Should you build a recovery day into your beach wedding?

I am a destination wedding photographer, photographing weddings in Hawaii and Fiji, both beautiful beach destinations. Lately I’ve been asked to photograph 3 day destination weddings. It’s so much fun! Day one is a the rehearsal dinner, or sometimes just dinner (or just finger food and drinks) with all of the guests, so that the bride and groom get more time with their guests. Day two is the wedding, and then . . . day three is a “Recovery Day.”

What exactly is a Recovery Day? It’s a day to let loose, relax, hang out in a bathing suit in the tropical sun, and have one more day to celebrate and recover from the festivities the day before.

You can book a charter, go for a snorkel, or just enjoy the beach. One Recovery Day I photographed was at a floating bar (and we did an underwater photo shoot while we were there!).

Another Recovery Day was at Turtle Island (see Racheli and Will’s beautiful wedding here). Here are the images from their Recovery Day, just to show you how much fun it can be to schedule a day like this into your wedding week. When you’re in a tropical paradise, why not?!