Ashley & Jamie, an Anguilla Wedding

Ashley and Jamie's destination of choice for their beautiful wedding was Anguilla. The ceremony was held at a beautiful small stone church on the island and the reception was at Cap Juluca. Ashley and Jamie truly are two of the nicest and most considerate people we have ever met - the amount of effort and thought they put into making the journey easy for their guests was amazing. The weekend's events included a welcoming cocktail party, a beach barbecue at the Cuisinart Resort, sailing, croquet, tennis matches, yoga, beach fun, a rehearsal dinner at the cozy and wonderful Blanchards restaurant, and a "thank you for coming" departure brunch at Geraud's bakery (side note: Geraud makes absolutely to die for coconut croissants... out of this world)... and oh yeah, a totally gorgeous wedding reception at Cap Juluca.

Since we were there for a week we took a lot of photos... and I mean a ton! Trying to decide on what we would share on the blog was tough. Our original selection was about 100 photos:) Could you imagine how long that post would be! So after a long time sitting here posting and re-posting trying to keep the length of this reasonable, here are some of our favorites from the wedding....

Cap Juluca from the water

Jamie surprised his groomsmen by taking them out for an incredible sail around the island

Ashley's dance partner Matthew led a yoga class on the beach

Here is Ashley and Matthew showing off and goofing around with some dance moves on the beach

The Moroccan architecture at Cap Juluca was beautiful

Jamie and Ashley's father getting ready

We absolutely love this moment caught: Ashley's father helping her with her train and giving her a kiss just before they walked down the aisle

Ashley and Jamie exiting the church

The happily married couple

This is the setting for the reception dinner. Nothing short of breathtaking.

Jamie and Ashley had a very fun first dance

Loved the fireworks!

The following images are from our amazing Day After shoot with Ashley and Jamie (and Elysium Productions).

Enna snapped this cool "behind the scenes" shot

Congratulations Ashley and Jamie - and thank you for including us in your very special wedding!

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Here's our Anguilla Team:

We also can't neglect to mention how wonderful it was to work (again) with Alexis and her husband Brian of Unique Weddings by Alexis (working hard in this photo) and Alex and Julie of Elysium Productions. There was a lot of other talent working behind the scenes to make this wedding a gorgeous success, we're just so impressed at how perfect everything was. Here's the team from left to right:

Peter, Julie and Alex from Elysum Productions, ourselves ;) - Matt & Enna, Alexis and Brian

Love Story - Joya Beauty

Okay brides and blog-reading friends... it's time for me to share one of our treasured secrets... Joanne of Joya Beauty. Oops, did I really write that? If you're one of our own clients RUN to your telephone and book Joanne now, before all our other blog-readers snap up her remaining dates!

Joanne is probably the most talented makeup artist we have ever worked with. We LOVE it when our brides book her, because we know several things: 1) our clients will be utterly charmed and cared for by Joanne - and for busy brides this is priceless. 2) they will look fabulous... need I say more? Brides who look good feel good, and brides who feel good look better in their pictures! And finally, reason number 3) this is our little studio secret... when we work with Joya we do less photoshop retouching. All of these things free us to do what we love most - documenting the moment and portraying the inner and outer beauty of each client, their stories and relationships.

I have to admit, I am makeup challenged. Choosing, buying, and using makeup is intimidating for me. I have some tried and true techniques that work (light mascara, lip gloss, a smudge of eyeliner), but beyond that I am totally lost. I can never select the right color base for my skin, and even if the color turns out right it is usually the wrong consistency for my skin type and I end up never using it. So I need some serious hand-holding when it comes to choosing and wearing makeup.

Last week I visited Joya Beauty with Sallie (one of our FAVORITE clients ever... mother-of-the-bride extraordinaire), and we both got custom blended makeup and application lessons.

Joanne custom blends everything from scratch, testing on your cheek as she goes, and this is always wonderful because she is just so fun and peaceful to spend time with. I always feel rejuvenated and inspired after spending time with her, and I know this is her special gift.

Joanne's shop is super fun to visit. It's full of beautiful colors, powders, and components... it's sort of like a chemistry lab too, because she mixes everything by hand.

Thank you Joanne, for a lovely afternoon (and Sallie too). I'm LOVING my new makeup!

Style Me Pretty, Baby!

Does anyone out there have a favorite blog? We do... of course there are tons of blogs that we peek at once in a while just for fun, and we follow all our photographer buddies' blogs, but for wedding style our top pick is Style Me Pretty. Abby's blog is choc-full of beautiful DIY ideas, pretty inspiration boards, and lots of links to fabulous weddings vendors in her Little Black Book. She looks at photographers' work from all over the world on a daily basis, so I was SUPER flattered when this blog mistress extraordinaire called me for her new baby's photos. I spent the afternoon with her family at their home in Boston... we ventured out for a few photos in the pretty afternoon sunlight, but it was brrrr cold so mostly we just stayed inside and I took photos of baby Audrey snuggling with her happy parents.

Baby Audrey is pure gorgeousness isn't she? Audrey and her parents were a delight to photograph. Thank you for choosing me, Abby!

Who Needs a Veil?

We are still waiting for one of our brides to wear one of Marie Galvin's fabulous creations:

She's having a special preview on Friday of the Fort Point Channel Open Studios next weekend.

Get one in wedding white, or introduce some bold color to the wedding day with one of her brighter creations!