Two Tickets to Paradise: Mango Tree Restaurant

The resort's restaurant where we had all but one meal. Breakfast was included in our villa reservation and lunch and dinner were additional. The breakfast and lunch menus were the same everyday, but dinner changed each night and were themed. And it was delicious. We didnt have one thing that we didnt like.

The main seating area, bar and kitchen.


Additional seating area that overlooked the Caribbean.

The resort pool is right in front of the restaurant and had a great view of the Petit Piton.

The view from the restaurant's additional seating.

Justin enjoying a local beer one afternoon.

You cant go to the Caribbean and not have a fruity drink with an umbrella.

The waitstaff was great and extremely friendly. Theo was my favorite waiter and after a day or 2 they all knew us. They offered suggestions on things to do and would ask us about our days. Tuesday nights the resort holds a Manager's cocktail hosted by the GM. They served rum punch and some appetizers. We really enjoyed it because we got to meet and mingle with the other guests. Since we never really saw anyone outside of the restaurant.

Two Tickets to Paradise: Hibiscus

Quick Note: The song title used for the honeymoon recap titles was picked solely because it was fitting.

Justin and I boarded a plane Monday morning headed to our honeymoon destination -- St. Lucia. We had a short layover in Atlanta which ended up being just enough time to get off plane A, speed walk to another concourse and board plane B. The flight from Atlanta to St. Lucia was 5 hours, but because it's international they serve food and they had tvs in the back of every seat so you could watch tv or a movie.

We landed in St. Lucia around 3pm and found a taxi to take us to Stonefield. The ride was about 40 minutes and our driver pointed out sites and shared information about the island. The island is extremely hilly/mountainous which can make for some scary twists and turns. The first thing the driver said was "Let me do the driving" -- I guess most people become backseat drivers.

When we arrived at Stonefield, we were greeted with glasses of fresh lime juice and shown to our villa -- Hibiscus.


The door leading to our villa.



Once you enter the door, you are greeted with these views.

The front of our villa -- complete with rocking chairs, hammock and lounging chairs.

Looking into the villa.

The kitchenette.

The outdoor garden shower. It was FABULOUS!

Our private plunge pool with a view of the Carribbean.

And looking up, we had a view of the tip of the Petit Piton.

A zoomed in view of the Petit Piton.

It's amazing how private the villas are. There was a villa right beside ours with a fence separating the 2 and one up on a hill behind us, but with all the trees and greenery they couldnt look down into our villa. The whole time we were in our villa, we felt like the only ones on the island.

S-L-A-C-K-E-R

Yep, that's me. I've been such a slacker at posting, but today in our mailbox was the cd of our pro rehearsal dinner & wedding pics. So I've found my motivation... my second wind to pick up where I left off. I knew "it" - my motivation - would show up sometime.

While I'm going through the 400+ wedding pics, I'll start with the honeymoon. So... let's get started... shall we?!?!

Sorry For The Interruption

It's almost Halloween and Maddie would like to share her costume with everyone. We gave her a few options to choose from and she picked...

drum roll please....

A Squirrel!!!

I cant wait til we have a house and trick-or-treaters. I've already told Justin that we are going to have themed halloweens and dress up to match the theme. :)

Last Little Touches

There were a few projects that were completed in the last few days before we left for Richmond. I gave myself a deadline to have everything completed by that Wednesday. I didnt want any projects looming over my head, so my motto was... whatever doesnt get done before we leave for Richmond, gets let go. And I have to say that that probably kept me from getting worked up over the little things.

So, lets take a look at what I was working on...

These were supposed to the be tags for the favors. I printed the Thank You side and used a stamp I bought mentioned in an earlier post on the back.

The place cards for the rehearsal dinner. I used the same stamp from the rehearsal dinner invites and handwrote everyone's name.

I found a picture that I loved where a bride used block letters to make their monogram and placed them on their cake table. I was inspired, so I bought the letters and paint from Ben Franklin. The final product...

The letters were used on our gift table.

I didnt want to do a traditional cardbox. You know the kind that is boxes stacked and wrapped. Boring. My original idea was to buy a watering can, but I couldnt find one that I liked. So I bought a mailbox and used stickers for our last name.

Welcome to Richmond, Virginia

I love to bake, so it was a no-brainer that I had to include something homemade for our guests. Cookies are definitely super easy but I wasnt sure what kind to do, so I went searching for ideas. Then I came across this post, and I was sold -- sugar cookies in the shape of Virginia.

The wedding was only 3 weeks away when I found the post, so ordering them was out of the question, plus the cost was no bueno. So I did what I know best... googled to find Virginia cookie cutters.

Jackpot! I found them here, ordered one and waited.
The Wednesday before the wedding I made the sugar cookies and decorated them. I let them dry overnight and Thursday morning before we left for Richmond I bagged and tagged them. And put them in our out of town guest bags.


I used colored sprinkles to mark where Richmond is (or at least the vicinity).


Funny(now) story -- the green tags I used, were originally going to be used for our favors. But I ran out of time and wasnt able to do favors. Instead of stressing out over it, I just let it slide and knew that none of our guests would miss them. Half the time the favors get left behind anyways. Those little tags took me days, and I mean days, to print because I was using a heavier weight paper and Justin's printer just didnt want to cooperate. Then I had to hand cut them because they were circles. I made 70 of those suckers and only used 20. Oh well. At least I got to use some of them and not just throw them all away.

I'll post a close up of the tags on another post.

Thank You for Traveling

We knew we wanted to do something nice for our out of town guests, since they were going to be traveling to our wedding. And what better way to show that than by treating them to a guest bag filled with goodies and helpful information.

Here are the bags mostly filled and ready to go...

For starters, I knew I wanted to use tote bags because they are environmentally friendly which means our guests can use them after the wedding. Which they were, I saw with my own eyes.
So, what did we include in our Out-of-Town bags?!?! I'm glad you asked.


A small bottle of champagne that we bought at our local Total Wine. I took tissue paper and wrapped each bottle individually.

And attached a little tag that said Cheers!

Next, we wanted to include some information about the city and places to visit if anyone was interested and/or had extra time to spend in Richmond.

And a staple item -- Virginia Peanuts. Each bag had 2 packages of peanuts because I wasnt sure how many were actually in the package.

We also included 2 bottles of water and not pictured is a chocolate bar with a wrapper that has the state slogan -- Virginia is for Lovers. I found them at a local sandwich shop and had to include them. I cant believe I forgot to take a picture of them.

Here's the semi-finished product...

After the bags were assembled, I printed out little notes thanking the guests for making the trip. I bought some shiny silver envelopes from PaperSource for the notes and printed "For Our Guests" on the outside of the envelope. I punched a hole in the flap and using some purple ribbon, tied them to the straps of each bag. Also, I typed up a word document that included the schedule for the weekend and information about the hotel shuttle. Each page had 3 schedules that I cut and attached to some left over flatcards that I had from the save the dates. I tucked those into the front pocket of each bag.

And I had one more treat I wanted to put in the bags. But its so cute that it deserves its own post.

Hair Trial

Let's travel back to the week before the wedding -- September 15th to be exact. That's the day I had my hair trial. I made an appointment at my usual salon -- Headliners -- with their up-do person.

In preperation for the trial, I searched for inspiration photos and happened to find this one. As soon as I saw it, I knew it was what I wanted for my wedding hair. It's an up-do, but not so formal.



With picture in hand, I went to my appointment. When all was said and done, this was the final product...

I think it looked pretty darn close to my inspiration photo. And it lasted throughout the day. Just the bottom feel out some, but I blame that on the collar of the polo I was wearing and my hair rubbing up against it.

Hi...Remember me?!?!

Sorry for disappearing. Time really does fly by sometimes. Well... just to do a quick update. We got married and had an amazing wedding... went on the most relaxing honeymoon... and came back to reality where we've been married for already 21 days. A week from Monday it will be a month. It still feels like yesterday and I cant wait to share all the details.

Our wedding pictures have been posted on our photog's website and I should have the CD within the next 2 weeks. So until then, I'll share last minute projects, things I kept secret, vendor reviews and our honeymoon.

But, because I'm so nice, I do have some teasers to share...

*images courtesy of the wonderful Shelly Simpson Photography