This is Why Couples Renew Their Vows at Beaches

Some couples call it an “anniversary celebration.” Some take it up a notch to “vow renewal.” The month of May is even designated as Vow Renewal Month. In the past decade, I’ve been invited to two of them — both very special and vastly different.

One was in a church. One was on a beach.

The first was squeezed into a four-hour time limit, including ballroom reception. The second was at the center of a five-day vacation, including nonstop views of the Caribbean Sea.

One became as a stress-filled memory. And the other, a stress-free memory.

For clear perspective, let’s briefly paint a picture of the first vow renewal, on an August afternoon in the upper Midwest where my parents celebrated a milestone anniversary in the same place where they’d been pronounced man and wife as 20-year-olds: in a classic church, with pews and stained glass. Hushed voices echoed. The grandkids were restless. The air conditioning on an 87-degree day didn’t seem to be working.

What an honor to watch my loving parents try to recapture the most important day of their lives … while also paying close attention to the mood of guests and the time. Is everyone OK? Would it be possible to open the windows? Has the limo driver arrived to take mom and dad to the reception? Step by step, those three hours took us closer to the finish line of what had been a complicated 12-week planning run.

And then, just like that, it was over. Time to clean up and pay the vendors.

The second and more recent vow renewal emerged as an invitation to Beaches Turks and Caicos. My first instinct, having remembered the event with my parents, was to privately ask, “Why?” Why fly with my wife to an island for our friends’ vow renewal? Why turn what could be a quick afternoon in a ballroom into a five-day celebration?

But we went to Beaches. And I immediately began to ask another why: Why would anyone renew their vows anywhere else?

Everything I thought I’d known about anniversary celebrations or vow renewals drifted off with the tropical breeze. At Beaches Turks and Caicos, as it is at Beaches Negril, you naturally learn two rules: Relax and let go. There could not be a more meaningful state of mind for a vow renewal, or as we began to call it, is a vow-cation.

This, as we witnessed, is a rare opportunity for faraway friends, extended family, sons and daughters, to gather together in one of the most beautiful destinations in the world. Playing. Reminiscing. Relaxing. Letting go. Completely free to celebrate the couple of honor, the couple who invited us to this incredible island.

The vow-cation at Beaches goes something like this. Everyone shows up two or three days before the actual vow renewal and stays for two or three days following it. No one has to find a cake artist or a photographer or a floral arranger. There are no morning alarms or urgent requests. The Beaches vow-renewal team takes care of everything. When they say, “Please relax and enjoy yourself,” they mean, please, let go of the constraints of adulthood, let go of the details, and if you brought kids, let them go, too. Everything will be in place for the ceremony, whenever it is.

In the meantime, friends and family spread themselves all across the Beaches property. At any given time, some are relaxing under beach cabanas, some are relaxing at the waterpark, some are relaxing at the big pool, and some are relaxing at the other pool — or the other one.

Oh, there’s the couple we came to celebrate, relaxing in the hot tub.

“Do whatever you want,” the wife says, which she and her husband soon demonstrate by wandering off for margaritas at one of the 14 bars. And so, we wander off to grab something to eat at one of the 20 restaurants or three food trucks.

By the way, the word “caterer” never comes up. Couples who come to celebrate also never feel compelled to ask their friends and family, “Are you having fun?”

It’s pretty obvious.

Relaxation is the number-one activity at Beaches, followed by a flurry of ands: Snorkeling and diving. Walks on the beach and naps on garden hammocks. Morning lattes at Café de Paris and afternoon espressos at Jojo Java. Delivering school supplies to a local school and reading books to the kids. Private candlelight dinners under the stars and parties on the beach. For those who need extra help relaxing, there will be a pedi party and mimosas at Red Lane Spa.

There’s also a visit to the Island Routes desk for at least one excursion because, well, only in our dreams will everyone be together again on a Caribbean island. After one of those excursions, a sunset catamaran cruise for friends and family, couples step off the boat and announce that they’re going to their suite to relax — as if relaxing on the gentle sea wasn’t relaxing enough.

Every ahh-inspiring moment at Beaches builds up to the moment: The actual vow renewal. It’s amazing how this moment can flourish when the couple being celebrated simply plants a seed and then releases control to the Beaches wedding team.

“Your relaxing vacation turns into a sense of euphoria you never thought possible,” says Marsha-Ann Donaldson, Director of Romance for Beaches. “All the people you love are here. Your family. Your friends. Your children. You make the walk between ginger lilies and hibiscus, into the venue of your choice.”

There is no wrong choice. An acre of beach. A gazebo along the oceanfront. Or a perfect lawn with palm trees gently waving their fronds as if preparing to toss rose petals.

This particular vow renewal happens at sunset, on an empty stretch of heavenly sand. Every friend and every family member, including the kids, is focused and as calm as the surf. The couple being honored used a simple checklist, which explains how the Beaches team was able to personalize the venue. There are cushioned white chairs and an orchid-laden trellis to match an orchid bouquet and an orchid boutonniere. They could have chosen a steel pan band, live guitarist, or deejay, but instead the music from a violinist accompanies the bride down the red runway to the edge of the ocean.

All around are the most relaxed smiles you’ve ever seen. Joy spreads from the beach to the setting sun. The mood heightens as the husband reads his vows and the wife reads hers. It is not hyperbole to call this vow-cation a timeless celebration that continues to the dance floor in the garden, to dinner back on the beach, and up to the suites where relaxing thoughts come to the minds of everyone:

We still have three more days to relax, and we didn’t have to clean up.