Villa Serendipity Wedding

Yesterday was such a beautiful wedding - I just downloaded the images and am going to blog them here - I think that's the fastest I have ever blogged a wedding!

First we had the ceremony at Lime Tree Beach with beautiful mason jars and a full rose petals aisle.

This bride chose an amazing bouquet - be warned - she paid a lot more for it - but it was GORGEOUS.

With of course, our signature seahorse!

The reception was then held at Villa Serendipity - all events on St. Thomas. Heavy appetizers were provided by Passion Fruit Chefs, music by DJ Snow and photography by Elisha Orin (all photos here were taken by me though).

I love their favors - these CD covers were adorable. 

Wedding cakes by Island Sweet Stuff:

We brought these twine wrapped vases for the bridal party to put their flowers in and reused the mason jars from the ceremony to add more flowers to the reception.

You cannot beat this view! 

These centerpieces turned out awesome - the twigs created an even large effect.

Congrats Katie & Brooks!

Succulent Bouquets

Did I forget to blog this?? I just had a bride email and ask about a succulent bouquet and I thought "oh, where is that blog post I did on succulent bouquets? I'll send her the link..." and well, I couldn't find it! Maybe I forgot to blog it?! So here goes...my florist will have to forgive me as it's 10:30 at night after a long day so I just did a quick search through my library of photos to find some succulent bouquets we have had. If I find better pictures (after a good nights sleep), I'll be sure to post more.

Soft blues...

Vibrant colors...

The photos above were all from our florist. The photos below were recently shared by brides:

You know what the most awesome thing about using succulents in your bouquet? Pinch them off, throw them in water and they will continue to grow! They are hardy little buggers! You can even smuggle them back home on the plane and then when you get home, you'll have a living piece of your bouquet to keep forever (hopefully...unless you're like me and have killed every single plant you've ever owned). 

Something new...

I'm always looking for new ideas on how to do anything better for a wedding - I love change and evolvment, I don't want to offer the same thing everyone else does, or even just offer the same thing over and over again. A few months ago, a bride came up with this idea and I just loved it. I'm very excited now to be able to offer these lush orchid aisles...

Is Purple the new Pink?

There always seems to be a trend with wedding colors. When I first started Island Bliss Weddings, the hot colors seemed to be pink and green. Green slowly faded out and orange replaced it - with pink & orange being BFFs. But lately, there has slowly been a rising number of brides requesting purples. All purple or purple & green (I wonder how purple & orange would look together and how pink would feel about that??). We had two weddings last week where the brides chose purples for their bouquet and I have to say, I was blown away by how beautiful they were. I discovered that I really love purple flowers...and that I could take pictures of bouquets all day. Unlike my children who never look at the camera when I tell them to, these bouquets were fun little models for me!




The middle bouquet was just breathtaking. The way the florist had arranged it, it looked different from each angle:





LOVED IT. Those dark purple flowers? Parrot tulips. I'm a Dutch girl, and anything tulip is part of my "favorite things" collection. I hesitated about highlighting those tulips on the blog though, as I'm worried I'll get a lot of requests for tulips. They really don't do so well here - I've actually seen them "bloom out" of a bouquet - weirdly, they poke their little heads up higher and higher than the rest of the bouquet. They are mainly grown in Holland and Michigan (Holland, Michigan probably!) so you can imagine that they like cooler temps. But I have to say, even though I put them in the high risk category for flowers, they totally rocked this bouquet.

Caribbean Tourism Organization

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to take part in a mini-trade show that the US Virgin Islands Department of Tourism was sponsoring for the Caribbean Tourism Organization. I actually took a part of it with the St. Thomas & St. John Wedding Association. It was really a fun way to meet travel agents in the Caribbean market. I, along with Eric Johnson of Paradise Pictures and Ashley Armitage of Ashley Photography, represented our group (which includes Passion Fruit Chefs, VI Desserts, Chris Robbert music, Sugar & Spice Artistry, East End Flower Shop, DJ Snow and HiDef Video - check out the website at www.viweddingassociation.org!).

Our little booth:



We didn't have any give-aways at our booth, but Biras Creek of Virgin Gorda had killer canvas tote bags they were giving away! I chatted up the rep from their resort in hopes she would hand me one, but no such luck. I love give-aways! Next year, I'll have to pretend I'm a travel agent instead. =)

The highlight of the show for me was the Caribbean Ritual Dancers. They put on an AMAZING show and even had a traditional moko jumbie perform and entertain the crowd. We've hired them before to entertain at weddings and they are always a huge hit.





Thank you to the Wyndham Sugar Bay for hosting the event and to the tourism department for sponsoring it!

Some more from my cheat photo yesterday...

I was just looking through the wedding photos from the wedding I posted about yesterday. It reminded me how popular the color orange has been lately. It really does POP against the blues & whites of the beach.

Something different for mom...

Brides often ask if they should get a corsage for the mothers - a pin on or wrist corsage. Both are nice ideas of course, to help honor the women that brought you into the world - without that effort, no wedding would be taking place afterall. =)

Another nice idea is to ahve a small spray of flowers for them to carry instead - nothing to pin on the their dress which may not be good for the fabric or could ruin her look and no scratchy flower attached to her wrist. Just something to carry for the ceremony and photos afterwards - it could even be put in a vase later at the reception, depending on the type of flowers used. Below you will see an example of what our florist did for a wedding a few weeks ago.



These flowers were part of the wedding I like to describe as my most "Xtreme Wedding" yet - I'll explain in my next post!

Waterfront Bistro, St. John

In the last month, we've had two events planned with Waterfront Bistro on St. John and I'm just so happy to be planning events there. The owners are so nice and they have such a great space. I tried to get some photos to share but my little camera is no match for the professionals - if the flash went off, the effect was way to harsh and did not represent the space. So I kept the flash off which gave the room a very warm, glowing effect. I haven't edited these photos, they are straight out of the camera, but they really reflect the type of warm glow that was felt at the reception. (Forgive my bag sitting on the ledge by the tree - should have moved that! Don't worry, it was moved before the guests showed up!)


Beautiful beachside seating...


And just so you can see our gorgeous couple at their Trunk Bay ceremony...


Do you love the bamboo chairs?? I think they look great with the bamboo arch.

And another straight out of the camera, no editing shot...can you get over the vibrancy of these flowers??? I've seen a big trend in bright orange and pinks lately. I love how lively they are.


We've really been swamped lately at Island Bliss Weddings, no complaints of course, but I'm hoping to give the blog some more love over the next week. I have so much to share!

Nailed it!

I love our florist - East End Flower Shop can really nail it. This is the photo that the bride sent me of the bouquet she would like for her wedding:



And this is what she got:



Beautiful!

Mmm...memories...

I did a wedding this past weekend at Oceana. This is the same venue where I was married four years ago this May. I have to say, this wedding totally put my wedding to shame. There were flowers everywhere...a trio of guitarist for the ceremony...steel pan for the cocktail hour...the best DJ on island for the reception (ok, I had steel pan & the best DJ too, but still...the trio of guitarist was pretty cool!). My favorite aspect of this wedding had to be the flowers though, I didn't have a 10th of the amount of flowers they had. Look at what an amazing job our florist did...