach, named Coronado’s the best in the nation.
MONTPELIER PLANTATION & BEACH, Nevis
She was “pretty and sensible” one of British naval hero Horatio Nelson’s fellow officers said of Fanny Nisbet, a wealthy young widow born on the Caribbean island of Nevis, where Nelson was stationed during his country’s sea wars with the French. An attraction might have been, too, that Fanny’s fortune promised to help ease the hardships of a husband’s military life.
We’ll say it was for love, though, that the two married at Montpelier Estate, a former sugar plantation that’s now a romantic Relais & Chateaus resort where destination weddings are still very much part of the experience.
And while Montpelier Plantation & Beach‘s 17 rooms won’t allow you to invite the entire Royal Navy, you will be able to gather the people who matter most, and celebrate with them amid the ruins of a sugar mill, or right on the beach, where you can affirm that life is about more than fortune. Which is something you will then be reminded of every time you consider another Nevis native, Alexander Hamilton, whose portrait is on the ten-dollar bill.
Weddings are pretty posh at Luttrellstown Castle
LUTTRELLSTOWN CASTLE, Dublin, Ireland
This Irish castle just outside of Dublin was originally built some time in the early 15th century. From the outside, Luttrellstown Castle looks, to an American, at least, as if a fair maiden or two ought to be draped over the window sills, waiting for a knight on horseback to ride by and perhaps offer her a ride to the pubs. But other than the story of a certain Guiness who bought the castle in 1927 as a wedding present for his daughter, there was no romantic history of note until 1999.
That’s when Posh Spice and David Beckham, in the company of 29 friends and family members, exchanged their wedding vows at Lutttrellstown, bringing it more attention than it had received in the preceding 500 centuries. The ceremony began, we are told, with the bride and groom sitting on golden thrones amid flower girls dressed as angels, and ended in tears from both Mr.& Mrs.
At your own wedding, you can be more generous with the invitations, as the castle can accommodate wedding parties of up to 150 people. Although there are only 12 bedrooms, which the Beckhams, and perhaps you, will see as a plus.
Luttrellstown Castle, an Irish castle where you can make your own history
KAHALA HOTEL AND RESORT, Oahu, Hawaii
Built in 1964 by a Hilton who is now most famous for being the great-grandfather of Paris, the Kahala Hotel and Resort, which is no longer associated with that brand, was so popular with the stars of the day that it was dubbed Kahollywood. Most luminous among the luminati were Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, who spent their first honeymoon (they would have two, of course, which is what you do when you want to show your love to someone you marry twice) hiding out from the paparazzi.
Much of the Kahala’s star dust is gone now, but a major revamp a few years ago brought it back to the luxury standards it was long known for, making it ideal for destination wedding couples who want a taste of grand resort retro, with views of Diamond Head, and 800 feet of beachfront, blissfully free of the frenzy of nearby Waikiki.
The Omni Parker House Ballroom, with bountiful Boston views
OMNI PARKER HOUSE, Boston
John F. Kennedy, at the age of six, made his first public speech at the Omni Parker House, an experience that apparently went well enough to give him the courage, some years later, to propose there to Jacqueline Bouvier — at table 40 in the hotel restaurant, in case you are still at that stage of your own relationship.
Jack and Jackie’s need to accommodate a guest list of 1,000 made it necessary for them to exchange their vows at sprawling Hammersmith Farm, in Newport, Rhode Island. But your willingness to keep your own guest list down to 250 will allow you to make use of the 551-room Omni Parker House’s 15th-floor rooftop ballroom, whose views are of much of what people come to Boston to see.
Dating to before the Civil War, the Omni Park House is said to be the oldest continuously operating hotel in America. And if all that is not enough to make the historian in you love it, a chef there invented, in 1856, what is now Massachusetts’ official state dessert—Boston cream pie.—Bob Payne
