This years attendees were: Christine and Andy from Bello Photography, John and Kim from Sanderson Images, Justin and Mary from Justin Marantz Photography, Laura and Paul from Laura Eaton Photography, and Paul and Krystal from Studio Foto.

Enna and I want to say how honored we are to have such great friends, and how fortunate we feel to be able to get away with you all for those 4 nights that go by way way too fast. ~ Thank you all for coming.

The above image is the entire gang hot tubing it on our second night. Larry and Tabitha Sherrell came to spend the day but had to get home to be with their beautiful baby girl.

Here is Jackson and I at the top of an overlook we hiked to in snow shoes with a small group.

There were many things that happened in those 4 days:) Too many to talk about here. There is a video floating around somewhere of the guys racing out of the hot tub up the hill of snow and tumbling back down the hill into the tub only to discover we had cut up our legs running through the ice crusted snow! OUCH!!!! The big joke from that point on was not to listen to any of my ideas:) Our favorite part of the trip is always the last night, when after enjoying some great wine and a great meal – the tunes get cranking, a little dance party erupts and the cameras finally come out for some crazy fun portraits.

These are all images I shot at our “Last Night Soirée”

My toughest model of the night was my best friend Jackson. Sit Jackson! Sit!

We may post more later as other images emerge:) I know John has some fun portraits from the last night that he did with unique lighting style that are going to be awesome:) Here is a cool shot by Laura of the coffee mugs Enna and I made for everyone:

Ashley and Jamie’s destination of choice for their beautiful wedding was Anguilla. The ceremony was held at a beautiful small stone church on the island and the reception was at Cap Juluca. Ashley and Jamie truly are two of the nicest and most considerate people we have ever met – the amount of effort and thought they put into making the journey easy for their guests was amazing. The weekend’s events included a welcoming cocktail party, a beach barbecue at the Cuisinart Resort, sailing, croquet, tennis matches, yoga, beach fun, a rehearsal dinner at the cozy and wonderful Blanchards restaurant, and a “thank you for coming” departure brunch at Geraud’s bakery (side note: Geraud makes absolutely to die for coconut croissants… out of this world)… and oh yeah, a totally gorgeous wedding reception at Cap Juluca.

Since we were there for a week we took a lot of photos… and I mean a ton! Trying to decide on what we would share on the blog was tough. Our original selection was about 100 photos:) Could you imagine how long that post would be! So after a long time sitting here posting and re-posting trying to keep the length of this reasonable, here are some of our favorites from the wedding….

Cap Juluca from the water

Jamie surprised his groomsmen by taking them out for an incredible sail around the island

Ashley’s dance partner Matthew led a yoga class on the beach

Here is Ashley and Matthew showing off and goofing around with some dance moves on the beach

The Moroccan architecture at Cap Juluca was beautiful

Jamie and Ashley’s father getting ready

We absolutely love this moment caught: Ashley’s father helping her with her train and giving her a kiss just before they walked down the aisle

Ashley and Jamie exiting the church

The happily married couple

This is the setting for the reception dinner. Nothing short of breathtaking.

Jamie and Ashley had a very fun first dance

Loved the fireworks!

The following images are from our amazing Day After shoot with Ashley and Jamie (and Elysium Productions).

Enna snapped this cool “behind the scenes” shot

Congratulations Ashley and Jamie – and thank you for including us in your very special wedding!

~~~

Here’s our Anguilla Team:

We also can’t neglect to mention how wonderful it was to work (again) with Alexis and her husband Brian of Unique Weddings by Alexis (working hard in this photo) and Alex and Julie of Elysium Productions. There was a lot of other talent working behind the scenes to make this wedding a gorgeous success, we’re just so impressed at how perfect everything was. Here’s the team from left to right:

Peter, Julie and Alex from Elysum Productions, ourselves – Matt & Enna, Alexis and Brian

Penelope is a total sweetie:

Her dad is a VERY entertaining fellow…

Look at how in love this momma is

Do you think Penelope likes the camera?

Eventually Penelope grew tired of me and my camera:

My son Ollie twists his hair when he’s tired – he’s always done this. I love looking for similar habits in other babies. I’ll bet good money that this gesture follows Penelope as she grows older, and she might even still do it when she’s an old woman.

She needed a few pictures for a magazine article about Style Me Pretty, so we did a few shots of her hard at work.

Abby has the CUTEST baby girl, shown here in her supervisory capacity:

And her husband Tate (who works at SMP too) is a total sweetheart too, just like Abby! I absolutely love their his and hers desks made from reclaimed wood. It was really cool to learn that Abby’s mom also works for Style Me Pretty – she’s one of their fabulous writers…. so it’s a complete family affair!

Thanks Abby – you’re the greatest!!!

Claudia getting ready surrounded by her friends

Showing off her dress for her friends before leaving the hotel

I love this shot of Claudia entering the mansion

Claudia and Justin exchanged gifts before the ceremony. She gave him very cool cuff links made from watch parts, and he gave her beautiful pearls

Justin looking sharp

The happy couple just before the ceremony

After the ceremony they snuck upstairs for a little alone time and let me snap a few shots of them

At midnight they rang in the new year from the balcony overlooking the ballroom

Thank you Claudia and Justin for inviting me to be such a part of your wedding! I can’t wait to catch up and make your album:)

~Matt

Not being much of a cook I picked up several cake mixes while shopping at BJ’s last night. The only problem with shopping at BJ’s is that you can’t buy just one mix of each, they come in six-packs. So i bought a six-pack of cake mixes: three yellow, three chocolate.

10 a.m. Game Day: cake plan goes into effect. With Enna gone and the three of us home alone, we break out the mixing bowls, eggs, and oil… not a good combo;) if you consider that two of the bakers are under 5 years old.

Everything seemed to go well for the first two cakes (I was only going to make two). The mess was contained, the silly putty did not make it into the batter, and 30 minutes later I pulled the cakes out only to discover I had reversed the oil/water ratios… Oops.

2nd down, ten yards to go…

I clean out the mixing bowls, found another set of cake pans, and got started. At this point in the morning (11 a.m.) the younger bakers are suffering a serious case of cabin fever, so I was constantly saying things like “Ollie, keep your hands out of the bowls.” “Will, do not stick your head in there,” “Hey guys, playdough does not taste good.” With that last quote you can guess that my offensive line did not protect the batter.

3rd down, STILL ten yards to go…

After dumping the 2nd batch of two mixes down the sink disposal and cleaning everything I realized it was a good thing I had to buy six boxes of mix. This time I got organized. I made sure I had all my measurements right, barricaded the bowls from the play dough, and ensured no little fingers or faces could be dipped into the batter. There was only one problem: I needed six eggs but I only had three. I called Enna to see if she could make an emergency store run on her way home. She asked me “have you already mixed the batter without the eggs?” (“… yup.”) and promptly told me to run and ask the neighbors for eggs as the batter would not last. In my pj’s I dashed around the neighborhood knocking on doors but alas no one was home.

This is what makes Superbowl Sunday so great, having to make a tough call. I realized I can only bake one cake. So… do I bake a cake for the Cardinals or the Steelers?

I grew up loving three teams: the Pats, the Cowboys and the Steelers. The past decade with the Pats has been, and I know will continue to be, amazing. The legendary “snowbowl” between the Pats and the Steelers was a turning point for our local franchise and I found it fun to watch the Steelers suffer under a controversial play. We did deserve the win, as I don’t believe that one play alone wins the game (although some single great plays have “won” games, if you know what I mean… that’s a tough thing to write after last year’s “helmet catch”).

The Cardinals haven’t won a Superbowl yet. That should be reason alone to cheer for them. BUT… They did lay down for the Pats this year when they came to Foxboro. I must admit that I was shocked at how poorly they played and was pretty upset that they made it to the playoffs after witnessing that performance. Now they are in the Superbowl?

So the three eggs went to the Steelers:) When it snowed hard in Foxboro they played hard, very hard. And our Patriots had one of the greatest wins in franchise history. Between these two games and the fact that I loved Mean Joe Green, I put the yellow cake down the drain and let the chocolate win:) Since it was three eggs, maybe this means the Steelers win by three? I’d love to see a close game.

Now… how to make frosting?

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First of all, this was the view from our little apartment at Turtle’s Nest Beach Resort.

The view didn’t change much, but we photographed it repeatedly.

Here is our resort viewed from down the beach… notice how many people are on this beach?

Here is the inside of where we stayed. Turtles Nest Beach Resort was a perfect base for us – central to all of the wedding festivities, immediately on the beach, daily housecleaning and lots of beach towels, and lots and lots of peace and quiet. I highly recommend it.

A neighboring resort:

We spent as much time as possible exploring the island. Here’s Matt in our sporty jeep – don’t worry, he didn’t shoot the wedding with that camera.

Traffic signs on the island are a little different, but fairly self-explanatory:

I took the following pictures on my “location scout” tour around the island… guess which spot we went back to for a “day after” shoot with the bride and groom?

There are lots of domestic farm animals on Anguilla – chickens, goats, cows, donkeys, and dogs. We didn’t see any wildlife, except for many different kinds of water birds.

As we were driving Matt saw a desperate lady with a baby waving at cars for a ride. So he decided to pull over and help (because she really did look like she was having an emergency) only to be suckered into giving a ride for her whole family that was hiding behind the street sign awaiting such fools:) So they all piled in and we ended up driving them to do one small errand before dropping them off. Here we all are packed into the tiny jeep.

On our first day we checked out a couple of the locations for the wedding weekend. The Moroccan-themed architecture of Cap Juluca, beautiful rocks and beach, and dramatic sky let us know that we were in for a really beautiful wedding.

This is the inside of Pimms, the restaurant where the wedding reception was held.

After the wedding weekend we decided to treat ourselves and stay one extra day for a little r & r before returning to cold cold Boston. This meant that we got to watch Barack Obama’s inauguration from Anguilla, and we chose a rustic beach bar for our inauguration base. Anguillians are probably 99.999% pro-Obama, so it was really exciting to watch the inauguration with them.

In the back of this crowd is a man wearing a Boston Red Sox cap. Matt later put on his B cap and introduced himself:) As Matt suspected, Robert is from the Boston area and we ended up having a nice long conversation on the beach. He’s already emailed asking us when we’d blog these shots:) (Hi Robert!)

(the bartender is pointing to her goose bumps)

We’re culling through the thousands of images we captured while on the island… stay tuned for more soon!

Massachusetts is willing to grant businesses half of the price – to a
maximum of $20,000 per vehicle – to acquire a plug-in hybrid. In other
words, they will give you money if you buy plug-in cars for your company. To
get this free money, apply by February 13 2009. Here is a link to detailed
information:

http://www.mass.gov/Eoeea/docs/doer/pub_info/cc-plugin-pon-12-12-08.pdf

If you need an accountant, John is the best:) He works for a lot of artists!