Lara & Chris

Here’s my little sister & my brother-in-law! We look nothing alike right?! Everyone says we look like twins..we don’t see it…AT ALL! Lara had been asking me to do some pics for awhile of them to send to Chris’ grandma. Wellllll, you know how it goes being a photographer…too busy, don’t have time to shoot family..yada yada yada! The last time I shot their pics was when I was first starting out testing the waters to see if I even wanted to shoot people & shot her wedding in St. Thomas! She was supposed to have gotten married in the Cayman Islands. Well a little hurricane called Wilma that October of 2005 had other plans for us. We were going on a cruise to the Western Carribean, very late October & hittin’ up Jamaica, Cayman Islands & Mexico…Christmas present to the four of us from my Daddy…we thought all would be well. WRONG! So very wrong! Hurricane Wilma popped up out of nowhere late into the season & headed straight for our leaving port..Miami. We didn’t know until 2 days before getting ready to drive down there that they rerouted our trip at last minute…hence ruining my sister’s wedding plans. But all was well…big sister came to the rescue while she crumbled & stressed about what they were going to do. A reception was already planned for them when the four of us got back.

We found out we were going to Puer-toooooo Ricooooooooo (imagine that in a Spanish voice, very exaggerated…bet you can’t get it out of your head now! :D), St. Maarten (my little personal Heaven on Earth) & St. Thomas (wamp wamp…still too much like USA). So I got on the web & started figuring out the rules & regulations for getting married on each island & how fast it could be done! Puerto Rico…big fat NO…have to have all sorts of crazy tests done (HIV, STDs, rabies…kidding on the last one…although it wouldn’t surprise me), a Spanish translator, & I can’t remember all what else but it was insane. Moving on to St. Maarten…I think they wanted them to have been on the island a minimum of 14 days or so & wouldn’t expedite paperwork. That left St. Thomas…they too wanted you to be on the island a certain number of days. They told us we’d have to come to the courthouse & *see* if they would *maybe* allow the paperwork to be expedited. Sigh…so we hopped on the boat, her with her wedding dress & he with his tux & a prayer in the back pocket.

I had also found them a minister who could legally marry them. He was going to pick us up at 7am that morning when we docked & take us to the courthouse. Throw in major kink right about NOW…we didn’t know when we left St. Maarten the day before & would be traveling back into US territory that’d we’d have to go through customs…we had to be up & in line by 6am to get checked out & hopefully hurry off the boat. We got in line at 5:30am & the line.did.not.move.for.an.hour. OMG…my sister ran out of line, found a phone, paid like $40 for a 3 minute phone call to the preacher to see if he could get us later that day instead. He was a God send! We didn’t get out of customs & off the boat till about 7:30am….absolutely zero time for her to have gotten her hair & makeup done! So off she went to the salon & off I went to explore the island! And they got married later that afternoon (yes the courthouse lady was very nice & expedited the paperwork…cost $100 extra), right before a HUGE rainstorm hit, & now live happily ever after!

And they managed to go trade in her engagement ring/wedding ring they had already bought in the states for a blue diamond engagement ring with diamonds & a diamond studded wedding band…gorgeous! Paid like barely $3000 grand for it…got it appraised when she got back…worth $10,000 in states! I highly suggest buying jewelry over seas! Tax free, duty free! Side note: I was going to buy a diamond encrusted Movado watch while in St. Maarten…best the jewelry store could sell it to me for was $1600. I couldn’t justify spending that amount on a watch back then…so I came home without it. Got Bo’s sister to find it for me (she worked at a jewelry store) when I got back home…$6000 in the States! I kick myself to this day for not getting it!

And by the way…the lady who rode in the bucket cart to the top of the island with me & Bo…you have still said one of the absolute stupidest things I’ve heard yet & I will never forget it! As we were coming back down from the top of the island in one of those rickety bucket carts, the lady beside us proceeds to turn to her husband and ask “Honey, I wonder what they do in the winter time when it snows here with all the hills?” OMG…REALLY, did that REALLY just come out of your mouth…why yes it did! There were only like 5 of us in that bucket cart…I was snickering so loud I embarrassed the hell out of Bo…the lady looked at me like I had lost my mind…she seriously thought it snowed there! Even her husband thought she was nuts!

So fast forward back to 5 years from then to the now… when we got a little bit of snow again one weekend this January I called her the night before & asked if she wanted to do a “once in a lifetime” snow shoot! Cause seriously, around here in our part of NC, you have no idea if you’ll get snow once a year or once in 5 years! It’s a true rarity around here! She agreed & they got up early & came over. So out we went & of course the sun came out & started melting everything. We still managed to get a few wintry shots!