Meet Lisa Light…

A hopeless romantic, world traveler, destination wedding pioneer, wedding anthropologist, writer, author, teacher, spokesperson, lover of animals and mother of three.

With over 25 years of destination wedding planning experience and a black book full of the most amazing venues and the finest purveyors, Lisa Light has become an authority on destination weddings and events. An “A-List Wedding Planner” according to Destination Weddings & Honeymoons Magazine, she has produced events in over 60 destinations on 6 continents, the Caribbean and the Pacific Islands.

Lisa Light is the author of DESTINATION BRIDE: How to Plan A Wedding Anywhere in the World, as well as of columns in Homestyle Magazine, Destination Weddings and Honeymoons and Fortune Character, a prestigious Chinese Business Magazine. She was included on a list of the 25 most influential wedding planners in the world by Event Planner University and has been featured on three episodes of the Style Network's "Married Away" series. She has been a spokesperson for Marriott, Rock Resorts and Princess, and was honored to be a member of the ForbesTraveler.com committee that selected the Forbes 400 Top Hotels in the World.

She lives in New York's Hudson Valley Region with her husband of 25+ years, O’Malley her Chinese Irish guard dog, Princess Leila the most beautiful Himalayan cat you have ever seen and her 3 grown daughters when they are not traveling the world themselves.

Destination Bride, LLC is a company with one goal: helping couples make their WILDEST dreams come true wherever in the world they want to tie the knot!

A few things always in my carryon:

  1. I NEVER leave home without a Pashmina! Pashminas have an unlimited number of uses in emergency situations like rain, cold, smell, protection from the coughing passenger next to you, pillow, beach blanket, emergency skirt, top or hat…

  2. Carmex, lotion, and water for hydration

  3. Earplugs, an eye mask, a travel pillow and a sleep aid to ensure the best possible sleep on a plane!

Three adventures I will never forget:

  1. Camping along and swimming in the Napo River, an Amazon tributary in Ecuador, home to piranha, caiman and anaconda!

  2. Sailing for a month in the Galapagos Islands where I co-inhabited the Pacific Ocean with sea turtles, manta rays, sea lions, marine iguanas and every other marine animal you can think of!

  3. Delivering babies in a mission in Cameroon, West Africa.

Four weddings I will never forget:

  1. Alice and Christian’s wedding in a castle in the Bohemian countryside in the Czech Republic for 150 Philadelphians.

  2. Brittany and Adam’s five day wedding in Bali with a team of A-list, international purveyors for 100 guests from New York.

  3. A 1.5 million dollar orthodox jewish wedding we were hired to plan for 400 guests in 8 weeks in Puerto Rico.

  4. The three day, “royal” wedding that took place in manors and castles in London and West Sussex, England.

Three adventures on my bucket list: (There are really too many to choose from but if I must…)

  1. Sailing the Mediterranean

  2. Horseback riding, camping expedition in Wyoming

  3. White Water Rafting down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon

Places I still want to explore more include:

Bhutan, Nepal , Myanmar, Vietnam, New Zealand, South Africa and several other African countries, and Lithuania to trace my roots.

Places I want to research for destination weddings:

Istanbul, Colombia, Budapest, Israel, Cuba, Croatia, and Portugal.

Photos by Emma Dodge Hanson, Nashan Photographers, Andy Todes, and Kathleen Harrison.