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!

Sam & Cynthia

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



Cynthia's smile.

Pure joy.

Pure love.

Pure Bliss.

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

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:

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!

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!

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!!