Jamaica: The BIG Day! (or... Day 3) PART 1

**for all pictures, click for a larger image to see the details :) **

We woke up bright and early on Saturday morning, anxious to get our special day started.  I thought I would feel odd seeing Joel on the day of the wedding, when tradition states that you shouldn't see the groom beforehand.  However, it was no big deal.  We enjoyed a nice breakfast together in the morning, as Joel professed his nerves to me.  It was sweet, though I wasn't nervous at all.

I was set for hair/makeup at 9 AM.  I scheduled a 60 minute Swedish massage for Joel at the same time.  The massage was the perfect antidote to relieve Joel's nerves - he said it was one of the best he's ever had!

Meanwhile, I was busy being transformed into this:

A special thank you to Wendy for doing an outstanding job on my hair and makeup, and to Marla for giving me a beautiful mani/pedi.  Wendy was like a magician - translating the hair picture I gave her for inspiration into exactly what I wanted.  At this point, I was truly feeling like a bride! 

Wendy & Marla

By the time I was done with the glam fairies, the time was approaching 10:30 AM and our wedding was scheduled for 11 AM!  I was getting a little nervous at this point - mainly because I didn't want to be late for my own wedding.  Joel had finished with his massage around the same time and only had about 10 minutes to get into his suit so that I could get back to the room to begin getting dressed.  In his anxious haste to exit the room, he ended up forgetting the wedding bands :). Oh, my nervous little groom.

My dress assistant, Shantelle, picked me up at the salon to escort me back to the room where she assisted with the process of tying me up:

Believe it or not, she had me all laced up and ready to go within 10 minutes!  I couldn't believe how fast she got me dressed and how awesome of a job she did with the corset.  It was flawless!

As the photographer and videographer snapped and filmed away, I applied the finishing touches.

My earrings and bracelet came from Silpada.  My veil came from eBay for $25!  Sure, David's Bridal had a perfectly matching veil for my dress..... for $180!  I am SO GLAD I only spent what I did for my veil because as we speak it is hanging up with the dress right now, probably never to be worn again (unless a daughter would want it). 

(By now you can see which dress I picked.  I wanted a vintage and lacy style dress, but I never imagined picking one that was so form fitting.  I couldn't help it - the minute I tried it on I loved it.)

I had something old (my grandmother's wedding band on my pinky), new (my dress) and blue (my underwear!).  And in a flash, it was time to walk down the aisle.  I was beyond excited at this point, and ready to run down the pier to meet Joel halfway.  

Our wedding day was fortunately and unfortunately the windiest day of our trip.  It was great because it helped cool us off, but bad because my hair was blowing everywhere.  My veil also started to come lose from my head, so Venecia tucked it into the back of my dress for the ceremony.

As much as I didn't want to spend the money to have a video filmed of the ceremony, I'm so glad we did because I don't really remember much about the actual vows.  I was distracted by the wind, my hair blowing in my face, the veil slowly coming loose, and worrying about how the pictures would turn out to really remember what was going on. 

And just as past brides warned me, the ceremony seemed to go by very quickly.

But, pictures are priceless moments in time.  Sitting here writing this I tear up looking at these photos, especially these next few.  It was such an emotional milestone in our lives - exchanging our vows before God and each other in a lovely setting.  It was perfect.

 

And before I knew it, it was time to pronounce us Mr. & Mrs. Joel Busbee!

I think the pictures clearly demonstrate my emotions of how I felt in this exact moment.

We walked back down the aisle to Somewhere Over the Rainbow by IZ.  I lived in Kansas City, MO for work right at the very beginning of our relationship.  The Wizard of Oz became our little "thing" and I had always said I would wear ruby slippers on our wedding day.  Well, I didn't wear ruby slippers but we did walk down the aisle to that song, and it was so fitting.  The song is sung with a Caribbean/beachy/Hawaiian feel to it. 

After our walk down the aisle, we signed our marriage documents to Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles.

Roderick, our photographer, captured many moments on the beach before we proceeded to the cake cutting and first dance.  I am a person who loves pictures and I wanted to ensure that our official pictures were as perfect as possible.  I knew I was going to get sweaty, so we carried around napkins to blot my face and I instructed Joel on how to fix my hair.  Unfortunately, the Roderick didn't much care about those details, so many-a-picture was taken with hair plastered across my sweaty forehead.  Thankfully, I have Photoshop skills!

This was Joel's favorite picture:

I cannot wait to show you MINE! ;)

I am an "attention to detail" kind of person.  In fact, that trait alone caused me madness when planning the first wedding.  I wanted every little thing to be perfect for me, nevermind that others would not necessarily notice.  It made me crazy!  Even though our Sandals wedding was pretty much taken care of for us, I still had opportunities to insert my own ideas into the day as well.  Take my wedding shoes for example:

I also chose to paint my nails purple, rather than going with the traditional French manicure, in keeping with the colors that I would have chosen for our first wedding.  Not only that, but purple was my grandmother's favorite color and the color of her wedding dress when her and my grandfather wed on Halloween oh-so-many years ago. 

I also had 2 wedding bands - 1 in rose gold and 1 in white gold.  The resulting 3 band look symbolizes God, husband and wife.

.....A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. ~Ecclesiastes 4:12

We had our first dance to Keith Whitley's version of When You Say Nothing At All.  This is kind of a joke for us because Joel hasn't quite gotten over how much I love to talk yet, even after 5 years together.

Then we cut our Carribbean fruit-flavored cake!

And honestly, I didn't want to select a picture of me being fed.  Even with a wedding photo, I don't really like capturing moments of me doing something that I'm not proud of!

I was definitely okay with some champagne though :).

We were served hors d'oeuvres, more champagne and a slice of our cake before we continued with the rest of our pictures.

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Posted by: Tukiyooo Jamaica: The BIG Day! (or... Day 3) PART 1 Updated at : 6:39 AM

Friday, June 22, 2012