Enjoy!

Wedding Planner: Julie Shreck – Simply You Weddings

Ceremony Location: Oldest House

Reception Location: Rooftop Cafe

Flowers – Milan Event

Reception Music – Roberto & the Flats

Ceremony & Cocktail Reception Music – Din Allen

Hair & Makeup – Marie Pierre

Desserts – Cakes by Karol

Officiate – Rev. Becker

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Lisa and Jayson were married in Key West at the Westin Pier with their Reception taking place at the Audubon House. Their wedding planner, Julie from Simply You was fantastic! She really helped tie the whole day together. Jayson and Lisa were a wonderful couple to work with and I wish them the best!

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I was able to work with some amazing people including:

Alex Boyle – Photography Assistant
Julie Shreck - Wedding Planner
Mama Flowers – Floral Decoration
Lorri Bolander – Hair and Make-up

Here is a sneak peek from Jayson and Lisa’s Key West wedding weekend:

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Leslie has by far been HA! photography’s biggest fan this year. She is one of the frequentest commentors on my blog, she should get a prize for that or something. Well, I have been holding back. Stefanie and I photographed their wedding two months ago right before I left on my trip. To make it up to Leslie, you are getting a crap load of photos featured on the HA! Blog. Like 36 worth, oh wait, there are some collages in there, so really it is like 45ish photos. Now mind you, she had her photos back to her less than two weeks after their wedding, so these photos aren’t anything she hasn’t seen.

Stefanie and I photographed Andrew and Leslie’s wedding ceremony at Fort Zachary Taylor State park followed by a beautiful reception at the Roof Top Cafe.

Let’s start with some gorgeous details:

The girls were sharing their birth stories… lets just say, I was very afraid.

This is where Andrew and Leslie were married. It is ridiculously beautful?

This place is so classic Key West.

Leslie, we are your number one fan!

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I absolutely love beach weddings. Stefanie and I photographed Jennifer and Jake’s wedding together. This was Stefanie’s first time photographing on the beach and she did amazing. Jennifer and Jake’s attention to detail made the evening. From their starfish chair decorations to their sandcastle cake, it was truly unique.

Jennifer and Jake were such a cute couple. Jennifer was beaming the whole day. Congratulations you two!

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Hi friends! I joined twitter a few months ago but I wanted to tell you about it. Feel free to follow me on twitter. You can also check my blog at the top to see what I am currently up to! I promise the twitter updates will be more facinating once we actually get going on our trip.

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here is the RSS feed:  http://www.heatherahrens.com/blog/?feed=rss2

I start each day with my cup of coffee from Cup O Soul and a smattering of photography and art blogs. I use google reader to browse through my friends blog posts daily. It helps keep my blogs organized so I don’t have to manually check each site to see if there is a new post. The posts automatically come to me!

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HA! Photography has had the opportunity to photograph some really amazing destination weddings. One of those weddings took place last year in wine country, ca.

Rachel and Matt were married last March in Sonoma Valley, CA. Happy Anniversary you two! Rachel and Matt were married at the beautiful Madrona Manor in Healdsburg, California. Rachel grew up all over the place, but one of the places she calls home is Orlando, where we went to high school together. Planning a destination wedding was a logical choice for her, as she has many different places that she calls ‘home’.

Rachel shares some of her advice on planning a destination wedding:

Why did you choose to have a destination wedding?

Destination weddings are good if you want something intimate and, surprisingly, if you want to have a nice wedding yet keep costs down.  The reason for this is that only the most important people will make the effort to attend, and the easiest way to cut down on costs is to decrease the number of people you invite.  For me, most of the important people were spread across the country anyway, so no matter where I had the wedding it would have been a “destination,” but not having it in my home town gave an easy excuse for the next-door neighbors and colleagues that I’ve just met to not have to come.

What is special about the location you chose to get married at?

Identifying a location to get married was easier than I thought.  I had identified that I wanted to have an outside wedding, so for that time of year, I looked for locations that would be warm enough.  After I narrowed that down, I simply had to decide what was more my style: beach wedding in the keys, or garden wedding in wine country.  If I had wanted to get married inside, I might have identified the kind of architecture that would go with my style (perhaps a stone church in New England or a French style in New Orleans), and then find the part of the country that has that.

What was the hardest part about planning your destination wedding?

Like a home-town wedding, you’re still going to check things out online–prices, packages, etc.–but it might be harder to choose a venue if you don’t already know the area, or if you can’t visit.  For me, I was already out visiting my parents in San Francisco so we took the day to go and check out venues and found something I loved.  So I would have to say the hardest part was finding a hair-stylist.  Most didn’t want to do my hair on the wedding day unless I had seen them before, but after emailing around a bit, I found someone who would work with me.  It helped that I had a very clear idea of what I wanted, and that it wasn’t overly complicated.

What advice do you have for other brides planning a destination wedding?

Choose a turn-key venue, it will make all the difference.  What I mean by that is this: find a place that will do the food, the cake-cutting, provide the wine and alcohol, chairs…all of it.  If you’re not from the area, you don’t have the time to coordinate with the rental companies about what brands of wine you want to use, or the if you want the mahogany or oak dance floor.  Having a location that does it all for you simplifies things immensely, and honestly, not having the options for off-white or eggshell colored napkins just makes things so much less stressful for you.  Other than that, just relax!  Weddings aren’t as complicated as magazines want you to think.

What special touches did you add to your wedding to make it truly unique?

I absolutely love glass bottles, and had seen in a magazine that an easy decorating tip was to get lots of little vials and put different flowers in them.  I thought, such a brilliant idea!  I could get bottles and flowers for each person, and then not only would I have a unique decoration, but favors as well.  And with a little twine and brown paper with the guests names beautifully written by my matron of honor, they acted as name-plates as well.  The glass bottles took some finding on ebay, but the florist really liked the idea, and we decided use the same flowers I had in my bouquet to put in the bottles, and the whole ordeal cost around $2/guest, if that.

What websites were a big help to you as you were planning?

Google! Google and I became really good friends while I planned my wedding.  Oh, and theknot.com helped me keep track of my guests.  It wasn’t particularly amazing, but I could update information there and email all the guests if I had something I needed to say.

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