Enjoy your weekend!

I'll be off island from May 26th to June 1st for a wedding I'll be assisting with in the mainland. I will not have access to email during this time. Have a great Memorial Day weekend!!

PS Happy Anniversary to my hubby! Our 6th is on Saturday - he'll be here in St. Thomas covering weddings for me here. I'll miss you sweetie!

Cool little flower...

First - I want to let you all know we've had some computer issues in the past couple of days and I'm way behind on emails while still planning a few events this weekend. I'm hoping to be all caught up by Sunday evening...please hold tight!

Second, wanted to also check in and share this little photo. The bride decided not to get flowers for her wedding day, but bought some "flowers" from the guys on the beach. They actually make these little gems out of palm leaves

I am a nerd.

Every once in awhile, when I know a bride's colors, I will dress to match the wedding. Other times, its completely random. I was in the car on my way to the wedding when I saw a new necklace I had purchased sitting in the car mysteriously (something about having an almost 5 year and almost 3 year old gives me a small hint about how it ended up in the car). But when I saw the blue necklace and realized I was wearing a yellow dress, I had to put them on together...



Sigh...always the wedding planner, never the bridesmaid...

Carnations!....what?!?

I always get a giggle when brides tell me, "no carnations please". Carnations have such a bad rep as "cheap" flowers. I understand now wanting to have cheap flowers in your bouquet - I think the giggle comes from the fact that it is just so well known that carnations are NOT acceptable wedding flowers, that I tend to roll my eyes and think, "I know, I know...". You will not see any carnations in our bouquet albums.

Until now. But can you see the carnation??




See those fluffy little green things?! Those are a part of the carnation family! I immediately noticed them when I picked up the bouquet from the flower shop and asked what they were - completely surprised and tickled to see they were carnations!

See, they ain't so bad. =)

Floating orchids revealed...

I forgot to revisit this post about the floating orchids. We've done an arch like this before, but it had been a few years. I forgot how difficult this orchids are! We set up our normal bamboo arch (did you know this arch was stolen earlier this year?? Heartbreaking. The replacement arch took forever to get here but is finally on island!) and attached orchids to "float" down. The problem with this is the wind. Those little buggers whip around and get tangled like mad. We buried the end of the string in the sand to anchor them as best as we could. I joked with the bride that she may just be the last bride to get this type of arch!




Another thing I wanted to share about this wedding was the really cool idea the bride & groom came up with for the sand ceremony. We placed a seashell on each share:



And were invited during the ceremony to come up and place their shell in a special jar:



Close family used shells that they had found together on the beach:



After everyone had add their shells, the couple poured in the unity sand. The end result is a very memorable keepsake that unites all wedding guests together and is a great way to involve them in the ceremony.

One last thing to share - how great are these bamboo chairs?!



They just fit so well with the natural elements of the beach.