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April 2013

I met Evan back in February when he & Andrea had selected a wedding date and venue but he hadn’t officially proposed yet. She ended up having to work and wasn’t able to make our appointment, but she knew that she wanted him to reserve their date with us! I believe that everything happens for a reason so I was actually super excited to have a meeting with a groom who hadn’t proposed yet, it’s been a dream of mine to be able to shoot an actual proposal. Most of the time, couples come to us once they’re already engaged and most of the time, the brides WISH they had photos from their actual engagement. I talked to Evan about this and we agreed that we should definitely photograph this for them! 🙂

Evan emailed me in March with his ideas, he wanted to take Andrea to the monument and then out to their favorite restaurant for dinner but he didn’t want her to know that we were shooting it, he wanted to surprise her with these pics on their wedding day! On 4/2, we got downtown early and got the perfect parking spot in front of the Chocolate Cafe. We were texting him info on where we were at, where he should do it on the monument, etc. John & I each had a camera in hand and we were totally hiding out in our SUV at first, shooting test shots with the windows rolled down. Yeah, we looked like creepers! LOL!! My adrenaline was pumping and we were on the look out. Just before they came to the monument, a UPS truck parked RIGHT in front of our car! Noooo!!! So we hopped out and took new positions, hiding behind other cars. He finally drove off and then we spotted Andrea & Evan! Then a horse drawn carriage was in our way! We took new positions again, dodging cars, people, the carriage, etc.

Shooting a proposal undercover was way harder than we thought it would be! Finally everyone cleared at the perfect time and Evan got down on one knee, John & I clicked away from afar and Andrea had no clue we were even there. It was perfect!! We hopped back in the car, took an iPhone pic of the back of our camera and text messaged it to Evan so he could see one of the pics right away, he loved it. 🙂 We sent him the pics to his office address but somehow Andrea ended up accidentally finding out about them through someone else. She emailed me and said, “I am thrilled that we will always have those pictures.  Thank you so much!!!  I had just told Evan a week earlier that I was sad we didn’t have any pictures from that night.” I’m so glad that it all worked out the way it did! 🙂

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Back around Christmas time, we did a photo shoot for Kirles Jewelers for their Spring 2013 billboard, which is located around 65th(ish) & Keystone! Marley, their new puppy, was ADORABLE to work with and she actually fell asleep in John’s arms during the shoot. (He’s a dog whisperer, for sure!!) 🙂 He laid her down on the backdrop and we all started adorning her with beautiful jewelry and props…this was the finished product! 🙂

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On 4/11/13 John & I renewed our vows in honor of our upcoming 10th wedding anniversary! 🙂 It’s been such an incredible week. I wanted to write this blog post right away because I fear that as time passes, I’ll forget details that I never want to forget from this incredible week. Wedding days always seem to go so fast and can become such a blur over time, I know I’ve already forgotten a lot of details from our wedding 10 years ago, so this time, I’m blogging it! 🙂 First of all, I’d like to give credit & thank all of the amazing wedding pros who made our day fabulous!!!

Venues & Vendors:

Travel agent: Carey Driscoll, Beach Bum Vacation

Ring: Kirles Jewelers

Resort: Sanibel Harbour Resort & Spa

Ceremony: Captiva Beach

Reception & Cake: The Bubble Room

Dress: David’s

Alterations, necklace & earrings: Marie Gabriel Couture

John’s attire: Tommy Bahama

Officiant: Dr. Dan Lamey

Hair & Make-up: Jamie Lyn Cintron

Videographers: Jet & Dani Kaiser, Jet Kaiser Films

Planner: Becca Smith, A Bride’s Best Friend

DJ: Wes Adkins, Event One DJs

Photographer: Jamie Lee Photography

Florist: Floral Artistry of Sanibel

Rentals: Creative Events & Rentals

Cupcakes: Anna Cakes

Welcome Dinner: Cheeburger Cheeburger

Event Insurance: WedSafe

I’ll back up a bit though so that our new blog followers can catch up on our lives and what has transpired this year. Back in December/January, my hubby and I were talking about what we’d like to do for our 10th wedding anniversary this year. He told me that he really wanted to upgrade my wedding ring and he asked me to go look at some websites and come up with something that would be a “dream ring”. We got married pretty young and even though we did the whole church wedding & country club reception back in 2003, we prioritized our budget and didn’t spend much on our rings. Although photography was our #1 priority, we also never really put any wedding pics up around our house after the wedding because we looked so young in our photos. We always joked that we should renew our vows so that we’ll look legal in our wedding pics! LOL!!

Anyway, as we were discussing this ring upgrade idea, we also seriously started talking about the idea of renewing our vows on the beach at our favorite islands (Sanibel & Captiva) and all of the sudden, everything fell right into place. Kristi Kirles, the daughter of Pete Kirles who owns Kirles Jewelers got engaged and came in to discuss her wedding photography needs and the next thing we knew, we were designing my dream ring with them! In February, I had booked a suite at the JW for Valentine’s Day as a fun little overnight getaway for us and John used that opportunity to “re-propose” to me, complete with hundreds of rose petals, candles, and my amazing new ring. (You can read about the proposal HERE!) 🙂 He got down on one knee again and everything, and I had my wits about me enough to take a few iPhone pics this time! LOL! (Grooms-to-be, score extra brownie points with your soon-to-be fiancee and have us shoot your proposal, ok??) 😉

After Valentine’s Day, we were off to the races to plan an amazing vow renewal on the beach in a very short period of time. Our shooting schedule is crazy busy this year so we knew we’d have to do it before our actual anniversary in May. We decided to keep it small and invite only family, we would’ve loved to have had our friends there too but we have SO many friends and we knew that if we invited some, we’d want to invite them all so we just kept it very small with immediate family only. We originally chose Bowman’s Beach for the ceremony but then after some logistical issues, our minister suggested that we go to this little spot on Captiva and it worked out perfectly! Sometimes your original plans have to fall apart so that something better can come together. We booked the Sanibel Harbour Resort & Spa through Carey at Beach Bum Vacation. Sanibel Harbour is our all-time favorite resort off the causeway to Sanibel. They have amazing suites, a great view, yummy dining options & a fabulous spa. We invited our family and about half of them were able to come, we wished that more people would’ve been able to be there but we understood that everyone’s work schedules did not permit extended travel.

We decided to have our reception at The Bubble Room which is an adorable little restaurant with all kinds of cool photos and treasures from the 1940’s and it’s super colorful, fun and Christmas-themed year round!! As most of you know, we LOVE Christmas and the Bubble Room is always a favorite spot to have dinner at when we’re on the island so that was a natural choice for us. We spent a lot of time choosing vendors in Florida and reading reviews online since we didn’t get the chance to meet them before our trip. It was stressful at times and eventually, we did hire a few Indy vendors to come down there with us. We were very happy with everyone that day though and I will say that hiring a planner who was familiar with the area and who could help take care of last minute issues was incredibly helpful. Best money spent!! (iPhone pics below of the hotel & restaurant taken by Erin Hession)

I know this will be a very long post so I think I’ll do a day by day recap of the trip and intermix pics throughout the stories. 🙂 (And please don’t judge, some of these pics are from our iPhones or our family members took some of these pics with their little digital cameras, it’ll be about 6 weeks until we get our “real” pics back) 😉 We had some really crazy/funny things happen throughout the trip that I’m sure we’ll be talking about for years…like how my step-mom got a spray tan before she left for Florida but the machine broke in the middle of her tan! Or how Aunt Mary encountered a snake on the pathway to the beach and grabbed Kitty (my step-mom) and they ran for the beach together! Or the night that someone called security on us because we were all having such a great time that we didn’t even realize how loud we were! Oops! LOL!

Anyway, John & I left for Florida on Tuesday 4/9 after a crazy week of last minute projects, appointments, photo shoots and a wedding that weekend. In the midst of all of that, we saw my 104 year old Great Grandma the weekend before that (on Easter) and she wasn’t doing too well. She ended up passing away the day after she saw the whole family and her funeral was the day before we left. Talk about an emotional roller coaster of a week!! 🙁 We all knew that she was ready to go home, but she’ll be greatly missed. She was even asking us on Easter if she could go home yet. It was so sad. 🙁 At least she got her wish and she was definitely with us in spirit at the vow renewal. (More on that later) My Great Grandma always carried her hankies with her all of the time and when we got to the funeral home that day, I was given one of her hankies. It was the perfect item to carry with me on our vow renewal day. 🙂

 

Dad picked us up and took us out to the airport and we were so excited to get to Florida that we ended up getting there WAY early so we had a quick lunch at Cafe Patachou. I ordered my favorite chicken salad and fed John a bite of it so that he could try it too. Right at that moment, the server came up to our table and we were in our own little moment. He laughed and said he just had a flash back to his parents who would do the same thing and they had been married for many years, it was so cute. We were upgraded to first class upon arrival at Airtran (there were only 35 people on our flight and we were flying with the wedding dress, which got an overhead bin to itself thankfully) 😉 and it was a great flight to Ft. Myers. We also got an upgraded rental car (to an SUV, which we lovingly referred to as “Frank the Tank” ~ it was huge!) since we knew we’d be traveling with a lot of stuff and I’d have to be able to easily get in and out with the dress.

We checked into the hotel and unfortunately they didn’t have the suite that we requested available until the next day so although I was hoping to unpack and get settled that night, I knew we’d have to switch rooms the next day. The room that they put us in wasn’t going to be big enough for all of the people who would be coming in and out of our room with us throughout the week. We stopped by the grocery store to pick up some last minute items for our welcome bags and then stopped by my uncle’s condo. They decided to drive down to Florida and it worked out well because he was able to take a lot of our wedding-related stuff with him. We got back to our room and the concierge had sent up champagne and chocolate covered strawberries for our stay which was a nice little surprise. 🙂 (iPhone pics below by Erin Hession)

On Wednesday 4/10, we had a jam packed day ahead of us! My dad, step-mom & sister were flying in that morning, our DJ was flying in around lunch time, our planner was arriving that afternoon and my aunt flew in that evening. We had breakfast at the hotel and then headed out to Sanibel to scout out some photo locations for the next day, and we were hoping to scout out our ceremony site but we didn’t have enough time to do that. I had a morning appointment with my hair & make-up artist to do a trial run (I highly recommend that all brides do this!) and then John took my dress to be steamed since it was wrinkled from traveling. (iPhone pic by John Wooton)

We grabbed lunch, picked up the dress, ran a few errands and then headed back to the hotel to switch rooms, unload our stuff & put together all of the welcome bags. We had all kinds of cute stuff for the welcome bags, I was so excited about putting those together! I’m a big fan of Etsy so everything was personalized. I had called the concierge ahead of time so they had magazines and brochures about things to do in Sanibel/Captiva set aside for us, we included those in the bags as well as custom labeled water bottles, door hangers, custom lip balm, sunscreen, some snacks, etc. We loaded them into “Frank the Tank” and headed out to the island for our welcome dinner at Cheeburger Cheeburger, another one of our favorite restaurants on the island. It has a fun, colorful, whimsical look to it since it’s a 1950’s diner!

Right before that, my dad went to pick up my Aunt Mary from the airport and he said there was a huge rainbow in the sky on the way to the airport that night, she said that she even saw it from the plane! Pretty cool, huh? 🙂 We all met up at the restaurant and we had a great time with everyone that night, they all loved their goody bags. 🙂 Afterwards, dad, Kitty, Leah and Aunt Mary came back to our suite and surprised us with a huge, beautiful bouquet of pink & white flowers, a personalized photo frame, cards & our favorite candies, it was so sweet! We all sat around the table and Skyped with Aunt Therese, who wasn’t able to make the trip, and I guess our group got a little loud because security came up to see what was going on! LOL!! So funny… Here’s a pic of everyone at dinner that night, thank you Wes for taking this pic on my dad’s camera! 😉

(iPhone photos below by Erin Hession)

On Thursday 4/11, I woke up at 6 a.m. and had a good laugh because 10 years ago, I was so excited to start the day that I woke up at 4 a.m! Our minister even joked about that during the ceremony 10 years ago. Of course, we were also starting our ceremony 90 minutes later than we did 10 years ago so I guess it’s all relative, right? I wanted to really enjoy that whole day and take it all in. I sat out on our balcony and took a video on my iPhone of our view that morning, it was beautiful! I knew the weather was going to be perfect that day. (iPhone pic by John Wooton)

I started organizing and unloading all of the stuff that we had brought with us. I wanted everything to be as relaxed, organized and stress-free as possible. I started a pile of stuff that needed to go with our wedding planner to be taken to the ceremony & reception sites. I laid out all of the details that were to be photographed or filmed later that day so that no one would have to ask where something was at that was on my shoot list. We ordered room service for breakfast that morning and also ordered a fruit & cheese tray to be brought up for everyone but my Aunt Mary had already called down to room service and paid for our breakfast and the fruit & cheese tray as a surprise for us! 🙂 That was so sweet of her! I set up the wet bar with drinks and snacks for everyone and then we put out all of the delivered food on the desk, we were ready to entertain at that point! 🙂

At noon, Jamie & Hilda (hair & make-up) arrived to start beautifying me and my family came in to hang out with us while we were getting ready. We had so much fun cracking jokes, taking photos and telling stories. I’ll never forget that time that we all spent together that afternoon. Aunt Mary surprised me and gave me her favorite ring to carry with me that day, it has her birth stone in it as well as diamonds from my Grandma Hession’s wedding ring. Dad surprised me and gave me his Notre Dame class graduation ring that I love so much, we pinned both rings on Great Grandma’s hanky and I carried it in my dress that day. (Photos below by Joe Hession, Erin Hession, John Wooton & Jet Kaiser)

At 2:00, my gorgeous pink & green bouquet was delivered to our hotel suite, I LOVED it! Shortly after that, Jet, Dani, Jamie & Lisa all arrived to start photo/video coverage. I hopped in my dress and then we were off to take photos around the hotel. We started with some silhouettes at the big picture window in the lobby that I’ve always loved (see below) and then we went out to the dock to take pics of us in front of the hotel and ocean. It was pretty hot and windy that day so we stopped and grabbed some waters and then headed out to Sanibel for more photos.

We went to the light house first and took pics around there and then went to a special spot at the Sundial Resort, where our family has stayed many times over the years. We’ve taken a lot of family pics at this one particular spot near the pool so we knew we wanted to stop there for photos. I bought some cute props on Etsy which we decided to use at that spot too, it might even be this year’s Christmas card! 🙂 We headed over to Captiva after taking photos on Sanibel. (Captiva is a neighboring island) It was during this ride that I finally started to get nervous! I had never actually seen our ceremony site yet…and I started to think about actually reading my vows in public! Eeek! I’m not much of a public speaker and every time I’d practice, I’d cry! LOL! I knew I didn’t want to mess up my make-up for our post-wedding sunset pics so I was hoping my nerves would at least keep me from crying, which they did, although it was hard. (Teaser photo below taken by Jamie Lee Photography!!)

Becca (our amazing planner) was texting me pics of the flowers and set up at that point so it helped calm some of my fears, she also worked on moving all of the sunbathers out of the way so that we’d have a private ceremony. 😉 When you try to plan something like this from afar, you never know what it’s all going to look like when it’s all put together. She & Wes, our awesome DJ, worked together to decide on the perfect ceremony spot and she even created an aisle of shells for us. Little did she know, she chose my favorite shells that I used to collect when I was a kid during our vacations to the island! I don’t know what they’re actually called but I always called them “glint” because they were these large, long shells that would gleam with rainbow colors in the sun light! I loved it! (iPhone pics below by John Wooton & Erin Hession)

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Anyway, we were excited and nervous at this point, we’d never met our minister and we had a few more details to work out, we had a ton of family pics to do and the wind was picking up, but then we heard a voice on the speaker and I immediately calmed down. Wes was doing his sound check and practicing what he was going to say before everyone got there. Talk about a class act!! John & I just looked at each other in amazement. Yep, we hired all of the right people. 🙂 We met up with our photographers, Jamie & Lisa, and took some pics of the two of us, Jamie showed me one of the pics on the back of her camera and I nearly lost it, right then and there. I’d never seen a better wedding pic of the two of us, EVER. It was gorgeous!! Then I started getting super excited to see all of the photos…already planning canvases for our master bedroom and entire house! LOL! (Check out Jamie’s blog post with more pro photos HERE!) 🙂

We got through the family pics and then headed out to the beach. Wes played fun songs like Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” & Glee’s “Marry You” upon our arrival, which I loved. Everyone loved the welcome table that I worked SO hard on…Becca set up all of this cute stuff that I found online, I bought a “love is sweet” banner for the front of the table and then she flanked the sides of the table with cupcakes and these cute centerpieces made of suckers. We also had a sea shell sign in display where guests could sign in on sea shells instead of a traditional guest book & a sign that said “Sign a shell to wish us well!” In the middle of the table, we had cold bottled waters with our personalized labels on them, then on the other side was a pink & white chevron basket filled with personalized paint brushes and a sign that read, “To wipe the beach from your feet!” 🙂 Everyone loved it! We also had custom program fans & monogrammed Kleenex packs, it was really cute. (iPhone pics by John Wooton, the welcome table was still in the process of being set up but you get the idea) 😉

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(Photos below taken by Becca Smith, Jet Kaiser & Dani Kaiser)

At 7:00, dad & I stood at the sea shell path, about ready to walk down the aisle when all of the sudden, I looked up and saw a rainbow to the left of the minister. I couldn’t believe my eyes!!! This happened as Wes began to play our song, “Con Te Partiro” for the processional. (The Emile Pandolfi instrumental version) I should probably back up a bit though…in 2007, my dad & I went to WPPI in Vegas together and I first heard that song in front of the Bellagio, it was beautiful! I found out that song was one of my grandma’s favorites and that trip was one of those career filled life changing trips, so that song has always stuck with me and it’s now the main theme song on our website. Plus, rainbows have always had a special significance to me, my Grandma Hession passed away when I was a senior in high school and after her funeral, I saw a rainbow. Something similar happened after my Grandma Parr’s funeral and Gramdad’s funeral, so to see that (especially so soon after Great Grandma’s funeral last week) was super special. It was kind of like my other side of the family was saying they were there too, which was pretty cool.

I remember trying not to cry during the entire walk, I think I was looking down during most of it because I felt like if I kept looking at the rainbow, I’d totally lose it. Then I remembered there were cameras all over and maybe I should look up at John at least! HA! I saw 2 pics that my sister took with her camera and I was looking down in both of them. Ugh! Oh well. Just as I finally collected myself, my nervousness returned, thinking about having to speak in public again. I felt like a hot mess. I couldn’t remember if my vows were first or if John’s were first, then I looked up and over the minister’s OTHER shoulder was ANOTHER rainbow!! Again, I was in shock but happy because there wasn’t a rain cloud nearby but my family was there in spirit, for sure. I remember looking at John and trying to tell him about the rainbows during the ceremony, I kept telling him to look to his right but he just smiled at me the whole time. I’m hoping that the rainbows showed up in some of the photos and video!

Finally, it came time for the vows and it was emotionally overwhelming but John went first. I remember bits and pieces but it was kind of a blur, I was so nervous! Of course, his vows were typed out on an iPad and mine were typed out on paper, which is so “us”. 🙂 I remember thinking how sweet his vows were and I loved how he incorporated some humor into his vows because I did too, which eventually made me less nervous. I had him re-read his vows to me later that night and they were super sweet. I can’t wait to see it again on video! I read my vows to him and made it through without crying (whew) and everyone got a good laugh that I incorporated some Big Bang Theory humor into it as well as Buddy’s flappers. (Our adorable golden retriever has huge cute cheeks that we call his flappers) 🙂 (Photos below by Joe, Kitty or Leah Hession)

The sun began to set and my nerves calmed down once the actual vows were over, John loved what I wrote and that was all that mattered. We kissed and I remember thinking I needed to hold it for the photos. I’m such a dork! LOL John’s one request in all of the music selections was that Wes would play Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” for our recessional song – not kidding!! So we walked back up the aisle and I remember talking to him about the 2 rainbows and laughing about our vows and everything that had just happened. It truly could not have been more perfect. It felt more like a Hollywood movie than a real wedding! LOL!

We worked on my train & bustle (which I kept stepping on since we were on a slight hill at the beach) and then it was time for our dances. We chose to do our first dance and father/daughter dance on the beach at sunset because our reception venue was pretty small. Wes played Edwin McCain’s “I Could Not Ask for More” which was our wedding song from 10 years ago, and it’s also engraved inside both of our wedding bands. After that, he played Louie Armstrong’s “Wonderful World” for my dance with dad, which was the same song that we chose 10 years ago too.

After that, we took more sunset photos on the beach in a much more relaxed atmosphere. I just remember looking around and trying to take it all in and enjoying the music and photo taking process. Wes played more favorite songs of ours, “We are Man & Wife” by Michelle Featherstone, “A Thousand Years” & “In Your Eyes” both Glee versions and “My Wish” by Rascal Flatts, during this time. Every time I hear any of those songs now, I feel like I’m instantly transported back to this night, music is such a powerful tool to create the perfect mood and event and I’m really glad that we hired Wes to come down there with us to emcee the event and play all of these selections at just the perfect time. I think our event was really special for him too, he even said, “this is one I’ll take with me to the grave”. Love that. 🙂 (Photos by Joe, Kitty or Leah Hession & John Wooton)

After all of that, the minister had all of us pick up a shell and then all at the same time, our guests were to wish blessings upon us and throw the shell into the ocean. It was a really sweet moment. 🙂 He had us throw our shells together, after everyone else threw theirs. During this time, Wes played another favorite song of ours, Blake Shelton’s “God Gave Me You” and I’ll never forget this moment. Right after we threw our shells, I started to walk back up the beach and everyone said, “oh my gosh, there’s dolphins!” NO WAY! 🙂 I turned around and sure enough, 3 dolphins were close to the shore. Aunt Mary wrapped her arm around me and we stood there watching the dolphins and listening to the music, it was truly the perfect ending to our ceremony site events. My sister looked at me and said, “Geez, you had rainbows and sunsets and dolphins at your wedding! It was like a Lisa Frank sticker!” HAHAHA! 🙂

After that we headed over to the Bubble Room and took some group pics out front and then went inside for dinner. Dad gave a super sweet toast, we enjoyed our yummy dinner and then packed up desserts to go. (The restaurant stayed open late for us) Jamie & Lisa took us outside for some sparkler photos and then we headed back inside to thank everyone and start loading up the cars. We had SUCH an amazingly perfect day. We got back to our suite that night and my head was hurting from those hair extensions (brides, take some Advil if you aren’t used to wearing them!) 😉 and John’s feet were hurting from his new shoes that he didn’t break in ahead of time so we literally sat on the bed and he took out my extensions while I rubbed his feet. Talk about good teamwork! LOL! (iPhone pics below by Erin Hession & John Wooton)

On Friday, all of our Indy vendors headed back home. We had a Skype date that day with my other sister, Mary, who is currently studying in Russia. She wasn’t able to make it obviously but we had a good time catching up! We all went to Trader’s for dinner together on Friday night, which is another favorite restaurant, then everyone started packing up to leave. 🙁 Half of the family left Saturday and the other half left on Sunday. Leah & I did some sister bonding time together on Saturday, we shopped so much that day that we needed a luggage cart to carry it all back to our rooms! LOL Later that night, we had a pizza party in our suite and then we all went out for drinks at the Sanibel Steakhouse. They serve a “Sanibel Sunset” drink that is a family favorite, so needless to say, I was the designated driver that night. 😉 (iPhone pics below by Erin Hession)

John & I had a few days to ourselves after the excitement was over. We spent the last few days sleeping in, shopping, taking pics, watching amazing sunsets together and reliving all of these memories and stories. On Monday evening, we went back to our ceremony site and had a really sweet moment together on the beach at sunset. We decided that will forever be “our spot” now. 🙂 It was weird being back there without everything set up for the ceremony and even more weird that no one was with us after an exciting couple of days together! The good news is that the “glint” shells were still somewhat there and we even found one that Jet & Dani opened up and used as a heart for a photo/video shot. Needless to say, that one came home with us that night!

We hit up Doc Ford’s on the way back to the resort and then started planning for our photo shoot the next day. We had a portrait shoot included in our photo package so on Tuesday, we met up with Jamie & Jamie again (hair & make-up and photographer) to get beautified and take some cute pics in regular clothes too. We went back to Cheeburger, the Bubble Room & our spot on Captiva Beach to capture some more great shots! The dolphins even made another appearance for us during our photo shoot again! (iPhone pics below by Erin Hession)

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Thank you so much to all of our family and vendor friends who made our event so special!! We love you all & can’t wait to do something super special again in another 10 years! 🙂

(Photos below by Joe, Kitty or Leah Hession)