Thanks to all our clients...

This is has been a fairly hard week, dealing with the shooting in Newtown, grieving for those lives lost, preparing for the holidays here locally, planning weddings and keeping up with emails. I've received a few emails in the past few days that have lifted my spirits:

From Jennifer, married on 12/3:


I wanted to take a minute to thank you for everything you did to help our wedding come together. It was absolutely beautiful and we could not have been happier. I actually could not imagine having a wedding any other way now that we have eloped! And Stuart was absolutely wonderful. He made our ceremony so very personal and it meant the world to us both. 

Thank you again for everything. We look forward to the next time we can come and visit St. Thomas! Our memories are ones we will cherish forever, and we are forever grateful that you both helped our dream come true. 

From Sherri, married on 12/11:

On December 11, 2012 I married the love of my life on Brewer's Bay beach.  My husband and I are spontaneous folks who planned to tie the knot on St. Thomas in only a week or so.  I contacted Janelle and she was able to pull off the ceremony, which included a photography package, at the last minute.  It was by far the most beautiful wedding I have ever been to.  The officiant, Stuart, did a fantastic job.  We told him what we wanted as far as the "sermon" was concerned and it was perfect.  I was so happy with the way everything was handled.  It was a simple, low cost ceremony with just the two of us but you would have never known it by the way we were treated.  Island Bliss Weddings is by far a fantastic operation that I would recommend to anyone wanting to get married on St. Thomas.  They are professional and truly care about their customers.  Thank you Janelle and Stuart for making our special day very, very special!

Congrats to Jeff & Kiley!

Jeff and Kiley were married on Brewer's Bay in St. Thomas after exciting the Carnival Dream. They brought their own photographers from my home state of Indiana: Laudig Creations Photography. Thanks Kiley for sending me these photos!

Kiley had emailed us the morning of the wedding and asked if we could get some pirate swords for her. They had planned to buy them in the Bahamas but the ship had a policy of not letting them on! We got them a pirate parrot as well!

Goodbye 12/12/12! And two crazy weeks on top of that...

I realized today that my last blog post was on the 2nd. Oops! The last two weeks have been crazy busy around here - we have had weddings every day since November 30th! I actually have the next five days off and plan to get caught up on blogs, emails and getting my January in order so that I can enjoy the holiday season once my kiddos get out of school next Friday. It's such a magical time of year - definitely one of my favorites. I'm working from home this morning and as I look out over the ocean and the cloudy skies, it almost looks like winter! We've had a lot of rain showers this morning and if you squint, it almost looks like it's snowing. I'm thankful for some time off to get caught up and even MORE thankful that the rain held off until today and we were able to get through 12/12/12 with no showers!

I didn't really have anything planned to blog about today but I do have some ideas in mind for future posts. I want to start a "Helpful Hints" series that will go over various topics that I think will help brides through the sometimes stressful process of wedding planning. I'm hoping to get that started next week. For today though, I'll share some photos of some recent weddings:

Still one of my favorite set-ups: blue mason jars with flowers, bamboo chairs....

Not all of our weddings are at the beach. This wedding was at the Dutch Reformed Church which was all decked out for Christmas:

And on the deck of Sand Dollar Estates:

But lots of beach weddings of course! An afternoon ceremony at Maho Beach, St. John (the officiate is looking off at a ship in the distance that blew a conch shell when the bride & groom were pronounced husband and wife!)

Our lanterns in use at Secret Harbor Beach Resort (a nice shady spot for the guests!)

More to come over the next five days!

&

I just got this in the mail last week and was going to wait until it was used in an actual wedding but it has been sitting on my desk since it arrived begging to be blogged. I purchased this for our rental collection to either be used as a photo prop or for ceremony or reception decor. This little baby is 24" tall!

It's so cute. I think a photo of the bride & groom sitting on the beach with the sign in between them would be adorable.

December 1st?!

How in the world is it December 1st? Our October and November were absolutely crazy busy months and I kept thinking "how will I get through these insane months?" and now we're already at December?! December is no different - we have 6 weddings this weekend alone! Thankfully we start to slow down right around December 18th for a nice and quiet holiday with family.

As if the last few weeks haven't been crazy enough, the munchkin on Santa's lap nearly broke her arm this week. That would have been fun to deal with over the holidays, huh?!

(Thank you Tom Boyd of Carib Photography for the photo above and Yacht Haven Grande for having this fun Christmas event last weekend)

We have some exciting things planned for 2013 but I'll wait till January to reveal them - I'm sure all I have to do is blink and January will be here!

Some fun pictures I took over the last few weeks:

Happy December Everyone!

Get a picture of that ship!

Sage from Crown Images posted these photos of our wedding last week on her Facebook page. I love when a bride has a photographer either meet them at the ship or go back with them at the end of the day for a photo in front of the ship. The ship is after all a part of your wedding day! Naomi and James...congrats on a gorgeous wedding day!

Before the ceremony...

After the ceremony!

The Oasis of the Seas is such a beautiful ship! The ceremony on Lindquist Beach was just as striking, thanks in part to Naomi's great sense of style!

Thank you Crown Images for the photos!

Speaking of St. John weddings...

Blue Glass Photography sent me these images of our Trunk Bay Wedding last week. Just love them!

Large bamboo arch with matching bamboo runner:

These photos couldn't be any prettier. You can't beat Trunk Bay weddings at sunset.

Congrats to Jake & Melissa!