It was *such* a treat to get to work at the beautiful Boca Bay Pass Club (www.bocabaypassclub.com) just weeks after our last wedding there.  We can’t get enough of that place, and we always know a wedding there is going to be wonderful.  And this wedding definitely did not disappoint.  Of course, it didn’t hurt that the couple was simply *stunning.*  As a matter of fact, if you noticed an alarming lack of gorgeous people a few Saturday’s ago, it’s because they were all at this wedding.  Holy cow!  lol!

Bo & Tally’s wedding was a destination wedding, and being that they were from out of town we didn’t actually meet them until the day of the wedding.  It was such a pleasure, then, when we realized that they were SO easy to get along with – the entire day was a blast.  Here are some highlights!

I loved this wedding on so many levels.  Lemme break it down for you:  1.  AWESOME bride & groom that just crack. me. up.  2.  First time working with the fabulous wedding coordinator Zoë Gallina (www.zoegallina.com), and 3. First time shooting at the incredibly laid back but sophisticated Oystercatchers (www.hyatt.com/gallery/oystercatchers).  The wedding matched Alisha & Gantt’s personality so perfectly, with a beautiful atmosphere that was so personal and totally non-traditional.  We *loved* it.  Check out the photos!  :)

The interior of Oystercatchers – gorgeous, right?

The very fun couple…

The ceremony…during the sunset…on one of the prettiest days this year…

More couple photos … (which we actually shot *before* the ceremony, but on the blog we usually put these photos after the ceremony, so I’m just going to stick with that. ‘Cause it feels right.  m’kay?)

The beautiful reception setting…

Some of the beautiful flowers arranged by Botanica (www.botanicaflorist.com)…

It was honestly just the perfect day for these two, and it was so great to watch it all come together.  Thanks for letting us be a part of it, guys!  :)

Sometimes it’s just impossible to state how much you love something without sounding over-the-top with grandiose adjectives and redundant professions of adoration.  Sometimes you just need to shut up and show your work.  So this is me not saying how insanely lovely and perfect this wedding was.  Starting…..now!

….okay, see, yep.  I can’t do it.  This wedding was just so fantastic that I just have to risk sounding outrageous and tell you a little about it.  :)

Laura & Ben have the sweetest personalities EVER, and I knew at the initial consult with them that I was going to adore them.  And I do.  They just shine, and you can’t help but smile when you’re around them.  I often tell people that I don’t how it’s possible, but we honestly have the *best* clients ever, and the lucky streak of amazing clients continued with these two.  They made our job pure gooey goodness.

The wedding itself was at the very beautiful Boca Bay Pass Club, a venue that can do no wrong (’sup, Terry!) but an unexpected cold-front decided to do what it could to try and crash the party and wreck the beauty of the outdoor setting.  Its trick was to pound the place with wind, and inside the building before the ceremony you could hear the wind just *howling*. We were very nervous about if & how it would effect the wedding, but instead we learned that, even in bad weather, the Boca Bay Pass Club continues to dominate as a *perfect* destination wedding location, whatever the weather.  It was picturesque, and everyone had a wonderful time.

Check out the photos!!

These flowers were *awesome*!!!  As soon as I get the name of the florist that did them, I’ll post it here. This guy honestly is my new favorite wedding soloist.  He’s got a wonderful voice and knew the covers to all the right, non-cheesy, songs.  I had chills during the cocktail hour listening to him.  I have his business card…somewhere…so when I find it I’ll post his contact info.  ***UPDATE*** Found it!!   His name is Andres Colin & his number is 941-735-5766.  His business card says he sings in more than 5 languages.  Holy cow!  Anyway, yes.  Call him.  Book him.  He’s the bomb.

Ahhh…Boca Grand Pass Club, how I love thee!!

Laura’s mom did an AMAZING job helping to design the tent interior for the reception!

Congratulations on a perfect day, guys.  And thank you for letting us document it.  It was honestly a pleasure.

This wedding holds a very special place in our hearts.  Having already had the pleasure of shooting 3 other weddings for this family, we already adored this couple, and seeing them again for this wedding was like going back to see our own family.  The fun, slightly unusual situation of this wedding was that the Groom was the Father in 2 of our past weddings, and the Bride was the Mother in the other one.  Now, it was the turn for the parents of our previous couples to get married… to each other!

They got ready at the beautiful Waterside Marriott in Harbour Island.  The boardwalk behind the hotel was a great spot for some pre-ceremony pictures of the couple:

After we got the family shots at the hotel, the plan was to hop on to the trolley and take it down to the Yacht that was docked at Channelside for the wedding to board for the ceremony & reception…drifting off into Tampa Bay’s sunset.  So we headed down to the trolley and prepared to board….

…Of course, this was the *same* trolley that continued on to Ybor City, so we got a little more excitement/entertainment than we had bargained for, and, with the Bride being exceptionally fun, that made for some fun impromptu shots…

Walking from the trolley station to the Yacht couldn’t have been scheduled at a better time, with evening settling over downtown Tampa, giving us a great city shot….

Some steel drums, a ceremony & a smooch later and Mr. & Mrs. became Husband and Wife…

The reception was perfect in it’s blend of fun & relaxation..how could you not feel relaxed when you’re  cruising on a Yacht?  :)

Thank you, Tina & Vince, for making us feel like a part of your family at this wedding and all the other weddings we’ve had the pleasure of documenting for your family.  You two are incredibly special people, and we wish you all the happiness in the world!

One of the coolest parts about our job is that we get to watch families grow.  From engagements, to weddings, to anniversaries, to first baby photos…we get to watch it happen and be a part of their happiest times.  You just can’t top that.  :)  We began to shoot this family with the birth of their first son, and have had such a great time watching him grow, shooting his 1st birthday, and now seeing his little sister grow up, too.  Thanks so much to them for letting us be a part of it!  Hope you enjoy the photos of this very fun trip to the sandy shores of Anna Maria Island…

How fun!  Check out what we received today!

The verrrrrry tiny inscription at the bottom reads:  ”the best in weddings as voted by local brides.”  Well, THANKS local brides!  Whoever you are!  How totally fun to be picked.  Like a orange.  Or a grape.  Gosh…does that mean we’re ripe?  Hmm….

Anyway…that was our smile for today.  Thanks to whoever picked us!

These awesome kids were not only SUPER fun to shoot, but they also had some of the most amazing “wise beyond their years” expressions.  Even though the beach was closing and we only had a few minutes to run around – they had an adventurous spirit and ran from spot to spot and settling quickly into whatever “look” they felt fit the scene.  Wow!  I can definitely say that was a first for us – I wish we could take their photos every day.  :)  Check ‘em out!

We first worked with Adam & Taryn, the founders of the Urban Charrette, when we photographed their 1st ECO.lution festival, focusing on sustainability in Tampa.  (Photos are here:  www.stehlikphotography.wordpress.com/2008/04/22/happy-earth-day-tooooo-yooooou)  Two years and a whole bunch of lattes later, and they are now some of my most favorite friends.  :)

Since the objective of the Urban Charrette is making Tampa as green as possible, it only makes sense that they  decided to make their wedding as green as possible as well.  Assisting them with that goal was Mise en Place (www.miseonline.com), which is not only a beautiful restaurant, but also a wonderful catering & event planning company.  Adam & Taryn decided to put the entire wedding in their hands, with simple the instruction:  ”Surprise me.”  (Talk about a laid back couple!!)

Mise definitely did not disappoint, and put together a beautiful wedding, working along with some of the area’s finest vendors, including Concept Bait (www.conceptbait.com) for the linens and stretch design and Botanica (www.botanicaflorist.com) for the floral design.  To see what exactly what made it a green wedding, check out this article about the wedding:  www.review.net/section/detail/nice-day-for-a-green-wedding.

The entire affair, including the rehearsal dinner, took place in Ybor City, within walking distance from the out-of-town guests hotel.  The ceremony & reception took place in Ybor City’s Italian Club, which I pass by all the time but have never actually gone inside – it was beautiful!  Down to the photos- let’s go!

We start with the pre-ceremony, where they got ready a the hotel:

After shooting the girls at the hotel, we walked with the guys from where they were getting ready to the ceremony location:

The ceremony was beautiful – it was held on the second floor of the Italian Club in the theater:

After the ceremony, we ran across into Seventh Avenue for a few quick shots in the street. :

F

For their couples portraits, we took them after the wedding to the old Tampa Armature Works building in Tampa Heights – an amazing historic building which is slated for renovation and is just *loaded* with photo ops.  Huge thanks to the folks over there for letting us in!

After we were done running through the streets of Ybor, we went back to the Italian Club where the reception room was looking lovely and so….*green*!  Check it out:

The party was great fun, and the food was out of this world!!

It was such a pleasure to be a part of such a wonderful event, and to watch two people that I adore so much start the rest of their lives together.  Bellissimo!!

Every so often I meet someone that is so special and has such a powerful, positive presence, that I feel like everyone should meet them… just to have their lives enriched by knowing them. This wedding gave me the opportunity to meet two such people… the bride & the groom! I can honestly say I’ve never cried at a rehearsal dinner before, but listening to the toasts and seeing the way they touched everyone around them made me so grateful for “auto-focus”… I could still shoot through my tears.

When I woke up the day of the wedding, I realized that I was sick. eek! (no…it wasn’t swine flu…stop it!!) So, obviously, I was more than a little apprehensive about shooting a 10 hour wedding. But the minute we got to the wedding and were surrounded by what felt like a hundred smiles and Edith’s beautiful attitude, any fear I had about feeling bad that day completely vanished – how could you feel bad with such awesome people around?

The day was a whirlwind! We started out at the Omni Championsgate Villas where Edith got ready:

From there, we headed over to the church for the ceremony. After the ceremony, we squeezed as many family shots in as we could before the next mass started, and finished the rest back at the hotel. By this point I had really started to lose my voice, so one of the wonderful family members with a beautifully resonant voice was my vocal backup – calling family members up for the very large groupings! Check out some shots from the church & some shots of Edith & Jovel at the hotel:

Back at the Omni Championsgate we settled in for an evening full of beautiful details, lots of laughter and dancing, and… costumes? Yep! Everyone had quite a blast with that. They had a photo booth there for guests to document themselves wearing boas or rabbit-eared top hats. Because, really, what’s a party without rabbit-eared top hats?

And, no, we don’t really hire 8 assistants to shoot with us…but the wedding guests certainly had our back should we miss a shot!! Eric, the videographer from Collab-Creation, did a great job dressing to match Paul. Or…the other way around…

Let the dancing begin!!! They most certainly knew how to party, and their excitement was contagious!!

What an absolutely perfect day. Thank you so much to Edith & Jovel, and all of their family and friends for your amazing kindness and hospitality, and making us feel like a part of the family. It was such a pleasure meeting you all!

Okay, well, perhaps that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but we ARE quite passionate about doing our part to help protect the environment. As I mentioned in my “Postcard from Europe” blog post, Stehlik Photography has been preparing to make some big changes, and I’m so pleased to announce the first one, which is that we are working on becoming as absolutely “green” as possible.

The places we visited during our last trip to Europe absolutely amazed us with their environmental advancements – and left us feeling so far behind! Be we were motivated by it, and determined that we would do whatever we could to promote green products.

Little did we know at the time, that the catalyst of that change would be brought to us by the most awesome boutique album company ever: Wild Magnolia Design! (www.wildmagnoliadesign.com)

WMD (wild magnolia design…not weapons of mass destruction…) is a specialty book maker based out of Santa Monica, California, that is on a mission to green-ify wedding albums! They currently produce the only environmentally friendly flushmount album in the world, and their designs are simply perfect. They are only taking on a limited number of clients, and we are so thrilled to be one of them!

We just received our very first sample album from them, and we are amazed by the quality and feel of the product. The Old World Leather Bag was made from reclaimed leather, and the organic vintage cover was made with 100% hemp canvas – a look that was stylish & impressive! We took some quick snaps for you all to see!

HUGE thanks to Becca of WMD for all of her hard work in getting the album to us so quickly, and for being the most incredibly talented and enjoyable “vendor” we have ever had the pleasure of working with!!

Okay! Part two of this announcement is just as exciting!! We are partnering up once more with the Urban Charrette, (a design collaborative dedicated to research, education, and advocacy that assists communities to build more livable cities) for their 2nd Annual ECO.lution festival, a festival celebrating local, green businesses!! (You can see highlights from last year’s festival at: www.stehlikphotography.wordpress.com/2008/04/22/happy-earth-day-tooooo-yooooou)

We absolutely adore the Urban Charrette, and are so proud of everything they’ve done for the Tampa Bay area. This year, we’re working with them on a very special project called “Faces of the Community.” During the week of April 13th, we will be taking headshots of people who sign up for the project, and donating the entire session fee to the Urban Charrette! So everyone wins – the participants get an awesome headshot, the Urban Charrette gets much needed financial support, and we get to bask in the happy high that doing something good for the community always brings. So join up and be a part of the project!! Check the info:

So, that’s our current happiness. We hope you can join us in our efforts! To misquote Miracle Max…badly…. “Have fun savin’ da world!”