A gorgeous beach wedding to curb your winter blues

Gregory Palivos fell in love with Amanda Walsh the moment he met her in August 2011. “She was so beautiful — I didn’t want her to leave my side,” says Palivos, 30, a wealth advisor at Morgan Stanley. Walsh, however, needed convincing. “We were both really young, so I took my time with it,” says the 27-year-old owner of a private security company. After six months of requests for a date, she finally accepted. “It was his persistence,” Walsh laughs. “He wouldn’t give up.”

Five years later, Palivos proposed during a helicopter ride over Chicago. “Of course the one night I decided to do this it was extremely windy,” he remembers. “I almost broke her hand squeezing it so hard. I think she was so scared that she didn’t even say yes, she just stuck her hand out and I put the ring on.”

The River North couple’s fall wedding at Secrets Playa Mujeres Golf & Spa Resort was a family affair — Walsh’s 80-year-old grandmother walked the aisle solo as the “flower queen,” and designer Peter Dundas (who is in a relationship with Palivos’ cousin) designed the bride’s rehearsal dinner dress, which came straight from the runway.

Seeing Walsh walk down the aisle was pure magic for Palivos — just like when they met. “There was a glow around her and it was almost like this white tunnel between us,” he remembers. “She looked like an angel floating toward me.”