We decided to make our day in St. Maarten a beach day.  Chris had read in the guide book that Orient Beach was supposed to be the most beautiful beach on the island, so we decided to take a cab there.

Cruise ship terminals are for the dumb.  This giant sign guaranteed we would find the cab stand to get on a 15 passenger van to the beach.

Though (to be fair) enough people seemed to be having problems with this.  Not sure how.

Anyway, we drove basically to the other side of the island.  Interesting fact:  St Martin and St. Maarten are the same island, but one side is french and the other is dutch.  We tried to pretend like that was interesting, as we are world travelers, but in reality, we were just there to use the beach.

When we got to the beach, naturally they tried to get a lot of money out of us.  We did pay for two chairs with an umbrella—there wasn’t much room on the beach to set up your own spot, you basically needed to take the spots that were given you.  I found that a little annoying.  The beach was nice though…

That’s me in the middle.  Chris took a series of pictures of me in the water, some of which are hilariously obstructed view.

This one is very funny!

I wanted to stay in the water longer, but it was cold.

and the air was colder!  I’m making that face because I was suddenly freezing.  I wrapped myself in a towel and cried.  Well, not the crying bit.

After awhile we decided to walk up and down the beach.  Note to visitors:  you can be nude on the beach.  It’s never the people you want to see nude though.

There are probably nude people in the background of this picture—we walked by several groups.

The water looks beautiful, doesn’t it?

So that was St Martin (or was is St Maarten?).  Probably our favorite of the three stops.  This cruise wasn’t about the ports for us though; it was the cruise itself that we signed up for.

Okay, I think I have ONE more honeymoon post to write, two more sea days and I’ll likely be able to wrap it up!  I know you are thrilled 🙂

When we planned our honeymoon, the one thing we knew was that Chris’s birthday would also fall during the week.  I wanted to do something special for his birthday, so I booked a jet-skiing tour.  A few years ago we were in the Cayman Islands and he absolutely LOVED jet-skiing there, so I thought it would be great for his birthday.

One thing to know about St. Thomas (U.S. Virgin Islands) is that they are in no hurry.  For the excursion we were told to grab a cab to Coki Beach and that it would take about 20 to 25 minutes.  I allowed 1 hour for us to get off the ship, catch the cab, etc.  Well…we just barely made it.  The cab ended up being a large truck filled with cruise passengers, and I hadn’t made it clear enough (I guess) to the driver that we had an appointment.  He made two stops for an island tour that evidently he had sold to some of the passengers, and I was freaking out!  I finally made my point and he took us straight to the beach.  It was fine—we met the people, found the jet ski place, no problem.

My view over Chris’s shoulder!

We met up with one other couple and the four of us plus the guide headed out on our trip.  Basically we were going somewhere to snorkel and then back.  I “let” Chris drive so I just had to hold on!

The water was pretty nice—not as clear as we might have hoped since it was a little overcast and windy.  But you know…pretty gorgeous overall!

Then it was snorkeling time.

It is hard to get a good picture with the snorkeling equipment on…

The snorkeling was pretty cool, but Chris didn’t like it that well.  I had a little trouble figuring out the breathing though.

After awhile it was time to “drive” back.

We wandered around the beach for a bit, and then decided to grab a cab and head back to the ship and relax there.

We to get drinks, and we thought we would sit out by the pool…but it started to pour rain!  We were glad the rain held off until we were done with our excursion.

We decided to go to a “specialty restaurant” on the ship that had crepes.  It cost $5 per person but you could order anything you wanted.

After a few more hours, the ship had to leave the port.  Next stop:  St Maarten!

Overall, Chris had a wonderful birthday…we didn’t like the excursion as much as the one in the Cayman Islands but it was still fun.

I thought I would give you a wrap up as to which wedding vendors I used and briefly what I thought of them for those local readers who might be interested.  I’ve also included the various Etsy shops and other places where I bought accessories, for national readers.  My biggest advice regarding vendors is that you want people you can trust to do a great job, and once you find them, rely on their expertise to help you.  They do this all the time, you only do it once, so though it may seem more important to you, they know what works, what doesn’t, and they will be able to help make your dream wedding come true.

Local St. Louis Vendors:

Venue:  Moulin Events.  Our contact there was Ann Jones and she was beyond amazing.  This is a one stop venue for our ceremony, reception, and after party, with catering.  We had our ceremony in the Chouteau Room, reception in the Centennial Ballroom, and an additional hour of fun in the Malt House Cellar.  Our wedding would not have been nearly as easy to plan without their expert help.  The food was great, the help was fantastic, and they were just wonderful to work with during the whole planning process.  Not to mention that we absolutely loved the ambiance and general decor of the venue. www.moulinevents.com or 314-241-4949

Celebrant:  Lamira Martin of “Your ceremony, your way.”  Lamira was wonderful to work with and helped us create exactly the ceremony we wanted, down to the exact wording she would use.  She was prompt, professional, and fantastic.  We loved our ceremony and would highly recommend her.  314-443-8654 or www.yourceremonyyourway.com

Flowers:  Becky Huffman.  You can see throughout my blog how gorgeous the bouquets and centerpieces were!  We didn’t want huge amounts of flowers but she worked with us to create some lovely vase/candle/flower centerpieces as well as beautiful bouquets, corsages, and boutonnières.  www.beckyhuffmanflowers.com or 618-476-6111

Photographer:  Sarah Crowder.  Sarah really went above and beyond.  Seriously.  I love her pictures, she was fantastic to work with both on the day, afterwards, ahead of time, and at the engagement session.  I couldn’t recommend anyone more.  We took photos at the Omni, at Powell Hall, and at Moulin. www.crowderphotos.com or 636-456-7406

Most of the pictures in this post are from Sarah! In fact, the only ones that aren’t I labeled, in case you weren’t able to tell.

Cake:  We got our cake from Wedding Wonderland.  It turned out that there was a mistake in our communication as far as the color scheme for the cake, but Chris said he actually preferred the way it turned out, so I decided to let it go, with the warning to everybody to be sure to double check things!  The cake tasted delicious and was beautiful.  www.wwcakeshop.com or 314-837-5015

Transportation:  We used Absolute Perfect Touch Limo for transportation before the wedding.  They took us to Powell for pictures, to Moulin and then drove some guests from the hotel to Moulin.  Very courteous and professional.  www.aperfecttouchlimo.com or 636-332-3003

Hotel:  We stayed at the Omni Majestic Hotel in downtown St Louis along with many of our guests.  They worked with us for a great rate for our guests, and we received many positive comments about the hotel from our friends and family, so I’d say they were a success!  We also rented a shuttle from them for after the ceremony to shuttle our guests (and ourselves!) back to the hotel and they went above and beyond with that, continuing to make trips until everybody was back safely, beyond the hour we had booked.   Omni website.

Wedding Dress:  Clarice’s Bridal Shop.  I worked with Yasmina there, and she was just wonderful.  I absolutely loved my dress and I probably wouldn’t have even tried it on if she hadn’t suggested it based on other dresses I liked.  The dress came in early, and they were easy to work worth.  They also sell bridesmaid dresses and if I had gotten started on my dress shopping earlier I would have gotten those dresses there too.  www.claricesbridal.com or 314-351-2499

Band:  Galaxy from Millennium Productions.  We enjoyed the music and they did a great job running the reception as well.  www.millennium-productions.com or 314-918-9335

(They won the Riverfront Times’ “Best Cover Band-2012“)

Cocktail Hour Music:  We hired Phil Dunlap to play an hour of Jazz piano.  He was awesome!  Contact info available upon request.

Ceremony Music:  We had some of our friends play quartet music for us, but I organized it 😉  Remember, that is part of my job!  They sounded fantastic.

Groom and Groomsmen Clothing:  Men’s Wearhouse.  They were easy to work with and were helpful for out of town groomsmen.

Bridesmaid Dresses:  David’s Bridal.  This is my one big negative.  I had a lot of trouble with David’s Bridal, from not getting much help in the store to them losing our order.  The dresses looked nice, but I wouldn’t recommend them.

Other stuff:

Hair/makeup:  I used my normal hairdresser who recommended a makeup artist and another hairdresser.  They traveled to us.  Contact information available upon request.

Invitations/paper:

For our wedding invitations, programs, place cards, table numbers, menus, and save the dates we used Ginger O’Hara of Serendipity Beyond Design.  www.serendipitybeyonddesign.com or 314-514-5774.  These were all in a similar theme.

For our rehearsal dinner and rehearsal invitations we used Perfectly Scripted.

We got our thank you cards at Target, two large boxes of 50.

I ordered return address labels for the thank you cards from Vistaprint.

Rehearsal Dinner:  Eau Bistro at the Chase Park Plaza.  They were great.

(I believe my friend Sarah took this on my camera)

Manicures/pedicures:  Beautiful Nails at 1107 S. Big Bend Blvd, 314-647-5121

Pre wedding facials/waxing/hair:  Salon St. Louis

Rings:  The Diamond Shop in Clayton.   www.thediamondshop.net or 314-721-2210.  Great service and they are always like that when I go in (for cleaning, resizing, insurance reasons, etc.)

Tanning:  The Tan Company www.thetanco.com

Guest Book:  Pictures were by Sarah Crowder, album from snapfish.com.  We used some quick drying pens I bought from amazon and had people sign it like a yearbook.  I loved this idea!

Registry:  Crate & Barrel and Bed, Bath, & Beyond.  Both were great online but I’m told some folks had trouble in store with Bed, Bath & Beyond.  Might have been a local store problem, don’t know.  Both offered a nice coupon for “registry completion.”

Wedding Website:  We used mywedding.com.  I’m not sure how many people actually looked at it…but still.  Free and easy enough to use.  You don’t get a domain name, but I didn’t really care about that.

Wedding Planning:  We used www.theknot.com for their checklist—without it we might have had a lot more trouble.  The checklist is overwhelming at first, but once you get started you can take away things that aren’t important to you, and it’s really helpful as far as prioritizing what to do in what order.  Is it the only way?  No, but I think half the problem of planning is simply getting started. I also got lots of vendor recommendations there as well as www.weddingbee.com.  I read a few books, but nothing that I particularly recommend.  I do recommend reading books and looking at magazines though, just nothing in particular.  I bought The Ultimate Wedding Planner because I thought it would great to have a binder, but ended up using my own (sturdier) binder, adding dividers, and ultimately it was more a binder I made myself than the one I purchased.  I’m still using it for my thank you notes, since I made a list of all the gifts received and I’m checking off as we write the thank yous.  (Planning to finish that by the end of February).

The following are my various etsy purchases:

Bride’s earrings:  Olini Bridal Jewelry

Bridesmaid earrings:  KalliArt

Clutch: Babbs Boutique, also a blog entry here

Cake Topper: Knotting Wood (I love this, and we have it on our mantel now!)

Smitten Mitten: ElleGanT

Veil: MarisolAparicio

Faux Fur Bolero: Alex Bridal

Rehearsal Dinner Jewelry: Design by Kara

Rehearsal Dinner Dress:  Lord and Taylor

(not from Sarah Crowder, I think my mom took this!)

Wedding Shoes: Were from zappos.com.

Chris’s cufflinks were from overstock.com, his socks from Target.  The bridesmaids each bought their own shoes.  The candle in our ceremony was from Bed, Bath, & Beyond.  The silver frames for table numbers and guest book sign were from Amazon.com.

 

Honeymoon:

Hotel:  Ocean Reef Suites in Miami Beach.  Not a huge fan.  It was a nice location, but it was under construction which woke us up early on two days.

Cruise:  Celebrity Cruises 7 night Eastern Caribbean Cruise.  Loved it beyond anything!

Jet Ski excursion: St Thomas Waverunner/jet ski excursion

 

Bridal Shower:

Invitations: Leslie ordered them from paperstyle.com

Favors: Personalized M & M’s from the M & M’s website

(my picture)

Did I forget something you wanted to ask about?  Feel free to email me at any time for any question!  The fact is I love talking about my wedding.  hannahviolin at gmail.com or send me a tweet @hannahviolin