Category: photography

Wedding Day: Family Time!

Post author By tiffany
Post date January 9, 2009
15 Comments on Wedding Day: Family Time!

Before we started the ceremony we took pictures around the resort which I will show in a later post. Let’s first start with family pictures!

We were so happy to have all of our family members there. When planning we had initially began with a huge guest list and eventually cut it down and cut it down until we finally just settled on immediate family. At first I was unsure of this as we would have loved to have friends and other family members there but planning a destination wedding at a small resort is no small feat and to have a hurricane thrown in was much more stressful, so in retrospect, having only 11 of us was ideal. I couldn’t not have imagined what it would have been like if we had to relocate 50+ guests when the hurricane hit!

My gorgeous family

with the addition of my future brother in law
(my sister and he got engaged 3 days after we got back from Jamaica!)

picture by Punam Bean

My beautiful mom and sister
Don’t you love the purples?

My mom is wearing Dolce & Gabbana and my sister is wearing Diane von Furstenberg.
My mom is also wearing the exact same Gucci shoes that I am wearing except hers were a purple print. We hadn’t even planned that as she didn’t see my shoes until after she bought hers!

My parents

J’s adorable family

My mom decided to hold my hand which made me laugh.
I felt like I was posing for prom pictures!

The whole group!

picture by Punam Bean

So, are you wondering why we have so many pictures with our own camera? J was still taking pictures all day and then he would pass his camera to his dad when he had to be in the shot. I liked having both sets of pictures from both our photographer and from our camera. It was like seeing our wedding in two different point of views. And if you can’t tell, we are a camera loving bunch, well my family and J’s dad. The rest of his family is a bit camera shy, especially his brother. You’re lucky you’re even seeing any pictures of him! 🙂

all pictures by style-ish unless otherwise noted.

Previously on the Wedding Day Series:
Part 1: The Venue
Part 2: The Drama
Part 3: The Morning of
Part 4: The “Day After” Shoot
Part 5: The Damage

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Wedding Day: The Damage

After we had exhausted all the fabulous spots to take pictures, we arrived at Tensing Pen, a little sweaty, a little tired but very very happy.

I think this was Sugar that greeted us upon arrival

photo by Punam Bean

The staff at Tensing Pen did such a wonderful job cleaning up the damage, you don’t see any of it in our wedding photos, but J walked around and snapped some pictures of the damage, for memories sake.

The beautiful pool had turned a mucky brown

And then was drained

The roof had been slightly damaged
on the cottage we had been staying in

But the real damage was what was inside

The waves had blown out windows, so there were shards of glass everywhere.

And the beautiful but destroyed hammock hut.

The SeaSong hut where the reception was to take place
was still a little bit watered down.

But compared to what it looked like before,
this was amazing.

After seeing the damage, we realized even more how lucky we were to still have our wedding there, and on such a beautiful day.

Pictures by Style-ish unless otherwise noted.

Previously on the Wedding Day Series:
Part 1: The Venue
Part 2: The Drama
Part 3: The Morning of
Part 4: The “Day After” Shoot

photography Uncategorized wedding

Wedding Day: The Drama

The drama all began a day before the wedding was supposed to happen. They resort started evacuating certain rooms, one of them being ours as we were one of the closer ones to the waves. Their solution was to move us to the Long House which was a big house consisting of 3 rooms and a big living area space, along with my sister, her boyfriend and J’s parents. I, however, was not happy with the decision to move us and said no, we are not moving. I was too much in love with our Rock Cottage and I wanted to J and I to stay in there. The staff just laughed and said fine, you can stay. At dinner, we watched the loud and choppy waves but I kept on saying that it didn’t look that bad and we were fine.

the scenery that night
(Photo by Punam Bean)

When we went to bed that night I was sure that we’d be fine. As it were, all night J and I would wake up every few hours and check and sure enough, we were good. No water, no nothing. Until about 7:30AM when J woke up he put his foot down and said “Oh Sh*t.” I jumped up to find the entire floor covered in water. First thing I did was to run to the closet to make sure that the water hadn’t reached up to my wedding dress, which thankfully, it hadn’t. We had done a good job putting everything up off the floor the night before so nothing was damaged.

Rock Cottage 2 before the “excitement”

I looked at J and he said that we better get out of there and ask them what to do. We just weren’t sure if that was going to be the worst of it or not. We walked out to waves slamming against the rocks and our patio and I pretty much ran to the main walkway as I was afraid it was going to come sweep me up. As soon as we got to the main walkway I heard frantic calling of my name and Sonia, our wedding coordinator was frantically trying to get to us to evacuate us. She and a bunch of the staff ran back to the cottage with us and grabbed all of the stuff out of the room.

I then went into the dining room where we found both our families wondering where we were. The dining room was right by the waves so we spent the entire morning just watching the gigantic waves. That day was supposed to be the day that we got married and the wedding coordinator kept on telling me not to worry, it was still going to happen. The waves would calm down.

Punam and Andrew then came down to the dining room and I asked how they were and she said they were fine as they were in one of the pillar cottages which are all high above the ground. I was so relieved that at least some of my guests didn’t have to get evacuated.

That is, until slowly one by one, each of our guests were told that it was too dangerous but now they had no more open rooms and would have to move them to a different hotel. I was pretty much freaking out at this point and a million thoughts were running through my head. And then, Punam headed back to her room to get her laptop and when she came back, it was like a nightmare come true. If you read her blog post, you’ll know that she walked into a big ol water flood in her room and everything was soaked. The waves were so strong that it literally blew the door off! Punam and Andrew really kept it together even though all their belongings including all her camera equipment were soaked. I think back about how calm they were and I am so grateful because I don’t know how much more I could’ve handled. There were so many factors that I just had no control over and just did not know what to do.

This was the pillar that Punam and Andrew were in.
Can you believe how high that wave went to crash down their door?

Once it was determined that everyone else had to be evacuated (the 3 parties that were in the Long House were still okay) I decided that I didn’t want half of our families in one resort while the rest of us stayed at Tensing Pen. I also decided that the wedding could not possibly happen that day and had to put it in my mind that it would need to be pushed back a day. The next hour was trying to find a place that had enough rooms for a party of 13 that wasn’t near the water. Sonia found a place for us but being a picky group, we didn’t want to stay at just any old place, I mean there might be a hurricane but we still have standards right? So a few of us decided to go look at the resort before committing to it. Keep in mind that we weren’t the only resort being evacuated, all the other ones that were on the cliffs were being evacuated too so there were only a handful of resorts that we could go to.

It took us about 45 minutes to get there and I had been trying to keep it together most of the day but the car ride seemed to increase my anxiety and I was getting pretty emotional. After all, I was supposed to get married THAT day and it was approaching the time that the ceremony was supposed to have started. Before we left my family was saying “you might as well look at the new place to see if you can have your wedding there.” And with that in mind, I cried my eyes out the moment I stepped foot in there. I feel bad because it wasn’t such a horrible place but it really wasn’t what I wanted. It’s just that it was no Tensing Pen. There was no amazing view of the ocean, there were no cute little cottages, there was no cliffs.

The pool looked nothing like this.

the pool at Tensing Pen

What they had was a pool in the middle of the main building with a swim up bar and all you can eat buffet right next to it. (This was an all-inclusive resort) Not so bad if you are prepared for it and that’s what kind of place you are wanting to stay at, but it was all pretty much the exact opposite of what I wanted. All the staff in the lobby saw me crying and they all tried to make me feel better which made me feel even worse because I shouldn’t have been making them feel bad. Once I calmed down the manager brought me and J to a wedding that was going on that day which was being held by the pool and she told me that we could have our wedding there. I then looked and saw all the half naked people at the pool bar (a.k.a uninvited guests) watching the wedding that was going on and I just knew at once that there was no way I could have my wedding there. Once we were alone I told J that it was either a wedding at Tensing Pen or no wedding at all. He agreed with me.

We did decide however to move everyone over and just stay the night there just so we could all be together. Much more drama happened with that but I won’t go into details. Let’s just say, the process of getting the rooms wasn’t easy.

I didn’t sleep well that night but I wished with all that I had in my heart to give us the wedding day that we had been planning over a year for and had flown all the way down for.

all photos by style-ish unless otherwise noted

*my disclaimer is that there is nothing wrong with these kinds of weddings as I’m sure many people have gotten married there and had a wonderful time. It’s just that I had certain expectations for my wedding as I think most brides do and what was presented to me was completely different than anything I had ever imagined. Plus, I was a tad bit emotional that day 🙂

photography Uncategorized wedding

Wedding Day: The Venue

It’s time to start the wedding recap! I thought I’d start it out with pictures of Tensing Pen because the property is absolutely gorgeous and when I was doing my search of Tensing Pen, I did not find many pictures, so I hope this helps other brides who are getting married there. Tensing Pen is located in Negril, Jamaica. If you land in Montego Bay it takes about an hour and a half drive to get there so prepare for the long ride there but it is so very much worth it!

We chose Tensing Pen mainly because of the gorgeous property and that we could get married on the cliffs rather than on a beach. We also loved that everyone got their own “cottage” so you didn’t have to share walls with anybody. It was like everyone had their own place and since the resort is so small it kind of feels like your own little village!

The gates before you enter the property

They had the most beautiful Rhodesian Ridgeback dogs there that were so calm and friendly.
One was named Tensing and the other Sugar. Not sure which one this is but we all loved them!

We stayed in Rock Cottage 2 which I highly recommend. In my opinion it was the best of the entire property just because it was right on the water (but most of them were) and the room had AC and was just built really well. My sister stayed in Rock Cottage I which didn’t have AC so theirs was a bit different. Rock Cottage II is the way to go if you can!

Rock Cottage II

The path way in front of Rock Cottage II

Our guests stayed in cottages all over the property and everyone seemed to love their rooms (before they got evacuated from the hurricane, of course!)

J’s mom relaxing in front of their cottage

A view of the front of their cottage as well as the bridge.

My parents and brother stayed at the South House. It had two floors so that my brother could stay downstairs while my parents were in the upstairs bedroom.

(you see how far back the house is but the hurricane was so strong that
even they had water in their rooms!)

The pool

These pictures were taken the day we got there so you can see it is a bit overcast. We weren’t sure if the sun was going to come out but we also were not expecting a hurricane. None of these pictures were post processed so it just goes to show how beautiful the property is.

Next up: the drama before the big day…

all pictures by style-ish

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Lookbook: Downtown

I thought I’d go in a different direction with this lookbook and make it more interesting. J and I love taking pictures and and take our cameras everywhere with us so we end up taking a million pictures in the same outfits for that day. Instead of just one outfit picture you get to see a bunch with some of our other pictures sprinkled in! I’ve even included J in this lookbook! 🙂

What I’m wearing:
Cardi Wrap: Banana Republic
Tank: Nordstrom (I can’t remember the brand)
Skinny Jeans: Taverniti So
Shoes: Jimmy Choo (for the picture standing up), Tory Burch (for the others)

We had just finished eating Dim Sum and were next to the Library (that’s the crazy looking building on the bottom row of the last collage) so we walked around the area as there are so many great buildings all within a few blocks of each other. I always bring a pair of flats with me for times like this so that’s why I have two pairs of shoes. It was one of those crazy beautiful days in Seattle and we had such a lovely day.