MY MARRIED BIO (best viewed at Full Screen)

To view my Planning bio, please CLICK HERE to go to PreAntiBride bio.






Monogram is original artwork by UselessFantasy. If you'd like her to make you one, you can email her at jenn_lang_jenn@yahoo.com.










The following picture was taken by my friend S. Theune, of Schmootography. She's AMAZING!








All remaining professional pictures taken by EVAN BISHOP of Bishop Photography. (They were edited a bit by me.) Non-professional pictures taken by friends. PLEASE credit Antibridezilla or Evan Bishop if you borrow any pictures! Thank you!!






And we're off to the salon!


The coffee was nice, but that morning, I could have used something a little stronger.


"Uhh, Linda, is that how you're going to wear your hair?"


"What? You don't think this is hot?"


"Ha! You must be kidding!!!"


"Pfft. I can't believe she thinks that's hot."


"I guess on second inspection, it isn't so bad…"


"I love it!"


Michelle was rockin' the hot pomp.


Even my mom liked her makeup, and that's a hard task to complete!

The next series of pictures is entitled: Linda Has a Lot of Hair™.







I'm sure my instructions here were something like, "Yeah, sorta twisty thing-a-ma-jiggers twirling around the thingy…got it?"


Perfect.


gasp!! Before makeup with my ladies.


Ahhh…that's better.



At this point, we were running REALLY late, partly due to the fact that there was a huge festival going on just a few blocks from the salon. So the girls braved the rain and made their way back to the hotel….


…while I kept on truckin'.

Funny story: To get the veil to stay bunched on top, we used a stapler.


And just as the bridal feeling was setting in...


…we ran out of the salon and hurried over to the hotel. I had just enough time to pick up my dress and things and run over to the museum. I left several important things in the hotel since I was rushing...namely my garter (doh!) and my bracelet (doh!). Ah well. Life went on somehow. ;)


I was only panicking a little teeny bit.






Cacie carefully tuned her guitar for the cameras...er...for the ceremony. (Our photographer was snapping away like crazy while she did this.)


Timm's mom, sister, and niece paid me a visit before the ceremony to calm my nerves. The baby kept squealing, "YAY!!!"



Al...most...time...

AND HERE WE GO! WHEE!!






Aug was big pimpin' with a lady on each arm.




My parents and I came down the stairs to Mazzy Star's "Fade Into You". It was perfect.





We spent so much of our ceremony doing one of two things: looking into each other's eyes romantically…or laughing hysterically. I wouldn't have had it any other way.





I think this picture was taken shortly after Timm asked the officiant in the middle of the ceremony, "What about the kiss?!? When's the kiss??"


One of my favorite pictures. Check out my brother's face!!! Pfft!!


That second picture tells a story that if you don't know, I'll never tell. Let's just say it was an "I told you so" look.







The rings. (I wish someone would have gotten a picture of it, but the best man handed our rings to the officiant with them on his fingers in a "rock on" position. It was awesome!)


The sand ceremony. As a note, if you plan on doing this, use a LOT of sand! Ours barely filled a quarter of the container. ROBBED!!!


FINALLY! Gimme some sugar!


Walking back upstairs to the Postal Service's "Such Great Heights" and trying damned hard not to trip. (Those marble staircases are tricky, let me tell ya!)


Best.picture.ever.


These pictures just love to remind me how short I am...and how happy.


We both nearly attacked poor Cacie as she came up the stairs. She had written a song just for us to sing at the ceremony. Truth be told, I was determined not to cry on the wedding day, but once I heard her start playing right before I was ready to walk down the stairs, I lost it. The song was gorgeous. Do yourself a favor and go listen to her music. You'll thank me later.

Our formal pictures were never really "formal", and that's exactly the way we wanted them: loose, casual, fun, ultimately "us".


As some of you know, Timm didn't let me know what he was wearing. When I saw him wearing this on the wedding day, my first thought was, "Untz! Untz! YEAH I get to marry him!!!" The sad part is the shoes. Yes, they were hot, but they were also painful. By the middle of the reception, he was dancing in his socks. ;)


Pimpin' groomsmen.


Insane groomsmen.


Since I kept calling these ladies my "Bridal Bitches" all day, I thought it would only be appropriate...


...to get a little bit drrrrrrrrty!!!


UNF! (Though it was a little embarrassing when the photographer told me to "stop posing like a supermodel". I think I just looked up, grinned and said, "I am?!?")


A great shot of my henna. I love, love, loved it!!!



These are the closest we got to a "formal couple portrait".





We decided to be sneaky and get some pictures with the museum exhibits before we were through. These were amusing as Evan (the photog) was whispering excitedly, "Go! Go! Go! Quick! Hurry!!" We felt like rock stars.


"Umm..hey guys? Is it time to party yet now that you're through with being supermodels?"


You're damn right it is!!!!

We went right into our first dance to Depeche Mode's "Home". Let me just tell ya: it was a gorgeous song…but waaaaaayyy too long. My tip: Choose a song that's 3-minutes long or less. It was torture.


During the whole first dance, the baby kept up with the squealing of "YAY! YAY!"





The room looked GORGEOUS when it was set up! The murals on the ceiling are part of the current exhibit at the museum. They went up the day before the wedding.


Well that's a damned good way to end a dance if I do say so myself (and I do).



My dance with my dad was half touching/half hysterical. Touching: He was crying the whole way through, telling me how much he loved me. Hysterical: In between talking to me, he was roaring out the lyrics to the song we danced to at the top of his lungs. I was trying to keep a straight face, but I know I lost it a few times.


Lucky me, my brother and cousin were there to capture every crack of a smile.


Timm's mom was crying the whole way through their dance, too, but it was adorable.



The speeches were all amazing...we had four speeches! It was insane. (Plus, Timm and I both hate champagne, so taking huge gulps after each one was torture. Haha)

Once the formalities were out of the way, we all got down n' dirty! Well, that's an exaggeration. We just danced. A lot.







One cool thing about being a bride: EVERYONE wants to hug you! It rocks. ;)










Yes, we took a little bit of time to eat.

In fact...before long, it was C-A-K-E T-I-M-E!!!!


I'm convinced we had the best wedding cake EVER from Charm City Cakes. The whole thing was devoured.


"C'mon, slow pokes! Cake time! I want cake, you want cake, we all want cake...SO HURRY UP!"


I look petrified by the cake, the knife, my husband, or all of the above.


I'm sure I was thinking, "Don't make the cake fall, don't make the cake fall...".

Timm had a devious look in his eyes as he picked up his slice of cake. So without even thinking...


SMASH!!!


Poor thing...I got it in his eye!! And the worst part? He refused to smash cake in my face, even after I almost begged him to!! (What the cameras didn’t catch was my brother offering to lend Timm a hand in cleaning up by licking his eye. Ew.)


Even with a slice missing, it was still Gahhhhhgeous, dahling.


And after a little "re-bustling"...

It was more dancing! Oh yes. There was dancing.







Do ya think it was a "coincidence" that Lindsay (the girl who caught the bouquet and my bridesmaid) got married two weeks later? (*Enter Twilight Zone music...*)






I can't even count the number of times the "devil horns" appeared at our wedding at one point or another.


Timm wasn't too pleased when all of the ladies ganged up on him to thrust their arses at him.


He was even less pleased when the guys did it...which I thought was hysterical.


Our guestbook was a huge hit! We did a Polaroid guestbook and had our guests dress up with various props before taking the picture. Here are two of our finished pages and some of our favorites from the book.
















"What do you mean the last song of the night is next?!?"




….but we had fun, didn't we?




Details for Knotties


My bouquet was SO much hotter than I could have ever imagined! I had hot pink gerberas, purple lizzies, and black feathers. The stems were exposed, but wrapped in a white cotton with black dots to match the bridesmaid dresses. PERFECT!!!

]
The centerpieces were hydrangea with peacock feathers sticking out. The neat blue lights in each vase gave off the prettiest glow.


These were our centerpieces for our three cocktail tables outside. I found the mosaic vases at the dollar store, along with the candles inside of them and the rocks surrounding them. I thought they turned out so pretty!


The day before the wedding, the museum put these murals up as a part of their exhibit. We added the lanterns.


Our candy buffet was a HUGE hit!! (As a tip, you can never have too much candy. We had 8 bowls, and we could have easily had double that.) We scattered quotes from Willy Wonka all around the table.


Timm made all of the boutonnières himself, and everyone loved them! He just twisted a bunch of wire together and secured it with some electrical tape, surrounded in more wire. They were a huge hit.


We didn’t have too many pictures taken at our rehearsal dinner, but of course, this little guy was worth taking a few shots of. This is the groom's cake I decided to get for Timm very last minute. It was made by Cakes by Katie. I was under a tight budget by this point, and she worked so well with me. The cake was entirely chocolate. (I felt bad that none of our wedding cake was chocolate since I'm allergic, so I completely surprised and indulged Timm with this one. He LOVED it.




Tips, Memories and Advice

Everyone thinks that their wedding day will be this one magical event where you just float through, almost as an apparition or a beacon that light will glow out of. Your teeth will be whiter, your family will be perfect, and every flower/light/whatever will be exactly what you've always dreamed of. Don't get me wrong…maybe this will be how your day is, but as I learned, you have to accept the day for what it is. I had the most AMAZING wedding day possible. Was it perfect? Not by any stretch of the imagination…but it was the day when I got to marry my best friend and get all of my family and friends together in the same place at the same time. If it helps at all, here are some lessons I learned:

1. Don't expect yourself to be "perfect" About two weeks before the wedding, my body decided to take revenge on me by giving the girl who never breaks out a bunch of pimples on my shoulders, etc. The more I stressed, the more they came out. I was so worried about these through every event, but in the end, it didn't matter, of course. I was able to look in the mirror and see myself in my dream dress with my hair and makeup looking all fancy, and I didn't care about a few minor blemishes.

2. Let everything roll off your back Thinking back on it now, there was a lot of minor things in the wedding day that were not in our plans. Our centerpieces were not exactly what we'd asked for. My bustle came undone a few times. The DJ played some Christina Aguilera songs that we didn't want to hear. You know what? I didn't care. All that mattered was that I had a blast, and so did our guests. In the long –run, you'll never remember even what color flowers were in the room. What you'll remember is the conversation you had with you 2nd cousin right after the cake cutting, or the first thing your father said to you when he saw you. Let those be the memories that stay with you.

3. Once you take that first step down the aisle, do NOT worry about your dress Once someone gave me that tidbit of advice months before my own wedding, I stopped worrying, and boy I'm glad I did. No matter how careful you are…no matter how clean everything is, your dress will be filthy by the end of the night. Hell, I was even of the mindset that the dirtier the dress, the more fun you had.

4. Tell your photographer if there will be any "challenges" to your location Even though our photographer came to the location the day beforehand, we forgot to mention that the bar and smoking area would be under an awning outside. Because of this, a lot of the younger people (including half of my friends) were outside the whole night. Our photographer didn't realize this, and didn't get ONE picture outside, therefore missing a lot of shots/people.

My Most Memorable Moments from the Night

* A friend of mine is the type of guy who's always joking around and teasing me. He gives me crap for being short, for looking younger than I am, you name it! Timm and I were getting ready to enter into the reception, and he happened to be standing outside. I slapped him hard on the back screaming, "Yo, Steve!! Wasssssup?" He stopped, looked at me, and grabbed both of my hands in his. He looked at me earnestly and said, "Linda, that dress is beautiful…but not half as beautiful as you make it." I nearly lost it then and there.

* One of Timm's song requests, "Funkytown" came on, but Timm was outside. I saw my father sitting down and I urged him to come dance with me. He got up and started doing what I can only classify as "gyrating wildly". He freaked out on the dance floor and just went insane!! It was hysterical, and I couldn't stop laughing.

* The morning of the wedding, my girlfriends and I went to a local diner in the area for breakfast. We all just sat and casually talked, laughed, and joked. It was EXTREMELY calming and helped for a great start to the day.

* Immediately after the bouquet toss, I heard the DJ announce that it was time for the garter toss. At that moment, I shrieked and ran full-speed over to the DJ, laughing. I told him that I just realized I forgot to put the garter on! He covered for me and changed the topic and had everyone dancing. Instead of getting upset about it, I just laughed my butt off.

* I was keeping a very cool and calm head all morning, surprising for myself as I'm usually a pretty high-strung gal. I was perfectly fine, even when waiting upstairs, waiting to walk down the stairs with a parent on each arm. That was before my friend, Cacie started singing the song she wrote for our ceremony to bring our bridal party down the stairs. I nearly lost it then. I was just so touched and really let it sink in that the day was finally here.




Vendor Reviews

 CEREMONY & RECEPTION: American Visionary Arts Museum
A+ Our Facility Coordinator was Alicia Karoll and I am in love with this girl!! She is so sweet and truly understood exactly what we want. You can tell that she is just so experienced and knowledgeable. Some might have called the museum's prices a little high, but in my opinion, for what you get, it's completely worth it. My guests were allowed to view all of the museum exhibits which they all adored. The staircase which we got married on was just STUNNING and is really very unique. I would suggest that if you're looking for an alternative to a catering hall or flower garden, DEFINITELY give AVAM a try.

CATERING: Absolutely Perfect Catering (with Michele Goldberg)
A+ Absolutely Perfect did such an amazing job with every single aspect of the wedding. Michele was just so on top of things throughout my whole planning process. She worked carefully with Timm and I and really helped us to stay in the budget that we wanted to. They were completely tolerant of my 10,000 emails and were just wonderful overall. From the actual wedding, we heard nothing but rave reviews from our guests. The staff was wonderful and friendly, the food was tasty and never ran out…everything was just perfect from them. Their prices are super-competitive, too. I was just pleased overall.

FLOWERS: Bouquets by Bell in Dundalk (410-284-4800)
A- They did a great job for us. The bouquets were BEYOND what I could have ever imagined. Their prices were BY FAR the best I had ever seen, and Pam and Amy were wonderful to work with. They even dealt with my neurosis on the day of the wedding when I had to have someone else sign for the flowers since we were running late. My only upset was my centerpieces. The one thing I was pretty intent upon was that we'd have NO white or cream flowers in the wedding. It's just not our thing and we don't like them. I made this pretty clear to Pam and Amy, and yet, all of our centerpieces had cream hydrangea in them when they should have been green. In the long-run, of course, it didn't matter. I wasn't devastated, but I was a little unhappy with them. That's the only reason they got a "A-" instead of an "A".

UPDATE: Pam from BBB responded to this vendor review in the sweetest way. She let me know that the hydrangea were, in fact, green. While I'm willing to admit that I may have been wrong, my memory (and any pictures I've seen thus far) show that we had whitish-yellowish hydrangea in the centerpieces. I know they'd never lie to me, so I upgraded their grade a bit.

PHOTOGRAPHY: Evan Bishop.
Tentative A+ I haven't received my proofs back yet, but Evan and his wife Danielle definitely get a tentative A+ from me. They were by my side the whole day, keeping me calm and just generally being wonderful. He was able to stay on his toes when plans changed a bit very last minute, and never complained. I had guests ask me if we even had a photographer there…THAT is how unobtrusive he is. I know he took some amazing shots and I can't wait to see them!

Update: We received our proofs online and I can't rave enough about Evan and his wife. They are just…well, the word amazing doesn't begin to cover it. There were lighting issues in the Barn that baffled other photographers, but Evan got a firm grip on it and took wonderful photos. He is truly one of the best photographers in Baltimore from what I've seen, and I couldn't be happier that we chose him. I don't even know which pictures to pick for an album…I'm so happy! His A+ grade stands strong with me.

DJ: DJ Dave Orlando of Orlando Entertainment.
A David was FANTASTIC!! He was one of the very first vendors we booked off of a recommendation, and boy, are we glad we got him. He was so open to the kind of music we wanted played, unlike other DJ companies we'd visited with. He and Timm were able to exchange music through their laptops and he played EVERYTHING we wanted to hear, and nothing we didn't want to hear. He isn't cheesy or too talkative, or anything that usually annoys me about DJs. We really, really liked David and his wife, Jessica, and I'd whole-heartedly recommend them to anyone.

CAKE: Charm City Cakes
A++ Did you see our cake?!? How could I not be happy with that?! Pfft! Duff and Mary Alice were amazing the entire time. Duff even completely redesigned our cake without a complaint when Timm wanted to change some stuff. The whole staff there is awesome and made the cake of our dreams, too. PLUS, then ENTIRE CAKE WAS EATEN! That never happens at weddings! People were amazed at how good it was and they asked our caterer to bring out more, even when it was all gone. Haha His prices are definitely a little bit higher than most in the city, but it's 100% worth it, in my opinion. Get a cake from Duff and you will have a unique cake unlike any other.

OFFICIANT: Rev. Hope McNew.
A I love, love, love Hope! She is such a sweet woman to boot, and is an amazing officiant. She walked us through every step of planning the ceremony and was just wonderful overall. After the wedding, we got so many compliments on how great she was. She's thoughtful and well-spoken…a great pick if you're looking for an officiant. Her prices are right on par with most other officiants in the area as well.

HAIR AND MAKEUP: Grapevine Hair Studios.

A. Katie is my normal hair-stylist, so it was a given I was going to go to her on my wedding day. Most of my bridal party plus Cacie and my mother came with me. We had a great time, just laughing and carrying on, even though the weather was complete hell. She did an absolutely BEAUTIFUL job on the wedding day and made me feel fabulous. Truth be told, my hair started to fall out of the style right before the reception, but I blame that more on me running around like a crazy person than on Katie at all.

BRIDESMAIDS:Black and White Polka dot dress from Daddy O's made by Stop Staring.
A- Getting the reviews from my girls, the service from Daddy O's was perfect! The dresses arrived only a few business days after they ordered them and were pristinely packaged. My only small gripe was that one of the girls' dresses was a different material, and they ordered the same exact dress as everyone else. No one noticed at all, but nonetheless, it wasn't the same as all of the others.

E-RINGS & WEDDING BANDS: Jared's Galleria of Jewelry in Towson, MD
A After looking online, I knew pretty much right away what engagement ring I wanted to get for Timm. Little did I know that it was a VERY popular ring and every single store I went to carried it, so I was able to do a lot of price comparison. Jared's had the best price BY FAR…by several hundred dollars. The service was impeccable, and they are just so friendly and knowledgeable there. They told me the ring would be in the shop in about a month, and a week and a half later, it was in!!
When I told Timm where I had gotten the ring and told him about the fab service I got, he went back there later to get my engagement ring. From his accounts, he also got fabulous service! The person who helped him sat with him for several hours and explained the Four C's of diamonds to him and made sure he made a good decision. Because of that employee, Timm felt he got a great deal and was able to pick out a nearly perfect diamond (which he was VERY proud of himself for).
Of course, when I was looking for my band, Jared's was a natural choice. Again, the salespeople were BEYOND friendly and very respectful of my small budget. They found me a unique ring that not only suited me, but fit with my hard-to-fit marquise diamond engagement ring.
They were even able to get Timm the wedding band of his dreams – a diamond horseshoe. It came in quickly and he is in LOVE with it.
All-in-all, Jared's gave us both great prices and great service. I would definitely recommend them.

REHEARSAL DINNER: DuClaw Brewery in Fells Point (with Angie Christofield)
B+ I'm giving them the grade I did because of everything before the actual dinner. Angie was TERRIBLE at getting back to us. She'd tell us she'd get us a contract or menus in a few hours, yet a week later, we'd still be waiting. We had to stay on top of her the entire time. Finally, when it was about a week before the dinner, I gave Angie a call to catch up on details, and she casually told me that that day was her last as she had given her two weeks notice TWO WEEKS EARLIER. I don't think she was planning on letting us know! In the end, the dinner turned out to be amazing, though. The food was great, service was FANTASTIC, and we were happy overall.

GROOM'S CAKE: Cakes by Katie
A Katie was very easy to work with. She and I had never even met, in fact! We exchanged all ideas over email, and she made a 3-D cake that Timm absolutely adored for an amazing price. She was a little hard to get a hold of at times, but she always got back to me. The cake (from what I hear) was delicious and everyone got a kick out of walking into the rehearsal dinner and being greeted by a big, blue robot they could eat.

ALTERATIONS: The "Oh-so-famous" Alena
A+ I think everyone in Baltimore is now well-aware of how incredibly talented Alena is. Not only was she very, very sweet, but she made a ton of alterations to my dress and the price she charged me was beyond reasonable. I really, really liked her and she did a fabulous job.

GUEST ACCOMODATIONS (hotel block): Tremont Park Hotel (with Sharon Schmidt)
C+ This is actually a difficult review to write. We chose to reserve our hotel block at the Tremont because the price they offered was BY FAR the best in the city for a Saturday night. My contact was Sharon Schmidt, and I can't say ENOUGH about how wonderful Sharon was. She helped me out every step of the way and always kept me updated about how full our block was getting. She even helped me to reserve an additional block when our first filled up quickly. That, for the most part, is where my extreme elation with the Park ended.
When my mother called to reserve her hotel room, she also reserved a room for Timm and I. When she told them we were the bride and groom, they told her they'd upgrade our room to a Penthouse suite for the same cost as all of the other rooms. They even gave her a confirmation number. When we got to the hotel, no one had any clue what we were talking about. We gave them the confirmation number: nothing. They told us they did have a Penthouse suite available, but it'd be almost $100 extra per night! After a bit of arguing, they gave us the suite at a discount, but still not at the price they promised us.
The staff was downright rude at times. I gave them a bunch of OOT bags for our guests, and the only way the guests received them was if they asked for it. When the weekend was over, I had to hand out the last of the bags myself because it was just never done. Even if a guest did get their bag, chances were that they got someone else's, even though they were clearly labeled. Having spent a lot of time and money on those, I was pissed.
In the end, our room was beautiful, and Sharon is sending us a gift certificate for a free night's stay at one of their other hotels to make up for it. So while things weren't great, they weren't miserable either, but I just can't give them a high grade.

INVITATIONS & SAVE-THE-DATES: Being designed for us by Jamie Campbell (friend and co-worker)

INVITATION SUPPLIES:
Sparkly White paper purchased off of Ebay from Paper-Papers.Com.
A+ The pricing was fantastic…better than anywhere I'd seen. The shipping took about 2 business days.

White RSVP envelopes (Size: 4BAR) purchased off of Ebay from Cut Cardstock.
A+ Again, fantastic pricing, fast shipping (about 2 business days).

White 5 x 5" square main envelopes purchased from Action Enveope.
A+ The prices were comparable to everyone else, and they got to me THE DAY AFTER I ORDERED THEM! What more could you ask for?





Honeymoon



We took our honeymoon at Sandals Negril in Jamaica. We spent 5 days and 6 nights at this amazing resort. Neither of us had ever taken a relaxing beach vacation, so it was definitely something new for both of us. It didn't rain once!!!! We decided to splurge a bit and go for their butler service. It was both wonderful and awkward. Wonderful because you got special treatment at the resort. There were beach chairs waiting for you every morning with your names on it and flowers nearby. You got the best seats in the restaurants. Awkward because they hated it if you did ANYTHING on your own. For example, Timm tried to book himself on a snorkeling excursion, just as any other guest would do, and our butler got annoyed that we didn’t go through them. Since we're both very independent, it was a little annoying at times. Still, the special treatment was nice. I would FULLY recommend this resort.

The plane ride to Jamaica wasn't that bad. There was terrible turbulence for a while there, but we got a meal and a movie on the short 3+ hour plane ride. (Although if you want to be technical, I'm not sure that you could call the cold "cheese omelet" and the god awful movie "Click" a real meal and movie.) Once we landed, we were immediately (and quickly) shuffled over to a waiting area with the rest of the obvious tourists going to Sandals. We were all pasty-white and rushing for the free soda and beer in the waiting room. (As a side note, the commercials you see on television are not exaggerating. Red Stripe and Red Stripe Light are the only beers you can get in Jamaica. They are VERY proud of this beer.) We were put into a van with about 8-10 other people, all couples, on our way to Negril. The clouds were dark and heavy and looked ominous. And then, I was greeted with one of my very first sights of tropical Jamaica:


That's right, ladies and gents. Even in Jamaica, you're never free from the big KFC bucket in the sky. After a slightly scary ride there, we got off the van to be greeted by about 3 or 4 EXCEEDINGLY enthusiastic Jamaican men working for the resort. They nearly attacked us with their friendliness. And….

I've just decided that since I'll be posting a billion pictures here, I'm just going to narrate with pictures, because I don't feel like typing anymore. ;)


We immediately scoped out the in-room bar that was stocked every day.


Yes, I'm a dork for taking a picture of the television, but I was amused that it had our names on it whenever we turned it on.

When we first came into our room, we had a plate of fruit, cheese, and crackers waiting for us which I IMMEDIATELY devoured. ;) Then, there was a "beach buffet" right along the water where we ate the first night.



The spreads were always AMAZING. For some reason, though, I was always able to eat just enough without eating too much. I was proud of myself for that. Haha

Our room was just GORGEOUS and we had our own little patio.


Right down the sidewalk from our room were two BEAUTIFUL macaw parrots named Jazz (red) and Pizazz (blue). At night, they got mouthy as hell and talked back to you. As you can see, I took a picture with flash, and Pizazz got PISSED OFF at me. I made it a point to talk to them every time I passed them…which was about 10 times a day.


Sometimes, we got breakfast on our patio….


…and other times, we ate at the Bayside Restaurant buffet. Both were DELICIOUS.


I took a ridiculous amount of pictures of the flowers around the resort. They were all BEYOND beautiful.



(Timm dubbed that last picture, "Uh oh…here comes the lipstick…")

Every day, each sunset was more gorgeous than the last. I just wish my camera could have captured it how I saw it.



One of the "nicer" restaurants on the resort was called The Sundowner. I use the word "nicer" only because you had to dress up a little more to go there. Although the food was pretty to look at, the taste wasn't anything thrilling.



For some reason, even though the weather reports predicted rain every single day, we got nothing but complete sunshine starting the minute we stepped off that van.



A majority of the vacation was spent in this lovely ensemble…


I'm SO fashionable. ;) On Tuesday, Timm and I both had a couples' massage, and it was just amazing. I was a wee bit disturbed when they spent a little bit of extra time massaging my ass, but who am I kidding? It felt awesome. :)

On Wednesday night, we went to the "fanciest" restaurant on the resort, Kimonos. You sat at a table with three other couples, and the chef came to cook the food on the "skillet" in front of you. You didn't order a meal. The chef would just cook and shovel stuff onto your plate. Our chef was named Philip and he was FABULOUS. He kept singing Red Stripe commercials and Bob Marley songs. I miss Philip already. ;) The food was fabulous and the people we were sitting with weren't too bad, save for one couple (but I'll come to them later). Even the décor was gorgeous.







Since it was our honeymoon, we splurged for the butler service. These guys wouldn't let you do ANYTHING on your own. This was good and bad. Good: You always got a nice table reserved for you, even in places you didn't need reservations. Bad: They BABIED you. The guy, Myron, wouldn't let me walk to the spa alone…even though it was literally maybe 50 feet from my room. UGH. But they were very cool anyway.


On our last night in the resort, first, we went to dinner at The 4 C's…an Italian restaurant. The food was good, but nothing spectacular. (Strangely, the buffets were our favorites!)



When we came back to our room, our butler had decorated it for us. It was GORGEOUS, even if it was a little cheesy. There were candles lit everywhere and flowers sprinkled all over the bed.




After relaxing for a bit, we decided to spend our last night watching a performance of a steel drum band. They were AMAZING.




We were VERY ready to leave on Saturday, and hopped into the van to the airport with glee. It's sad that even though the resort is very beautiful, the ride back to the airport was mixed with beauty and poverty.





The flight home wasn't too bad…but the sunset on take off make it all worth it.



And lastly…. While we were there, we decided to get some "professional" pictures taken. I know they may seem cheesy and contrived to some, but I LOVE them.