Today's waterfront celebration reminds me of a relaxing romantic dinner somewhere beautiful. Tatiana and Javier first met over ten years ago and she'd been dreaming of this very day her whole life. All the clean, modern details and special moments were captured by Paul of Soul Echo Studios . Be sure to check out the dinner scenery!
Tati and Javi both love the water and were searching for a venue with a formal coastal setting. She had seen a wedding image on Pinterest of this perfect place and assumed it was over their budget, but she kept that it as a reference. Finding a balance between beachy and ballroom proved difficult, so finally they decided to check out the Grove Isle Hotel and Spa and they were hooked. Later compromising on other luxuries allowed them to host their wedding at the location of their dreams and according to them, "It was totally worth it!".
Tati recalls her favorite moment of the whole day: The first look was so special. It was like a dream come to life seeing my soon-to-be-husband and getting to spend that time alone together and seeing every detail we'd been planning for 9 months come together. We walked around the venue and let the photographers do their thing, but really we were just chatting and giggling with each other the whole time. I will treasure that half hour for the rest of my life.
It was a perfect Florida day by the bay. We seriously couldn't have asked for better weather. It was sunny, breezy and when I look at the pictures, some of the scenes look like they had been painted. We didn't notice it until later, but someone pointed out that during our ceremony, the sky turned a beautiful rosy color and a flock of birds assembled right behind us as if they were posing for the pictures. Javi likes to joke that he hired them to do that.
“Every now and then Tati asks me to tell her why I love her. The answer is simple: the way she makes me feel. There's just an energy every time I'm with her from the moment that we met, and I can't imagine living my life without her.”
Grove Isle offers such a lush panorama, that we went with all natural details so we wouldn't distract from the natural beauty of it all. Flowers were all ivory and blush, and we chose a variety of different flowers that mean something to us. Javi always buys me Peruvian lilies, so there were a lot of those. My favorite flower is the Phalenopsis orchid and for "something blue" I added anemones to my bouquet. We couldn't decide on flowers for centerpieces because no florist can ever pick favorites, so Nery suggested we do a different combination of flowers at every table and it was perfect. We also decorated the ceiling of the deck with hanging ivy with orchids woven in. It took two uncles and a forklift to make it happen, but it looked so beautiful, we couldn't believe it!
The flowers were very special for us because they were done by my mom and my grandmother. The three of us work together for Nery's Flowers , and even though we do weddings for other couples all the time, this time it felt very different. We had a lot of fun shopping and going through ideas and they meant that much more to Javi and myself knowing that our family did it all with lots of love for us.
You dream about this day since you're little, and you try to plan every detail to perfection, but nothing compares to the real thing. Once you're in your dress, surrounded by loved ones, and standing in front of the love of your life, it's just magical. It was better than I ever could've planned.
What a wonderful story, you guys. Congratulations!
