ResortHatch

Hailey and Caleb don’t expect random people to be so interested to hear about their wedding a year after the fact. They each personify the popular quote, “Live simply, laugh often, love deeply.”

“It’s why we were drawn to each other,” Caleb says.

Yet here they are, openly telling another curious inquisitor about their fairytale wedding on an enchanting Caribbean island, being treated like a prince and princess, enjoying a beach as white as Hailey’s dress, looking out over a definitively turquoise ocean, and celebrating for over a week.

“I’m a realist,” Hailey says. “Like most little girls, I had a dream for my wedding. But over time I gradually let the dream go.”

Hailey didn’t let all of her little-girl dream go. She held on to a song. It came from watching Snow White over and over with her mother. When she wasn’t watching the movie, she’d hum Someday My Prince Will Come, storing the lyrics into her subconscious. Hailey promised herself that someday when her own prince came, she’d use that song in her grown-up wedding, keeping a glimmer of her favorite fairytale alive.

“That song was always in my wedding vision,” Hailey says. “I just didn’t know what the rest of it would look like.”

Photo by MyPhotoMagic Studio.

Caleb appeared on March 16, 2019. It didn’t take him long to recognize Hailey’s natural humor and her acuity for organization.

“She knows the dates of everything,” he says.

This is why we know they went out for the first time in April 2019, had their first kiss two weeks later, and were engaged on June 25, 2022. By June 26, you’d expect the life of a very organized fiancé to turn chaotic.

It didn’t happen that way for Caleb and Hailey. Instead of diving immediately into wedding details, they agreed on something more unifying and fun: a honeymoon at Sandals. They knew from seeing Sandals Resorts online that it would be gorgeous. They also knew a beachfront all-inclusive destination would be easy to enjoy. It’s the same reason they chose Montego Bay: the flight to Jamaica and ground transportation to the property would be a breeze.

“We just wanted to arrive, relax, hang out on the beach, and try all the restaurants,” Hailey says. “It sounded perfect.”

Complications arose when Hailey began trying to puzzle together a wedding near Memphis. She had to find vendors, schedule meetings, make site visits, and reschedule meetings when vendors canceled. Within a few weeks it had become too complex and too expensive. She and Caleb had a serious discussion to answer one simple question:

How can we make this easier and more enjoyable?

Caleb had a suggestion. “If we’re going to Sandals for our honeymoon, we could get married there, too — combine everything into one long seamless vacation.”

Whoever could come to Jamaica, fantastic. Whoever couldn’t make it would be invited to a reception at home. Hailey stopped stressing over the puzzle. She called a Sandals wedding concierge and made two requests for a ceremony in Jamaica: flowers to match the island nature and her song from Snow White.

“The Sandals team took it from there,” she says. “For me, it was as easy as that.”

Hailey and Caleb landed in Montego Bay two days before their wedding. They’d spent the previous year looking forward to it rather than planning it. Hailey added a few personal touches to the wedding plans to accentuate the destination, like mother-of-pearl in her shoes and monstera leaves along the liner of Caleb’s green suit. The cost of the entire wedding and honeymoon was so reasonable that she upgraded to a Millionaire Suite.

“I usually keep things modest,” she says, “but when it’s something as special as a once-in-a-lifetime wedding on a Caribbean island, it makes sense to splurge on a suite.”

The splurge took effect with their first walk on property: through Sandals’ open-air lobby, around the brilliant pools, and along the sand to their private suite in paradise.

“Oh … my … gosh,” Hailey says. “The landscaping. The ocean. The beach. Our room. We’d never experienced anything like it.”

The freedom to dine like royalty seemed implausible, too. There was seared tuna at Butch’s Steak and Seafood, risotto at Cucina Romana, and fresh croissants with Jamaican hot sauce during sunrise at Bayside. They would have eight days to explore all the culinary sites. But on day three they paused their Caribbean vacation for their Caribbean wedding ceremony.

Say ‘I Do’ with the ocean as your witness.

From a list of gorgeous venues, the two of them chose a spot between the chapel and a quiet pool — a combination of traditional and tropical. The wedding team decorated the venue with big ferns and indigenous flowers, more lush than Hailey had imagined.

“They totally immersed us in the island vibe,” Hailey says. “We had the friendly Jamaican accents, the Jamaican sand ceremony, and the love Jamaica is known for. The beauty of the location spoke for itself and made for the perfect wedding.”

There will soon be wedding pictures on the walls of their first permanent home — lots of pictures, neatly organized.

“As much as I like simplicity, I’ll go all out with the pictures like we did with the Millionaire Suite,” Hailey says.

Her favorite photos change every time she looks at the digital gallery. There’s one where she and Caleb are standing at a little bridge by the Caribbean Sea and one at the reception with family and friends sending them off under a shower of sparklers.

Photo by MyPhotoMagic Studio.

But of all the magical moments, one clearly stands apart: Hailey’s walk down the aisle. It represented a trip into her future and back to the best of her past. As she took those first steps toward the altar, the local violinist strummed a few familiar notes.

Someday, my prince will come,
Someday, we’ll meet again …

Hailey had to tell herself, “This is not a dream, this is not a dream.” But in a way, it was a dream — the childhood dream she’d kept alive with the song.

And wedding bells will ring,
Someday, when my dreams come true.

Like every woman of every age, she’d always harbored the aspirations of a little girl in her heart. She’d always been beautiful enough for a prince. And she’d always known deep down that someday, somewhere, perhaps closer than she imagined, a fairytale was ready to come to life.

To Forever. Photo by MyPhotoMagic Studio.