A Wedding in Stone Harbor

Seeing as how this photo is now my most popular Instagram of the year I decided my friend Samantha’s wedding needed it’s own recap. I took more than 400 photos despite being in the actual wedding and sent the best 90 to the bride which are close friends are already loving on Facebook.  Those two things meant that all of you might want to see them too!

We started the weekend on Saturday driving down to Avalon / Stone Harbor New Jersey and after a seamless rehearsal enjoyed a few hours of catching up before a beautiful rehearsal dinner but as there will already be more than enough photos in this post I’ll spare you any day before shots.  Fast forward to a 7:45am call time on Sunday where we arrived at in the brides spacious room for nearly six hours of hair and makeup sprinkled with a few dance parties, lots of snacks, and a few glasses of champagne. 

Then it was off to photos! We took an hour and a half of photos before the ceremony with the professional photographer including the first look which I snapped a few photos of below on my phone and then full bridal party photos on the beach. This was followed by hundreds of photos in a nearby bird sanctuary but I don’t have any photos as I was on dress duty – pine needless, wood chips, and Samantha’s lace dress were not friends. And since the professional just posted the photos you can check them out here! 

We were so speedy with the photos we had about 45 minutes to relax between photos and the ceremony – just the ten members of the bridal party, the bride, the groom, and her parents before the ceremony.  Everyone had a drink which took the edge off and for us girls it was really nice to rest our feet as we stood in our heels for the entire ceremony.  Oh, and the photo below of the bride and her Mom might be the best one I took all day! 

I have no photos of the actual wedding because, well, I was a little busy in it.  I am so happy that the wind died down, and it was a gorgeous 30-minute non denominational ceremony.  (Again the photographer got some great pics of the real thing!)  Then we went straight into cocktail hour with delicious nibbles and lots of bubbly! 

Cocktail hour went straight into the reception where the guests sat at a beautiful nautical tables with the bride and groom at a sweetheart table.  The speeches started as the sun began to set and right after I ran out to get some stunning shots of the sun as it dipped out of sight.  And those were my last photos of the evening because as a best practice I always try and put my DSLR away before I start drinking – more about me than other people! 

Oh, bit I did managed to get one good one of the swim team before my camera went goodbye.  In addition to me eight of the people below swam at Georgetown at one point or another and on my person Facebook I captioned the photo, “Hey Hoyas, how long has it been? Well, clearly a long time since I’ve partied with the swim team on a Sunday night but Samantha and James for you two it was worth it! ?? (And I know it’s a little blurry but all of the best swim team photos are)”

As I said earlier, I was thrilled to be a part of this wedding!