images courtesy of CLICK photo company Inc.

First ~ a little of the behind the scenes story from Eliza …

The Proposal: Because Jeff works so much, we didn’t get to celebrate Valentine’s Day on the actual day and had to wait until Saturday night. He surprised me with a packed a suitcase and a beautiful hotel room in New York City so we could just relax and spend time together. As we opened the door to our room, I found a path of rose petals leading up to the bed which had a message written in the petals: “Will you marry me?” I was in shock and incredibly happy, but sad that our families would not be there to celebrate with us that night, something he knew was important to me. I called my parents in Boston to tell them the good news, knowing they were at an important benefit for my dad’s hospital in Boston that they had been telling me about for months. They congratulated us and told me they would celebrate with me soon. Jeff and I went to Bar Americain to celebrate, and as we walked in, I saw both of our families sitting at a table! I was SO happy! Even now ~ today ~ I can’t stop smiling just thinking about it.

The Venue: My family and I have been going to the island of Anguilla for the past 14 years. I brought Jeff along with me twice and the third time we went it was our engagement celebration! We had about 10 weddings to attend that year and most were at New York City hotels, so we knew we wanted to do something different! My one concern was the logistics ~ planning a wedding from New York that would be taking place in Anguilla … being that I am very hands-on, I interviewed a few wedding planners and was extremely happy when I found JoAnn from Elegant Occasions. I was immediately drawn to her as she has planned many weddings on the island and I knew right from the beginning that I could trust her.

And from JoAnn …

This amazing wedding was held at the serene resort of Cap Juluca. Our vision and inspiration came from the natural elements surrounding us and the blue waters of the Caribbean Sea. Our color palette included pale blues and whites and set the tone for the entire celebration. We set long banquet tables in the venue of Blue (aptly named). Frosted cubes were taped over to create a patchwork effect. Blue and white hydrangeas plus custom blue linen runners brought from NYC highlighted the centerpieces while white chivari chairs completed the look. Escort cards were attached to starfish and placed in a wooden box filled with sand from the beaches of Anguilla. The ceremony was held on the wedding bluff overlooking the island of St. Maarten.

from Eliza ~ My bouquet was wrapped in a lace handkerchief that was my great grandmother’s. On the day that I was born she wrote a note to my mother that said “please make sure Eliza uses this on her wedding day.” I also pinned my grandfather’s mezuzah that he always wore as a necklace to the inside of my dress.  My mother made my garter belt out of what was left of my grandmothers wedding dress. Although only one of my grandparents was able to make it to the wedding, I felt like I had a part of the others with me the whole day.

Our favors were from Navy & Lavender ~ fans with custom tags for our guests to use (and they did!) during the ceremony! Our beach welcome totes printed with a sandy colored starfish from Navy & Lavender also doubled as wedding keepsakes. It was so incredible to see everyone on the beach wearing them – all our guests knew each other from seeing that starfish! I still use my tote, and it is a great reminder of our magical weekend.

The dress code was island chic, and my bridesmaids all wore dresses of their choice in various shades of blue. Vera Wang makes so many different style dresses in pretty shades colors of blue that most of my bridesmaids happened to pick Vera dresses!

When asked if there were any wedding vendors that she & Jeffrey would like to recognize, Eliza replied…

Navy and Lavender did an incredible job creating our welcome totes and working with our wedding planner to get them down to Anguilla. They created a custom map and itinerary for guests to go in the tote along with sun block, water, and lots of island-themed goodies. Ceci New York made our beautiful invitations that incorporated the sandy starfish from our welcome totes and the blues of the ocean. It was important to me to convey to my guests the feel of the wedding from the very start and she helped me do that!

Also, I could not have pulled this weekend off without the endless help of my wedding planner JoAnn from Elegant Occasions. We were in constant communication everyday for a year and now that it is all over I miss it! JoAnn and her team were so helpful right from the beginning. I would tell her my image of the wedding and she was extremely helpful in giving me suggestions, yet not being controlling. I was so confident in her that once I got down to Anguilla for my wedding, I was able to relax and knew that she would pull the whole together. I was able to literally “show up” to each event and it was set up exactly how I had pictured it.

Click Photography (Che Thomas and Jessy Pagliaroli) certainly gave me photos and video that will last a lifetime. Since they flew down just for us, we have pictures from the whole weekend! Our videographer from Images Weddings shot part of our night with a special 8mm camera that invokes the nostalgic days of my parents’ wedding. He captured the mood of the wedding perfectly.

Our thank and a hug congratulations to Eliza & Jeffrey, JoAnn at Elegant Occasions and CLICK photo company, Inc. for the awesome images from this destination wedding weekend! There are lots of additional photos of the welcome totes and invitations over on Navy & Lavener’s blog.

© Style Me Pretty : The Ultimate Wedding Blog, 2010. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Anguilla, Beach, Caribbean, Ceci New York, Che Thomas, Click Photo Company Inc, Elegant Occasions, Jewish, N&L Notes, Navy and Lavender, Starfish
Post categories: Casual Elegance, Destination, Little Black Book Blog, Wedding Planners & Designers

images courtesy of CLICK photo company Inc.

Have a great ~ rest of the week … wish me good luck in the sun!

For a sneak peek, here’s their SMP photo gallery. Details to follow.

© Style Me Pretty : The Ultimate Wedding Blog, 2010. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Anguilla, Caribbean, Ceci New York, Click Photography, Elegant Occasions, Navy & Lavender
Post categories: Casual Elegance, Little Black Book Blog

And ever since I laid eyes on that wedding, I’ve had this thing for fancy, formal affairs on the beach. A tuxedo. A beautiful gown. A city style affair next to such an organically beautiful backdrop. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Thank you so much to Grazier Photography for spending the day with us and for sharing such stunning photographs. The last one, in the series above, is the reason that I love my job. And, to the beautiful couple…your wedding was absolutely lovely.

More coming up!

© Style Me Pretty : The Ultimate Wedding Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Anguilla, Caribbean, Grazier
Post categories: Casual Elegance, Traditional Elegance

Perfect right? And the best part…the couple was thoughtful, gracious and totally in love. So it was beautiful inside and out! Here are a few more words from Enna…

Ashley travelled from St. Martin to Anguilla via ferry a week before the wedding with 30 pieces of luggage… (what I wouldn’t give to have been able to photograph that!) she and her family put together the most thoughtful personalized gift bags and delivered them to each place of lodging before any of the guests arrived.  For the day after brunch, Ashley arranged to reserve the cafe for her guests… AND she arranged for the rental car companies to allow car dropoff there and then shuttle the guests to the airport and ferry.  Seriously, every detail was thought of!

The wedding planner behind the event was the fabulous Alexis at Weddings by Alexis.  More to come in just a bit!

© Style Me Pretty : The Ultimate Wedding Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Anguilla, Caribbean, Elysium, Grazier
Post categories: Casual Elegance, Traditional Elegance

The wedding actually took place on Sunday after a weekend filled with fun activities. Which is kind of cool…the guests really built a vacation out of the visit and the gorgeous bride and groom did everything to make it perfect. They had a pool party to welcome guests on Thursday night, croquet for kids and tennis for adults on Friday, a BBQ on Friday night, a sail for the boys on Saturday while the girls hung out on the beach. Seriously a wedding weekend!

INSANELY beautiful. It’s the only thing that I can say about all of this. Ridiculously, insanely beautiful. And we have so much more to come!

© Style Me Pretty : The Ultimate Wedding Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 15 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Anguilla, Caribbean, Grazier
Post categories: Casual Elegance, Traditional Elegance

So, on to wedding things. Remember the AMAZING video that Elysium shared with us on Friday? For those of you that haven’t watched it you, it really is a must. Anyway, the photographers behind the Anguilla wedding were none other than Grazier Photography…two of my very favorites! And, they are sharing the entire, absolutely gorgeous wedding with us today!

From Enna Grazier…Oh. My. Gosh.  This was one of our favorite weddings ever to photograph.  Obviously the scenery and setting were a treat, but what made the whole week a dream to photograph was how sweet and romantic and sincere Ashley and Jamie were to each of their guests as well as to us and the other vendors.  They thought of every last detail in order to make the whole trip pleasant and easy for every guest, right down to arranging for EVERYONE to be met at the airport and ferry docks, and then seeing them off as well.

Sigh. Don’t you wish you were there? We have the whole beautiful affair coming up in just a bit!

© Style Me Pretty : The Ultimate Wedding Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Anguilla, Caribbean, Elysium, Grazier
Post categories: Casual Elegance, Traditional Elegance