Experience The Difference
We offer you once-in-a-lifetime experiences, so you can create lifelong memories
At Modern Romance Travel, we provide our customers with our unique touch of outstanding personal service combined with travel expertise every step of the way. Our solid experience in planning and organizing destination weddings, honeymoons, and family vacations grant all of our customers the professional yet personalized assistance they have come to love us for.
We also have that added layer of specialized services to South Asian and LGBT clients. Our core principles in providing luxury all-inclusive life experiences set us apart from typical wedding and travel service companies.
Modern Romance Travel is proud to be a family-owned business that is widely recognized by the hospitality industry for our commitment to excellence. Our dedication to the family unit is why we consider all of our partners and customers as beloved extensions of our family as well.
Here is what we guarantee:
You will have a stress-free planning experience.
Competitive rates.
We will provide you with special access and VIP status to the world’s top resorts and destinations.
Our vacation specialists strive hard to exceed your expectations.
Modern Romance Travel plans highly customized vacations including: destination weddings, honeymoons, cruises, tours for singles, couples, friends and groups.
We look forward to hearing from you soon. Let us help you create your most special memories for life!
Melissa Varela
President/CEO
Melissa Varela, MBA is an internationally-certified Destination Wedding and Honeymoon Specialist. Over the years, she has worked to develop a strong relationship with numerous travel partners, resort management, and wedding coordinators.
Melissa believes in constantly investing in her education when it comes to the hospitality industry, which keeps Modern Romance Travel several steps ahead of the competition. She is a regular attendee of the most important conferences, expos, educational trainings, and new resort previews in the industry as a way of keeping herself updated on the latest travel trends.
From jumpstarting her career in the travel industry in 2010, Melissa is now the proud owner of Modern Romance Travel.
In 2017, Melissa was honored with the top Sales Growth award for the West Coast and Central US for Karisma hotels. She is also the recipient of the coveted diamond four award and top ten sales for Generations hotels. She was a recipient of the Gold Crown award for Palace resorts 2017. In 2016, she was recognized as a trendsetter in the travel industry’s WAVE awards and received the Upward Bound, Rock Star Agent Under 40 award. She has also been honored with the All-Inclusive hotel group’s Double Platinum Award in 2016 and Platinum Award in 2017.
With years of experience and vast qualifications under her belt, Melissa has served on several advisory boards including Romance Travel Forum and Global Travel Market Place. Her expertise in the field of destination weddings has been featured in several travel publications such as Recommend, Travel Weekly, and Travel Age West, to name a few. Melissa currently serves on the Travel Age West’s first advisory board where she shares her perspective on the industry and provides invaluable insights on travel advisor needs.
In addition, several of the weddings she has helped arrange have been featured in the All-Inclusive Weddings Blog.
Melissa herself is a destination wedding bride who was married in Bora Bora, French Polynesia. She resides in San Ramon, CA with her husband and two children.
Katherynne Santos
Romance Travel Specialist
Specialty: Destination Weddings and Luxury Travel
Katherynne Santos merged her passion to travel and her love of weddings to create KGS Events and Travel in 2013. Her company provides complete custom tailor event & travel designing services. She is a certified Destination Wedding & Honeymoon Specialist, Luxury Specialist as well as a Certified Destination Wedding & Event Planner. She offers clients her undivided attention to create their vision of the perfect event.
She specializes in luxury travel with a special focus on destination weddings, honeymoons and romantic getaways. She is an expert in Hawaii, Mexico, Caribbean and parts of Asia & Europe but can design your special event and dream vacation anywhere in the world.
She takes pride in continually educating herself through coursework and extensive travels so she can have ever-changing experiences and build relationships with suppliers and hoteliers… all to better serve her clients.
To further her education and staying with industry trends, she has a Certificate of Achievement and Skills in Travel Marketing and a Certificate of Hospitality and Tourism Management.
In 2017 & 2018, she was honored with the All-Inclusive Hotel Group’s Platinum Award and Gold Award in 2016. She is part of the Destination Wedding & Honeymoon Specialist Association (DWHSA) which is an elite group of travel advisors focused on selling romance travel. She currently serves on the world’s largest association of Travel Advisors Board, for ASTA SBN (American Society of Travel Advisors Small Business Network) at the San Francisco Bay Chapter. She shares their mission with other travel advisors, the travel industry and the traveling public.
“To Travel is to Live” – Katherynne cannot wait to make your travel dreams a reality.
Laura Pongol
Romance Travel Specialist
Specialty: Destination Weddings, Honeymoons, and Vacations
Laura Pongol is a true professional whose dedication and care for her clients is evident in the work she does. Whether she is planning a destination wedding or honeymoon, she makes sure that you are taken care of from the first phone call or email until you return home from your journey. She is a big believer in offering exceptional service and knowledge and understands all of our clients deserve that. With these once in a lifetime trips, she will be on your side If anything happens because she truly cares. Laura’s commitment to her clients is admirable.
Cristina Arreola
Romance Travel Specialist
Specialty: Destination Weddings, Honeymoons, and Vacations
Cristina has worked in sales for over 15 years and knows the importance of providing a positive experience to her clients from beginning to end. With an appetite for travel and a consummate planner of all things, it only made sense for her to combine her two passions and join forces with Modern Romance Travel.
Having visited many places like Mexico, Caribbean Islands, Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, London, France, Dominican Republic and Belize; exploring new destinations gives her life!
Cristina has the natural ability to foster strong connections with people. She understands that special occasions like weddings, honeymoons, family vacations and business travel require attention to detail and the ability to see and execute the client’s vision. With her compassionate nature and get-it-done attitude, she is not only skilled at fostering strong relationships but also gains the trust and respect of her customers to help guide them through their vision and fulfill their dream vacation in a seamless and dedicated fashion.
Cristina’s excellent attention to customer needs and fantastic organizational skills makes planning a breeze and keeps her clients coming back.
“Wherever you go, go with all your heart.” - Confucius
Aimee Aurelio
VACATION CONCIERGE
Specialty: Payments, documents, quotes, support
Aimee’s day to day tasks keep things and operations running smoothly behind the scenes at Modern Romance Travel, but her impact reaches far beyond that. Simply put, Aimee makes sure that everyone is organized and up to date with their own duties. She is superb at her job of ensuring that client needs are met and does not hesitate to go the extra mile to make their experience extra memorable. Some may refer to her as a vacation concierge or even an administrative assistant, but to us she is nothing short of invaluable.
Accreditations
