Hola to my followers

After more than 2 years I’m finally back at the desk, typing some news of my personal life in DR. I’ve had a blog in German for almost 8 years, but I never translated any of these Blog Posts into English. But as I would like to share some insight stories with clients or friends that don’t speak or understand German, we’ll start this now. English isn’t my mother tongue, so please be kind. Here we go – this is for you! 
So many things have happened since my last blog post, so I don’t know exactly where to start. In previous posts I already started blogging about wedding planning, but let’s get to the real thing. 😀

In my last blog post, about my personal life, in 2020 (!) I told you that I got divorced from Carlos – my kids dad. Our divorce took some time, but it was something we got through without major problems. He left the Dominican Republic and is now remarried in the USA. Quite sad for our children as they haven’t seen him in almost 2 years and obviously miss him. But I hope they can reunite soon.

In 2020 I opened a German and Spanish school – as I had to stay innovative during Covid, when nobody wanted to get married. Obviously I could have laid back, be reflective and trying to keep it calm. But you know me, I need to move it, move it. 

So my language school went quite well, from the beginning. During Covid it became obviously very famous to do online classes as one wasn’t allowed in a real classroom. So my school became very popular in the blink of an eye. Thank you so much to everyone who studied with me during this time and helped us survive. After the total collapse of my wedding business I was scared, as probably many of you too. How would things turn out? Will I ever get back to being a wedding planner? Will my small, recently opened business survive such a hard time?

Thanks to my students we made it very well through the wildest Covid times. By the end of 2020 we slowly started doing one or two small weddings, people were eager to travel. Travel bans and hard restrictions in Thailand, Hawaii and other famous destinations made our business stronger, as DR did not have too many travel restrictions.

So our life somehow got back to a daily routine. My mom was getting better every day after her cancer treatment and was finally able to come back to DR after a very long stay in Switzerland. As soon as my mom was back, we decided to move in with her into her house in Puerto Plata. It is located near the international school, where the kids were about to be enrolled. My friend Michaela from Switzerland decided to come to the Dominican Republic and do a year abroad. So she moved in with us too, which made us kind of a flat-sharing community of Swiss women (and Kayden). Absolutely awesome for my kids, because from now on they heard and spoke Swiss German on a daily basis. This helped a lot with the development of the language. 

My daughter Bayley then finally started her classes at the international school grade 1. Classes are mostly held in English – I was probably more scared than her. haha She didn’t speak any English till that summer, but she did a great job. She loves school and man, children learn languages soooo easily. 

By the way, now in 2023, my friend Michaela is still in the Dominican Republic. It’s just too beautiful here, to go back 😀

In 2021 business grew and grew, beach weddings and elopements became more and more popular and I could hardly make it with my classes. Kids, language school, weddings – it was too much. So I had to make some decisions by the start of 2022.

With a heavy heart I closed my language school but was super excited to restart 100% with weddings. And hey, let’s be honest, what could be better than being surrounded with people in love and getting proved that true love still exists. I love my job and I love love <3 

2022 was a spectacular ride, with many great experiences and meeting many awesome folks. Business grew so much that I decided to employ two 2 hardworking girls. Those two give me support at the office or directly on site. This gives me more space (and time for blogging haha). 😊

In 2022 I also traveled a lot, in spring I had the chance to travel to New York – my first time in the big apple! And my first time in the US!  Wow, that was impressive!

I also went to Colombia – what a great country, it was quite different from what I had imagined. But I will definitely go back!

A short trip to the mountains of Constanza (Youtube video), has shown me once again how coooold and cozy it can be in the Caribbean.  My little insider tip for you: Villa Pajon (LINK) Pure nature! And awesome place if you would like to see and experience another side of DR.

I also organized a workshop with my new employees. We stayed at a roof-top-loft AirBnB in Santo Domingo. It was amazing, interesting, hard work and so much fun. (We didn’t count the empty wine bottles at the end of our stay haha)

My son Kayden also started classes at the international school last summer. He started as great as his older sister. They had their first Christmas performance, my kids would probably call me embarrassing but how cute they performed, couldn’t stop to cry some tears – proud mum haha

This was my little update for you. Maybe a bit late, but still, I would like to all of you a fantastic 2023. A year full of beautiful experiences, travels and of course: don’t forget to get married 😊

Talk to you soon, 

Anni