Bidding adieu to another week on SMP Florida is always bittersweet. Obviously the weekend is divine, but we absolutely LOVE the weekdays spent gushing over pretty Florida fêtes. So we decided to leave you with a wedding that, along with the full gallery, will keep you plenty busy until we meet again on Monday. Because this blue-hued beauty captured by Life and Love Studio has enough lovely to last all weekend long!
Click here for the FULL wedding!
From the Bride… The most important things to Rob and me was making our wedding a lot of fun for all of our guests and spending as much time with them as possible since we don’t get to see them often. Rob is from Charlotte and I’m from Miami, but we’ve lived all over, so no matter what city we chose for our wedding, it would have been a destination for the majority of the people. We knew we wanted to get married by the water, be in a walking friendly area, and, being from Florida, I’ve always loved St. Augustine. We also figured that most of our guests had never been there, so it would be a fun destination for everyone — and the weather was perfect, which never hurts! I don’t know how we overlooked it, but we got married during bike weekend in St. Augustine. Friday and all day Saturday we kept hearing the roar of bikes and joked we should take a picture with some bikers. In the middle of the ceremony a bike revved and my bridesmaids and I burst into giggles. No sooner had we left the church than one of my bridesmaids went in search of a bike to borrow so I could pose. The bike pictures turned out to be some of the best!
We chose our venue and then got a lot of vendor recommendations from the event coordinator at the venue. We did not have a wedding planner or our own coordinator, but things still worked out perfectly. I was fairly particular in wanting a laid back, simple, fun wedding. I knew I wanted the colors to be navy, fuschia and deep purple, and I knew I wanted the guys in tan suits to fit with the more relaxed feeling. We also knew we wanted to get married in a church, and we actually got married in the oldest Episcopalian church in the US. We were lucky that the church is so beautiful on its own that we didn’t need to decorate very much. Our priest from Baton Rouge, where we live now, actually came to help officiate the wedding, which was very meaningful to us since he actually knows us. My mom is Brazilian, so we had programs printed in English and Portuguese for our guests, which helped with some of the language barriers. We wanted to spend as much time with our guests as possible while getting as many pictures as possible. As a result, we provided transportation by trolley for guests from the church to the reception venue, and between the wedding and cocktail hour the guests took a trolley tour of the city. This gave us time to take pictures, kept the guests entertained and allowed us to still enjoy the cocktail hour with our friends and family.
We chose carrot cake, our favorite, for our wedding cake and then surrounded the cake with wedding cake, red velvet-flavored cake balls and brigadeiros — a popular Brazilian dessert. The layout of the bite-sized desserts around the cake is also a traditional Brazilian layout for dessert tables. I wanted to leave my dress on all night because I absolutely loved it, but I also wanted to dance and have fun! The train was about 5-6 feet long and it was heavy satin, so I did end up changing into my party dress and Havaianas flip flops. When it was time to leave, we all left on the trolleys together and continued the party. This was truly the best day of our lives, and I love looking back at the pictures and seeing how happy everyone looked and reliving the day and night.
Wedding Photography: Life and Love Studio / Ceremony: Trinity Episcopal Parish Church in St. Augustine, Floria / Reception: River House in St. Augustine, Florida / Floral Design: 57 Treasury Floral & Interior Design / Catering: Mai Oui Gourmet / Wedding Cake: Publix / Music: McGee Entertainment / Transportation: Old Town Trolley Tours / Wedding Dress: Pronovias / Reception Dress: Calvin Klein / Hair: Small Indulgences / Makeup: A Touch Above San Marco (904-819-0924) / Bridesmaids’ Dresses: Alfred Sung / Groomsmen Ties: Vineyard Vines