Thursday, October 29, 2009

Daughters


Being a mom of two girls myself, I have to say my favorite element of Nicky & Danny's wedding yesterday were the two beautiful young ladies that each of them were bringing into the marriage...not sure if it was the actual girls or the AMAZING dresses they were wearing!!

Danny & Nicky cruised into St. Thomas on the Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas and were married on Magen's Bay Beach before heading to Grande Cru in Yacht Haven Grande for a lunch with their newly formed family. Oh, and I forgot to mention they travelled all this was from England, just 20 minutes outside of London. That adorable English accent is definitely the 2nd most favorite element of the day!

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Sam & Cynthia

My favorite part of this very simple, very lovely ceremony?



Cynthia's smile.

Pure joy.

Pure love.

Pure Bliss.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Orange you glad to see me?

We have a beautiful wedding last week at Lime Tree Beach (aka Bluebeard's Beach). As I was setting up, I was reflecting over the fact that orange has really become a very popular wedding color. When I was married about 5 years ago, the hot colors were pink and green. Now, I'm seeing a big trend for orange and pink. I can't help but think if you throw the color brown or yellow in there, it would be a total throw back to the 60s. I think my mother's wedding colors were yellow, orange and brown. That and the couch I grew up with - a nice yellow, orange and brown plaid tweed beast of a couch. But I digress...orange & pink for wedding colors = hugely popular and hugely pretty!

As you remember from Amber's post a couple of weeks ago, the iguanas are plentiful at Lime Tree Beach and as I was setting up for the wedding, I noticed no less than 8 of them surrounding me. They do not bother me, as you can not have a fear of these creatures if you live in St. Thomas - they are as inevitable as waves on the sand. But they were taking a very keen interest in my set up. It wasn't until I threw down a bundle of the orange chair ties and saw four of them rush over to investigate that I figured out why they were so eager to watch me today. Orange, red and pink are their FAVORITE colors, as they are the same colors as hibiscus flowers...their favorite foods. This little bugger was keeping guard over the chair ties and I had to shoo him away to complete the task of tying them on our chairs!



This one was getting a little inappropriate with my conch shells.



I was finally able to finish and the set up looked superb (if I don't say so myself).



But unlike Amber's wedding day, there was no act of sabotage by the iguanas during the ceremony! Our bride and groom were very happy and iguana-trauma free.



Favorite Element: Orange

Friday, October 23, 2009

Sand Dollar Estates

Last week I had the pleasure of being back at Sand Dollar Estates. This villa can sleep up to 22 guests, making it the perfect ceremony & reception location for small groups that want to stay together. Our wedding last week had 15 people in attendance and everyone was staying at Sand Dollar - great way to cut down on transportation costs as well! It's also a great spot for larger weddings. Hosting a reception at a villa is such a great way to keep the event intimate and personal.

There is a small beach at Sand Dollar, but with the tides, you never really know if it will be large enough to host a ceremony. We decided to do the ceremony on the pool deck.



We then had Passion Fruit Chefs do the catering for dinner (red wine and steak! it's was a man's man feast!) and set up dinner on the upstairs deck, with amazing views of Magen's Bay.



I really loved the way the cetnerpieces came out.




But are you ready for my favorite element?



Confused? Check our Elisha Orin's blog: www.thatstalk.elishaorin.com to see the professional photos of this day. Elisha is new to the Virgin Island photography market, but has such an awesome skill and is so easy to work with. We have another wedding with her next week - is it cheating if she is my favorite element for that wedding too?? =)

Here's a few shots of her in action:


Thursday, October 22, 2009

Homemade


Everyone should know by now about my love of Etsy.com where everything is hand-crafted. So it's only appropriate that my favorite element of Jennifer & Aaron's wedding would be her wedding dress. Jennifer's dress was handmade by one of her best friends. Jennifer sketched out some ideas and her friend put it all together for her. I'm always in such awe over this kind of skill, and definitely jealous - I'd love to be able to make clothes (or anything for that matter!).

Jennifer & Aaron were married on gorgeous Lindquist Beach at sunset with just her parents in attendance. After a few more days on island, they headed home to Michigan to host a huge reception for friends & family there. Aaron told me he was doing the catering himself (he is a trained chef) and I reeeeaaalllllly wish I could have been one of the guests - the whole menu was Korean and Asian themed, some of my faaavoorites....and hard to come by on the island of St. Thomas. Congratulations Jennifer & Aaron on a beautiful St. Thomas wedding and congratulations to Jennifer on marrying an awesome chef!

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

There's one at every wedding...

So there are a few weddings that are in queue to be blogged about, but I had to rush this one to the front of the line. Nate & Angie were married this morning on lovely Lindquist Beach. Their cruiseship, the Norwegian Pearl arrived in St. Thomas today with about 20 of their closest friends and family aboard to watch them say I Do on our lovely sandy shores.

Like my office??



Angie has chosen the Simply Blissful Package from our website and then we modified it to accommodate the extra guests...added some chairs, an arch and a few extra bottles of champagne. As I was setting up and waiting for everyone to arrive, I tried to find my favorite element...was it her bouquet?



The very funky boutonniere?



Nothing was really grabbing me as my "favorite" - there wasn't anything out of the ordinary from our typical Simply Blissful packages. Angie & Nate arrived first, having been chauffeured to the beach in our Lincoln Navigator after stopping at the courthouse to pick up their marriage license. Guests followed a few minutes later and I hear Angie say to her groom, "oh my...check out Uncle Phil...." and as I look over to see the guests disembark from the safari bus, my eyes go straight to Uncle Phil and BAM! There is my favorite element of the day!!



Phil had his old tux modified for a beach wedding! I don't think you can see it in the photos, but his cummerbund had an underwater theme! We all had a big laugh at Uncle Phil's choice of attire and Stuart, the officiant, assured the happy couple that we always have at least one goof ball at every wedding!

I put my camera away after capturing Uncle Phil for the blog but just before everyone left for lunch at Wikked in Yacht Haven Grande (great spot - close to the cruiseship!), I heard the groom ask everyone if they had their t-shirts. My camera had to come out once again to capture this:





The bride had very fun t-shirt favors made for all the guests - I love the touristy cliche phrase on the backs. Uncle Phil is still my favorite though!

Monday, October 19, 2009

Special touches...

David & Tracy were married just over a week ago now (boy I'm behind) and had an absolutely lovely ceremony on Lime Tree Beach and a reception at the beautiful Villa Botanica. Unfortunately, I didn't get to grab as many photos of their day as I had wished.

I had some time to grab some photos of the flowers before everyone arrived...



The bride's all white bouquet...



I love this new trend with the boutonnieres...going all green instead of floral...



Once everyone arrived, there just wasn't time to pick up the camera again. But my favorite elements of the day really had to do with the reception and I'm bummed that I didn't get a picture of the complete set up. I was at Villa Botanica earlier and can you believe I didn't have my camera with me? But I was able to capture these elements with my iPhone - judge for yourself the quality of iPhone pictures!

The first is of the centerpieces that Tracey had brought down with her. She purchased these at IKEA and had them spray painted a bronze color. We then took rose heads and surrounded the inside flowers. They came out just beautifully.



But...drum roll...here is my favorite part of their wedding - the place cards that doubled as favors that doubled again as an entree chart for the caterer. These sand dollars were placed at each individuals table. Orange indicated fish, blue indicated beef...very easy for the waitstaff to know who got what! They were pre-strung as well, so guests can take them home and use them as Christmas ornaments - love them!!


Thursday, October 15, 2009

A most wonderful welcome!

Alyssa and Kurt were married last weekend, but my absolute favorite element of their wedding day actually took place the day before at their Welcome Party. Hosted at a beautiful beachside location, Iggies Beach Bar at Bolongo Bay Resort is the perfect spot to celebrate island style. There were so many elements of the welcome party that I loved, so the entire event is my favorite! Here are a few highlights...

A gorgeous sunset...


A meet & greet with a local Moko Jumbie! Moko Jumbies are good spirits dressed up to scare away bad spirits, as local legend goes (a jumbie is a bad spirit, "moko" means mock - a fake jumbie). Having a white moko jumbie at your welcome party keeps away any bad marital jumbies!



Here our bride gets down with the moko jumbie!



Once the sun went down and everyone's belly was full, we had the famous fire eater & broken bottle dancer "Princess Diana" perform for the guests...





Princess Di showed the groom and the groomsmen a few island moves...



But probably my favorite part of the night was a performance by Pyros of the Caribbean! I have some of this on video that I promise to post soon...




Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Simple, Simple, Simple!

When I am planning a large wedding, I usually have the bride or the bride's mother ask me, "how many of these do you do a month?" and when I tell them, they are often shocked that I can plan so many weddings and keep them all straight. What they don't realize is that not all of my weddings have 50+ guests, a reception, a thousand vendors to organize, etc. In fact, a lot of my weddings are simple, like the one I just blogged about on Hawksnest Beach last week.

But, I get get even simpler than that! Last week, J & B (I'm just using their first initials to protect their privacy, in case this was an elopement!) were married on Sapphire Beach, one of my favorites on the island.




They had no cake, no flowers, no music...not even me! They just needed help with their marriage license, a ride to the courthouse and an officiate to marry them. So I set them up with an officiate, arranged to have him pick them up from their hotel, head to the courthouse and then back to the beach for a very simple and very personalized ceremony. Now, seeing how I promised to blog about each and every wedding this month and promised to blog about my favorite detail of each, I was a bit hard pressed to figure out my favorite element this time, considering that I wasn't even there! I don't even know what type of dress J wore! But the officiant was able to help me out with the decision...after the ceremony, the bride and groom invited him back to their deck to have a few celebratory Coronas. Nothing better than a few ice cold Coronas after a ceremony on the beach!

And as it starts to get colder in the mainland (seems like it's going to be a cold winter up there!), I'm sure quite a few of you are imagining kicking back, feet in the sand and an ice cold beverage in hand. If you need help with this visual, check out www.thecoronabeach.com. I'm thinking you will want to bookmark this page for the ever so close future months!

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Amber is the winner!!

With a whopping 24 to 1 win! Congratulations Amber and great job!! I think I have your address kickin' around but you may need to email that over again. I may have to put a little extra something special in there for winning EXTRA BIG!

Island Bliss Weddings has such a busy wedding weekend and sooooo much to blog about next week. Can't wait to look at the pictures I took last night and figure out my favorite element - but no time today! Off to yet another fabulous event! Enjoy your weekends and congratulations again to Amber - your story always makes me laugh!

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Simply Photography

Not simple photography...don't get me wrong there. But my first wedding of October was on the 5th for Stacey & George and there are two words that describe their wedding: Simple & Photography. As part of my promise to blog something about every wedding I have this month, it didn't take long to review this wedding and figure out my favorite aspect...the photography. First, Stacey and George had a very simple wedding set up on Hawksnest Beach, St. John. It was them, his parents, her parents and their love...that sounded cheesy, right? Sorry. =) We had some conch shells and palm leaves to add some color to the beautiful white sand and with nothing but the beautiful sound of waves lapping at their feet, they said I Do. It was really just lovely.

But here's the best part. Yes, it was simple, yes it only took about 20 minutes...but Stacey LOVES good photography and knew that the images of her wedding day will last forever and she wanted them to be GOOD and varied. Not just beach pictures, not just the traditional parents with their newly inherited son or daughter-in-law...but fun stuff. She hired Paradise Pictures for THREE HOURS! This is not very common for such small and simple ceremonies but I LOVE IT and think it's a great idea!

They got great shots of the ceremony...



But then headed to Annaberg Ruins for some really fun stuff,



stuff that shows their personalities...



and then headed back to the beach to cool off!




If it can work in your budget, I highly suggest having the photographer for multiple hours and working in multiple locations. Your wedding album will be AMAZING.

Now don't forgot to go read the guests blog posts and leave a comment - contest ends tomorrow at midnight!

Friday, October 2, 2009

Blog Post #2: Unexpected Guests!

This was submitted from a past client of mine, beautiful Amber, who was married at Lime Tree Beach. Her photographer, www.bludoorstudios.com, captured some amazing pictures!

Unexpected Guests!

One of the advantages of hosting a destination wedding is that the chances of having “wedding crashers” is unlikely right?

In the instance that you are thinking of these wedding crashers you are probably right.



As it turns out, on our wedding day in St. Thomas we had none of the above referenced “Wedding Crashers” however we still ended up with a few “unexpected guests”.

Close your eyes for a moment and imagine those moments as you are standing with your significant other saying your vows.

Tears of joy are being shed all around as your closest friends and family are watching the two of you become one. What a wonderful day!

What’s that you hear? Someone sobbing. Oh, no worries it is probably just Aunt Joyce overwhelmed with the emotions of the day. Yet it continues…..

You think to yourself “Wow, we aren’t as emotional as she is, something must be wrong with us”

Then out of the corner of your eye, you see something dart across the ground towards your bridesmaids while in the same moment your entire wedding party and all the guests scatter.

There are screams, tears, and laughter while everyone tries to regroup and figure out exactly what THAT is scampering across the ground?!?!?

Meanwhile, the locals are laughing hysterically at the scene that has just unfolded. To them the “unexpected guests” are merely a part of life on the island.



To you, they are the scariest looking iguanas you have ever seen who also appear to be on a mission. Of course they are, the locals say as they tell you it is iguana mating season in St. Thomas. Not only that, they are extremely attracted to toenail polish.

:Cue the horrified bride and bridesmaids here:




Yes, ladies and gentlemen this was the story of our wedding day. It is one we shall never forget. To this day (almost three years later) the story brings a smile to the face of everyone who was in attendance that day.

Surely, your wedding day in St. Thomas will be memorable in every way even if it does include a few “unexpected guests” along the way!

Blog Entry #1: Scottish Themed Flowers in St. Thomas!

Scottish Themed Flowers in St Thomas! - This bride wish to remain annonomyous due to the fact that they are ELOPING (eeee!! fun!) in St. Thomas!

Well, since deciding on taking a 'touch of Scotland' with us to the Caribbean next year I have been very busy searching for silk flowers. There seems to be hundreds of online sites doing silk or even real touch flowers but not so many choices with scottish themes or thistles! Having contacted a few and after reading some other comments on UK wedding sites the decision is made! Ribbon to compliment the groom's kilt is ordered and will be on my flowers and our guests corsages. Here is a pic of the style of flowers I would like but I have asked for more thistles, some bling and it will have tartan ribbon!



Groom and male guest will have thistle button holes with the tartan ribbon also. Hopefully this type of thistle!



The florist/company I have chosen in the end is Laura at BloomingGorgeous (http://bloominggorgeous.net).

So the flowers are decided, next issue is the storage of them until they are required next year! Oh! and then the biggest challenge - getting them from our home to St Thomas in one piece!!