Engage 09- Something Blue, Grand Cayman Wedding Symposium

This week I had the distinct pleasure and privilege of being a delegate at Engage 09- Something Blue, a luxury wedding symposium which was held at the Ritz Carlton, Grand Cayman 21 -24 June.



The symposium started with a welcome party on the beach at the Ritz, an event designed by Michelle Rago you can see pictures here http://blogs1.marthastewart.com/weddings/2009/06/my-entry-1.html (Unfortunately I only poked my nose in because my youngest son was moving to New Zealand the next day, and I wanted to spend time with him).

As you can see from the programme, some very big names in the wedding industry were in Grand Cayman, Carly Roney from the Knot kicked off the event talking about the company's 2008 Wedding Survey. Lots of interesting facts and figures for wedding industry professionals to mull over.

This is just a portion of the ballroom where the opening ceremony was held. There were 160 delegates, the event was sold out weeks in advance. Delegates came from 9 countries and 26 states, with Texas having the highest number of attendees.

There were some very influential men and women here, see above. I thought they were all down-to-earth, witty and entertaining, and all added value to a very energy-charged upbeat event.
These are the speakers at the Destination Wedding Forum on the second day. To the left is Joanne Brown of Celebrations, the "fairy-godmother of Destination Weddings". Her company Celebrations is based in the Cayman Islands.

Our Department of Tourism organised a Wedding Showcase so that Grand Cayman wedding vendors could showcase their products and services. Here's Peggy, our Wedding Coordinator showing off our table. (We now have Simply Weddings luggage tags to give to all our couples, so don't forget to get yours when you visit our office.)

I was interviewed for a programme on (US) national TV coming out next year, so I'll tell you about it in due course if it comes to anything. Oh yes! You can follow me on Twitter, just enter the name of my blog. I am learning how to use social networking tools, so be patient.