P A R A D I S E !!!
THIS is how you get married!
Arrive early to paradise, get married exactly how you dreamed, then fly off to ANOTHER Caribbean Island for a week long honeymoon, then after you get back home throw a party in your home town and break out your wedding dress and wear it again!!
Autumn & Alex got engaged here last year. They decided that they wanted to invite their families and closest friends to come back and have the wedding there, and that’s exactly what they did. They arrived early on Monday and welcomed everyone as they filtered in throughout the week. I come in with her parents and sister Charmaine on Friday. Charmaine and I go way back to our art school days in the same photography class at UCF 🙂 I cannot begin to tell you how excited and honored I was to be a part of their innermost circle to celebrate and capture it all! I am so thankful!
We were all blown away by the resort, Anse Castanet! It is about an hour from the airport up a crazy cliff side road on top of a mountain! There isn’t one flat surface, with amenities and bungalows of all shapes and sizes dotted from the ocean to the cliff tops. It was amazing! We had the clearest views out to the ocean and to the side of the Grand Piton towers. SO GORGEOUS!
As soon as we arrived it was time to go back down the hill to the town of Soufrière for the rehearsal at the town church. A rain forest thunder storm came through as we all felt humbled by the beautiful church. I wish you could hear the sound on the 50+ year old wooden roof! I loved all of the colors too! Their family pastor Father James flown in to legally marry them there even! It was so cool. Luckily the rain moved on as quickly as it came in and we were all set to have the loveliest rehearsal dinner on the beach back at the resort.
Before we knew it we were all waking up on the WEDDING DAY! The jungle sounds had ruled me to sleep and another rain storm softly woke me at sun rise. You guys! It was magical! Autumn was such a “maximum chill” bride too! She was so happy to see the rain on her wedding day! It signaled that the heat would be tempered, phew, and she knew it would never last too long at one time. Love her 🙂
Preparations stared down on the beach for the girls in the only bungalow with AC hehe. Mom, Grandma, sister, sister-in-law, and best friend all together getting dolled up over french fries and banana fries. Killing it. Charmaine and Autumn had practiced her bridal look from YouTube videos and nailed it! Meanwhile the guys took in the views from the top laughing about the sweat and grinning with excitement for Alex. So much cute.
Getting Autumn into her gown outside was amazing! How gorgeous is she?! I had the best time photographing her in basically the jungle…yes please. And when it was time for her dad to se her for the first time EVERYONE cried! We dried our tears and hoped in the van to get her to the church on time!
The ceremony was perfect. I had instigated a heartfelt bet that Alex would cry. My instincts are usually spot on and they didn’t let me down. We all watched as his eyes went from smiling to welling as his grinning bride came bounding down the aisle. They had a full mass with a local choir and could not stop beaming at each other.
