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Everything looks fabulous! Great job

Check out Bill Mortley his prices are affordable and the quality of pictures are awesome!

Love it! You two look awesome

They look fantastic! You did a great job on them If shell bouquets are not feasible, think about doing a real touch bouquet with shell accents

I agree with Kristy! St. Lucia is an amazing place and you will not regret your decision one bit! I went the resort route so if you have any questions let me know

They look awesome! I love the bling you put on there, they give it a little extra pop Great job!

Gorgeous dress and I think the trumpet-shaped bottom is going to look fantastic! As far as the running of the brides, you are braver than most (especially me) but it worked out because you got a beautiful dress at a great price! That is adorable that your fiance came with you and grabbed a bunch of dresses for you

Wow! That is a HOT MESS! Thanks for sharing goNDmay9! As far as Kandi, I'm reserving judgment. She seems really down to earth which is a stark contrast from her lunatic cast mates! Is it me or Nene trying to play peacemaker this season?

Yay I have been watching this thread and seeing everyone's amazing pictures and I finally have something to contribute I Love this pic because it was one of our last and I was getting pushed and pulled by ocean and I we could do was laugh! Getting to see B for the first time

Congrats and welcome!

Absolutely gorgeous! Great choice on the flowers!

TCIBride, Those shoes are HOT! Very cute!

Aimee, It's so hard to find the perfect pink shoes! They're usually cute and there's the one thing that tackies it up luckily for me the strap was removable

So this was pieced together from everyone's amazing scripts and it was such an emotional and special day! We tried to make it as interactive as possible for everyone at the wedding with the sand and shell ceremony Opening This beautiful setting should remind us that, like the ocean, human life is an ebb and flow- The life of the spirit and emotions- moves in cycles. To be in a relationship does not guarantee an eternal summer. To make a sincere and honest commitment does not promise, an end to all struggle. What a good relationship does offer, much like this ocean, is the opportunity for renewal. It recognizes the abiding, shared hope that after every fall and winter, spring and summer will come again. On behalf of Branden and Shivani, I welcome you and thank you all for gathering here on this beautiful day to witness their marriage ceremony. The fact that you all have traveled such a great distance to be here today is a testament to the amazing amount of love and support they have. Many of you have given them much happiness, love, warmth, and guidance through the various stages of their lives. They would like to sincerely thank you all for being here to celebrate their big day. A special and respectful acknowledgement must also be made to those friends and family members who were unable to attend, or have passed on, but whose spirit remains alive and strong in all our hearts. I have also been asked by Branden and Shivani to thank their parents for the wonderful lives they have given them, for the hard work and guidance they have provided, for their everlasting love, support, and encouragement. It is from them that they have learned the true meaning of love, friendship and family. Ceremony For Branden and Shivani marriage is an affirmation of life, an undying commitment, a spiritual, emotional, and intellectual bond between two people. It is created from the purest of friendship, respect and love. The institution of marriage is not entered into lightly, because it symbolizes commitment on every level. Together you will continue to meet the challenges and obstacles of life head on. Marriage is an adventure in the most intimate of human relationships. It is the mutual commitment of two people sincerely in love who share the same dreams about life. But more than that, it is the intimate sharing of two lives. It is a sharing that does not diminish but enhances the individuality of each partner. The marriage between Branden and Shivani does not mark the beginning of a new relationship; rather, it is an acknowledgement and celebration, of a relationship that has been flourishing since they met. For Branden and Shivani, love is the longing two people feel for one another. It is the need to share, in body and spirit, the warmth, serenity and peace two people can give to one another. A simple touch, a hand held at a time of uncertainty. This is what it means to be intimately human. It is the intention behind the kiss that says, “ Despite the vastness of this earth, despite the chaotic details that make up our lives, despite the hundreds of people we will meet in our travels, you are mine and I am yours forever.” Love is life’s highest emotion. It makes us less selfish, it makes our personalities grow, and it makes our lives more meaningful. It is caring about the welfare and happiness of your partner as your own. Love makes burdens lighter because you divide them. It makes joys more intense because you share them. And it makes you stronger so you can reach out and become involved with life in ways you dared not risk alone. A successful relationship takes more than just love. It takes trust, to know in your hearts that you want only the best for each other. It takes dedication, to stay open to one another, to learn and grow, even when it is difficult to do so. And it takes faith, to go forward together without knowing what the future holds for you both. You have chosen to walk through life together. There is no truer statement of love. The choice was not made by any one moment, but by being together you grew to realize that you belonged together and that you fulfilled each other’s needs. You have come to thrive upon each other’s presence, loyalty and wisdom. The foundation of your love is profound friendship. A friendship you have nurtured until at last you realized that you wanted to be together always. The commitment you make today will be the foundation on which you will build your life together. HAND CEREMONY As an expression that you are joined together in love - will you please hold up your hands and hold one another, so you may feel the gift that you are to each other. These are the hands of your best friend, young and strong and full of love for you, that are holding yours on your wedding day as you promise to love each other today, tomorrow, and always. These are the hands that will work alongside yours as together you build your future. These are the hands that will passionately love you and cherish you through the years, and with the slightest touch, will comfort you like no other. These are the hands that will hold you when fear or grief fills your mind. These are the hands that will wipe the tears from your eyes; tears of sorrow and tears of joy. These are the hands that will give you strength when you need it. These are the hands that will tenderly hold your children. These are the hands that will help you to hold your family as one. And lastly, these are the hands that even when wrinkled and aged will still be reaching for yours, still giving you the same unspoken tenderness with just a touch. VOWS Your wedding rings represent the unconditional love that you have for one another and are a symbol of the vows that you will make today. Branden, take this ring, put it on Shivani's finger and repeat after me: I, Branden, take you, Shivani, to be my wife, my partner in life and my one true love. May you feel deeply loved, for indeed you are. With this ring, I give you my heart. I have no greater gift to give. I will trust you and respect you, I will laugh with you and cry with you. With this ring, I pledge my life and my love to you I will cherish our friendship and love you today, tomorrow, and always. Shivani, take this ring, put it on Branden's finger and repeat after me: I, Shivani, take you, Branden, to be my husband, my partner in life and my one true love. May you feel deeply loved, for indeed you are. With this ring, I give you my heart. I have no greater gift to give. I will trust you and respect you, I will laugh with you and cry with you. With this ring, I pledge my life and my love to you I will cherish our friendship and love you today, tomorrow, and always. Sand Ceremony "Branden and Shivani, today you join your separate lives together. The two separate bottles of sand symbolize your separate lives, separate families and separate sets of friends. They represent all that you are and all that you'll ever be as an individual. They also represent your lives before today. From these two families a new family will be created today. At this time, I would invite everyone to come forward and pour their individual vials of sand. As these containers of sand are poured into the container, the individual containers of sand will no longer exist, but will be joined together as one. Two families have now become one. Just as these grains of sand can never be separated and poured again into the individual containers, so will your family be” Closing: Branden & Shivani, remember to treat both yourself and each other with respect, and remind yourselves often of what brought you together. Give the highest priority to the tenderness, gentleness and kindness that your connection deserves. When frustration, difficulty or fear assail your relationship – as they threatened all relationships at one time or another – remember to focus on what is right between you. In this way, you can ride out the times when clouds hide the face of the sun in your lives – remembering that even if you lose sight of it for a moment, the sun is still there. And if each of you takes responsibility for the quality of your lives together, your life together will be marked by abundance and delight. Give to one another new experiences of joy. Challenge one another so that you may grow. May the love you hold for each other, now sealed in marriage, continue to mature with the passing years. May you never take each other for granted, but always experience the wonder of your union. Be slow to anger, quick to forgive, leaving no tracks of resentment behind each day. We who are present today, hope that the inspiration of this moment will never be forgotten. May all your days and years to come be filled with vision, joy and passion. May the love you now share continue to grow, and may the happiness you bring to each other be a continuing part of your life together. May you continue to laugh often and enjoy each other every day, steadfast in hope and confidence, believing in yourself and believing in each other. May your love be a sanctuary and a source from which you draw strength to live your lives with enthusiasm and imagination. May the people you touch in your lifetime know how much you love and care for one another and may you love one another forever. With friends and family, along with the sun, the moon, and the sea, I have the pleasure of announcing you as husband and wife. You may now kiss the bride! Shell Ceremony Branden and Shivani ask that in your mind and heart You say a prayer for them. At the end of the ceremony, We will all walk down to the beach And cast our sea shells into the ocean. You, your prayers, and Branden & Shivani Will now and forever be a part of the ocean. As the ripples touch and intertwine with one another, May our love also touch and intertwine To spread love and good wishes to all around us! May God Bless us all!

Keila, Those Kate Spade shoes are gorgeous!

These were my pink shoes they had a strap that wrapped around the top but I think they looked better without them

Congrats and welcome! I know the budget side of wedding planning can be stressful but I promise in the end it is totally worth it

Kristy, Trust me as soon as we got back my husband and I have been plotting and planning how we're going to get back as soon as possible~ Hooray for JetBlue

Congrats and welcome Allison! I hear the DR is amazing Good luck planning!

Congrats! Everything looked beautiful and your cake topper was so adorable! I'm glad you had a great time and congrats again Mrs.!

Thanks everyone! It felt a little cathartic to write this review and thanks for the info Maureen!

Photography- Bill Mortley Photography- A+++++++++++ (if there was anything higher I would give it to him) I LOVE LOVE LOVE Bill! He was truly amazing! I booked him before I was ever aware that resort would not let him on the premises (they changed their policy after we had booked) and when I found out about it he calmed me down from a small meltdown. He offered to do whatever he could to help and even offered to refund me the deposit to avoid conflict. I am so glad that I stuck with him. He was incredibly professional, flexible, economical accommodating and the quality of his pictures were amazing! We agreed to meet off site for formal pictures and I chose Pigeon Island because I heard the backdrop was beautiful. Well little did I know there was a photography fee but Bill paid for it because he thought we had been through so much already. He met us after the wedding an took us to a private beach for more incredible and fun pictures. The next day he picked up my DH and I and not only gave us a tour of the island he took more amazing pictures as well as did a free trash the dress shoot! Two days later he brought us a slideshow of all the images as well as a DVD of over 500 images. He would not take any money from us because he claimed that we had been through so much. He then took us around St. Lucia again and showed us more amazing places. He was the nicest, most friendly, amazing person I have had the pleasure of meeting. Beyond that the quality of his work was insanely good! I would highly recommend any St. Lucian bride to seriously consider Bill Mortley. So this is my review the good the bad and the ugly and despite a few speed bumps we all had a blast and I would do it all again in a heartbeat! I loved everything about St. Lucia especially the people and anyone who is considering it as a destination should definitely go, you will not regret it! If anyone has any questions, feel free to PM me I am happy to help in any way I can!

Sunset from our Balcony View from the Palms Restaurant Wedding/ Wedding Coordinator- F Jessica was our wedding coordinator and she was pretty much ineffective. She did not respond to emails very promptly if at all, for important issues we had to email her boss who would respond in about a week. Due to her lack of communication, I did most of the planning on my own and brought my own decor and arranged my own photographer. To me, it seemed like Jessica treated our wedding as an obligation as opposed to her job and did not seem to care that it was a special day for us. She even lied to us when we asked her about our photographer taking pictures on the beach. Apparently in an attempt to deter couples from using any other photographer, they tell you that photographers are not allowed on the beach even though the beaches are public property. Our meeting with her lasted maybe 10 minutes at the most and most of that time she tried to make the things we had already paid for seem like she was doing us a favor. All in all our wedding day was special but no thanks to Jessica. Wedding Gazebo Continued...

So I need to preface this review with the fact that my husband and I are not particularly picky people and are pretty flexible when it comes to travel however some of the vendors we encountered were not professional at all. Please don't think we are people who look for problems because generally we are very easy-going. Travel Agent- Resortvacationstogo.com - F (worse if it were possible) We used resortvacationstogo.com and thought we had found a great deal however we had problems from the beginning. Tod our travel agent was neither helpful nor useful. One of our connecting flights was canceled and we were assured that the company would either get us another flight or reserve an earlier flight and comp the hotel rooms. Well, they did neither and tried to pass on the costs of the hotel room to us stating that it was American's fault and since American refused to pay for the rooms, we would have to. Shirking responsibility seemed to be a huge trend with this company. For me, irrespective of who was responsible, since they were our travel agents they should have taken care of the problem with American and not have involved us at all. Since we had travel insurance we even threatened to cancel all of our reservations but they did not care, they were willing to lose 11 clients over a few hundred dollars! Well I had to get on the American Airlines website pick out the flights we needed to get there on the original date and tell Tod to book them. It took three weeks for Tod to get an actual confirmation. Our friends booked through another agent who had their confirmation within hours. We constantly had to call/email to get anything done with Tod. We only received our travel package two days before we left! The coup de grace was that we never received our hotel transfers so we had to pay out of pocket for our transfers on our way in (it was four dollars per person which was not a big deal) HOWEVER the transfers out were approximately $40 per person and there were 11 of us so we did everything we could (called/emailed) while in St. Lucia to get a hold of Tod. Apparently Tod was on vacation the entire time we were there (as well as the two weeks before we left) so he never ever responded to us (not even after we got back!) I called everyday from my cellphone (yikes for international cellphone rates) only to be put on hold for 20-30 minutes everytime. I even called ON MY WEDDING DAY only to be yelled at! Call me sensitive but when your company has not done its job and refuses to accept responsibility for their error, I have a right to be upset! While Stuart was an arrogant ass and MADE ME CRY ON MY WEDDING DAY, he got the job done and was the only effective person there. The entire company was absolutely unprofessional and refused to acknowledge their mistakes! My family will NEVER use their company again and I would recommend that anyone considering using them, pay the little extra to avoid the drama! Flowers- Danielle (Etsy Seller jdleggans) A+ I found Danielle on Etsy and sent her a picture of what I wanted and she ran with it and made my gorgeous bouquet! She even added the adorable butterflies to my bouquet on her own. I got so many compliments on my flowers all thanks to Danielle! Also, her prices were incredible! For my bouquet, four bridesmaid bouquets, four boutonnieres and two corsages and shipping, I paid a little more than $200! (score) Flight-American Airlines- B The flights there were smooth and they allowed me to hang my dress up in the closet so there were no complaints. The agent who checked us in on our way actually had been to St. Lucia and did not charge us for the excess bag which I was grateful for. We flew into St. Lucia on a prop plane which was a little scary but we made it and were so glad we did not have to deal with customs at the international airport. On our way back our flight from Miami was delayed for about an hour and then they found foreign materials in the engine and had to clean it out while we sat on the runway kinda inconvenient but not a big deal since we made it home ok. A picture of the prop plane we came in on Hotel- Almond Morgan Bay- B+ The hotel was nice and upon check in after all the drama of the transfers, all we wanted to do was get some food. Well the kitchen was closed but they were nice enough to make some sandwiches for us which held us over. The hotel itself was nice, the grounds were huge and the well taken care of. The staff was phenomenal they went out of their way to get you what you needed. I have to say I was incredibly nervous about the resort because of the mixed reviews I had read on tripadvisor but there really was not anything to worry about. The food was fantastic, it was a la carte for lunch and dinner and you had to make reservations at the restaurant, it wasn't an issue and every restaurant was willing to accommodate our party. The food was fantastic, we mostly stuck with fish dishes, which were amazing and we all fell in love with BBC cocktails (bananas, bailey & coconut). The only issue I had with the resort was that our phone did not work for the first three days which was problematic because we were unable to get a hold of our guests who did not stay at the resort or the wedding coordinator. However we managed to get a hold of everyone even with the broken phone. Also, the resort has attempted to ban all third party vendors which I am not a fan of because I am big on supporting local vendors and two of our best experiences were with local St. Lucians. Joy's Boat Tour- A+++++ This was probably highlight of our trip. When we mentioned to our rep that we planned on taking the tour she tried to deter us by telling us that we would not get to see certain sights and they were not insured (not true). For $80 a person, we got to see so many sights and were fed an authentic St. Lucian meal which was the best food we ate the entire time! Joy's mom even made us a cake congratulating us on our wedding which was completely thoughtful and unexpected! We were picked up by a speedboat and taken to lunch and then rode the boat over to Soufriere, where we were taken to the drive-in volcano and the Touraille waterfalls which was incredibly refreshing (and apparently swimming in it makes you look five years younger). After that we taken to Jalousie Beach which is in between the Pitons where we got to snorkel. It was a fantastic day and well worth the value The Cake they made us The Waterfall Fam on the boat with the Pitons in the background Continued...

LOVE me some Real Housewives Housewives of Atlanta! Sheree was too funny but I love Nene & Dwight the best Cannot wait for the throwdown between Kim and Sheree!