little bitty girl

I thought I should get this part over with before it gets way too late and everyone goes,"Bloody shut up about your stupid wedding already!!!"

Please click on the pictures and it will automatically redirect you to my Flickr account and reveal a photo slideshow. If you want to see my individual comments on each picture, all you have to do is click stop slideshow and manually view it.

Jamaica Travel

I wanted to capture moments that we were feeling and things we saw. We got to be pros at the one-handed picture since it was just the two of us.

I really loved Jamaica and glad that all the rumours of crime and harassment did not apply to us. Sure there was some hustle, but after stating, "No, thanks!" people pretty much left us alone. I couldn't fault them wanting to make better living especially finding out that the average Jamaican made US$200 a month. There was this really nice guy just outside our hotel who ran a snack shop, who kept trying to sell us stuff. One day we wanted a snack, so decided to venture over and asked whether he had patties.

"What kind?," he asked.
"What do you have?" we replied. He hesitated for a second.
"Any kind you want. What do you want?"
"Erm, what are the choices?"
"Well, we don't have none. But I'll go get my sister to pick up whatever you want."
We declined as we were in a rush but it was just such a weird-funny situation. Mind you, he didn't quote a price so he could have asked for US$5, for all we know. They're usually about $1.

We tried to walk everywhere and explore and am so glad that we did. On the first day, we walked from our hotel to Bloody Bay. When we got there, we had to buy some water and a man asked us where we walked from. When we told him, he hooted and called out to his friend,"Yah man! Dem people walk from the cliffs!!" They were so amused that the "dumb tourists" walked over 10 miles.

We passed a lot of the All Inclusives along the way and was so glad that we didn't stay there. They were too big and commercial for what we were looking for. At some point, we had stumbled onto Hedonism. If you don't know, Hedonism is the type of hotel where "everything goes." We didn't see anyone at first and made jokes about how people must be participating in orgies. All of a sudden, there were saggy boobs and wrinkled penises everywhere. We were trapped!!

All I want to say is that if you know you're gonna be nude in public, wouldn't you try to work out? Even a little? I know I would. But kudos to them, I guess for being so comfortable with themselves. Sucks to be the people who have to see them, that's all.

We found the most darling little restaurant called Just Naturals, that was set amidst some really lush gardens. We also had superb meals at Norma's (on our wedding night) and Kuyaba. But I think our very favourite was at Sweet Spice, where all the local Jamaicans in Negril ate at. I had the curry goat and it was absolutely delicious.

The Rockhouse

This is the panoramic view from our room. I absolutely loved our hotel. I cannot say enough about it. We didn't know this before but it was listed in this annual book called "Design Hotels." They really did some incredible things in the environment the hotel was in. The entire hotel was built entirely on cliffs and they tried as much as possible to work around the rocks.

It was so nice that we could still swim in the ocean. Although I had to say, it's completely different from swimming from the beach. The waters by the pool were always much rougher than the one at the bay, where our villa was. On the second day, we went swimming in the ocean. It started gettng rocky and windy and I panicked. It didn't help that I am not the strongest of swimmers. So, the little waves kept pulling me out in the ocean and realizing that I was in open water freaked me out even more. Stef, (The Bastard) said he really wished he had a camera because he said my expression was just like Mindy's when she fell out of 3 storey window, 4 years ago. He came and swept me up in his arms and paddled me back. So, there was a good story in the end. Bay swimming, where we spent the rest of our ocean swimming was just fine.

I took a lot of pictures of sunsets. They were simply stunning. I didn't even have to Photoshop any of them. I would go back just to try to take a picture of the perfect sunset.

The Wedding

Our wedding was really fun. I am glad that the pictures came out better than I expected. He did make us pose a bit (and we ended up not using many of them) but the majority of our pictures were very casual. He knew we wanted him to just catch us as we were. He would say, just walk and talk to each other as you would normally. Stef would say inane things like,"You suck!" then I would reply,"You're stinky!" This, of course would make us laugh and he took a lot of those pictures.

We actually had to do our photos in two parts. What most people don't know is that it started pouring almost immediately after the ceremony. The weird thing is that 75% of the pictures that we ended up picking, is from the day of our wedding. I liked the lighting so much better. I got changed into the pink dress that Stef had originally suggested I use as my wedding dress and we went for dinner.

Before we left, we stopped by the hotel restaurant to share our champagne with the lovely German couple we had been hanging out with. All the wait staff were congratulating us and I was commenting how it rained. They all kept on saying,"Na mon. Rain is Jah blessin' from above. Rain makes things grow. Make babies happen..." Then one of them saw my ring and freaked out. That's the funny thing about my ring. In certain light, it looks like carved metal and then in some light, you're blinded. Marie has nicknamed it "Blinger."

All the guys after, were touching fists with Stef and saying,"Respect!" or "You da man!" I think he liked it. I love Stefan's ring so much and it's a little sad it doesn't get as much attention as Blinger. I told him on our 10th anniversary that I would get mine replicated for him but he said he didn't want to look like Jay Z.

I find this picture really funny only because it looks so super posed. It actually wasn't. The photographer had been taking individual pictures of Stef by the wall and I was just waiting casually on the side. He then walked up and asked where else we wanted to take pictures. That was when Stefan was looking over to think and then he said something and I laughed and looked over at the photographer and this is the result.

We laughed a lot at our wedding so I think it's a good start for the rest of our lives together.