Ok, I have been a long time lurker on this board (2 years) and really haven't posted very much, so I thought I would contribute for once since I have gotten so much wonderful advice from reading everyone's post over the years. This was my third trip to St. John and it was probably the most special because I got married last week while we were down there. So here it goes....

Thursday, Nov. 23rd - Thanksgiving Day
Got up at 3:00 am to catch our cab at 3:45 to the St. Louis airport. We flew Delta to Atlanta then on to St. Thomas. Plane left on time both legs of the trip and I guess because it was a holiday, the plane to St. Thomas was only about 1/3rd full. Yea! We got into St. Thomas at about 2:30 and went and dropped our luggage at the Westin check-in. My parents were supposed to be in around 3:15 so we went and sat over at the bar and talked to Lou (great guy) and had a few painkillers while we waited for my parents and 2 sisters to arrive from Philly. We had rooms at the Westin for 2 nights before we moved over to our villa. My parents plane was late getting in so we missed the 4:00 ferry and we decided to go over to Tickles at Crown Bay Marina to eat some dinner. No turkey for us but whose complaining when we are sitting in the VI's! The Westin ferry came around 6:30 (I think) and off we were to St. John. After settling in we thought about going swimming but we were all exhausted and decided to call it a night.

Friday, Nov. 24th
Got up early to catch the 9:00 ferry to St. Thomas to pick up our marriage license. I had already talked to the court house the week before and they said that Friday was a holiday and that we could only pick up our license between 9am and 11am. Got to the court house at about 10:00 and waited for a couple that was getting married. Once we got in the lady told us that we needed to pay an extra $150.00 because it was a holiday. I asked why no one had told me that the week before. She said she didn't know who I had talked to but if we wanted to come back Saturday we could pick it up for free. I didn't really want to come back Saturday but I didn't want to pay the extra money either so in the end we decided to go back Sat morning. I started to get upset but then remembered that I am in the islands and on "Island Time" so who cares anyways! 🙂
We did some shopping at took the 12:00 ferry back to the Westin. We decided to go swimming at the pool and then went into town to the Beach Bar for dinner and drinks. My best friends and their entire family flew in and the 7 of them were staying on St. Thomas for the night before heading over to St. John Saturday morning. They called and said that they had made it in ok, so we decided to called it an early night since we had to get up and catch the ferry again in the morning.

Saturday, Nov. 25th
Up again early. Got our luggage ready so my sisters could get it moved to the villa. My parents own two timeshares at the Westin but we were letting my now husband's family stay there for the week while we moved to a house. We took the 9:00 ferry back to St. Thomas, picked up our license and stopped and did some shopping at the street vendors market. We went back to Tickles to have breakfast (it was fabulous). Back again on the 12:00 ferry to the Westin where we then picked up our vehicle at the rental company on the Westin property. We got a Jeep Liberty for the week and off we went. This was my first time renting a vehicle on the island so I was a little bit nervous about driving on the left but knew my way around Cruz Bay and the north shore road enough to feel confident I wasn't going to get lost. We met my parents and stopped at Starfish Market to pick up food for the week. Found that the prices there were very reasonable and really not that much more then we would pay back here in the states. We then headed up to our villa, Great Escape, in the Catherinburg Estates neighborhood. The ride up to the house was fairly easy, although I would not recommend doing it without 4-wheel drive. The house was absolutely gorgeous! My husband and I took the master suite downstairs which was away from the rest of the house and bedrooms. The house had four bedrooms so my sisters took one, my parents took the other Master suite upstairs and my husbands sister and husband took the fourth bedroom. Their two boys slept on blow up mattresses in the living room upstairs. We got all of the food and luggage in the house and then drove down the ferry docks to meet my husbands parents, two younger sisters and his older sister and her family at the ferry docks. We got everyone settled in and it ended up being another fairly early night since we were all tired from the running around and traveling.

Sunday, Nov. 26th
Up early again to have our pre-wedding shoot done. We hired Eric Johnson from Paradise Pictures to take the wedding photos and he has a package that included a pre-wedding shoot. We picked up Eric at 9:30 in town and headed over to Hawksnest Bay for pictures. Once we were finished we drove him back to town and he downloaded the pictures on his laptop and we picked which one we wanted enlarged for him to bring to the wedding. I can't say enough good things about him and his work. He is a great guy and I would absolutely recommend him to anyone. We had family pictures taken last year by Blueglass photography and they honestly were not very good. I know that a lot of people like their work but I personally would recommend Eric over them any day. I did a lot of research and liked that Eric's website had pictures from over 60 weddings that we could look at. His work looked very consistent and showed that he wasn't just picking the best pictures to post on his website. Now that I have tooted his horn enough, if anyone would like to look at our pictures they are at http://paradisepictures.vi/. On the main page do a search for weddings under "Looking for your event?" and we are on the second page under Uecker/Green wedding. The pictures speak for themselves.
After the photo shoot we headed back to the house to change into our swimsuits. We picked up my husbands parents and everyone headed down to Cinnamon Bay for the afternoon. It was already my 4th day on the island and this was the first beach I had been to. Shame on me! After the beach we had everyone up to the house for dinner and called it another early night since we were getting married the next morning.

Monday, Nov. 26th - Wedding Day

Got up early and got ready for the wedding. We headed back down to Hawksnest for our 9:45 ceremony. Anne Marie Porter did the wedding and she was absolutely wonderful. Another person that I can't say enough good things about. She did a very nice job with the ceremony and she is another person I would definitely recommend. I got my flowers from Susan Pratt at Passion Flowers and have to say I was a bit disappointed with the flowers. They weren't terrible but they weren't fantastic either for the price. If someone is planning their wedding I would have to say look around a bit more. The wedding was great and once the ceremony was finished everyone headed over to Caneel for the reception while my husband and I stayed behind with Eric for pictures. We headed over to Caneel and this is another one I have to say did a fabulous job. We had a brunch reception in the Equator restaurant and Leslie did a wonderful job pulling everything together. My mom had pretty much planned this whole portion of the wedding with Leslie. The food was fabulous...we had about 25 different things on the menu which we had split into hor'derves (sp) for the guest that headed over while we were finishing our pictures and then into a main brunch for when we got there. The scenery was beautiful. The cake was delicious and it was just all around a great time. At 1:30 the brunch was finished and we invited everyone back up to our house. We spent the afternoon hanging out at the pool, drinking, eating, laughing and relaxing. I could've asked for a better wedding day and would recommend anyone get married this way. On a side note we did not hire a wedding coordinator and really it was not to difficult to plan it ourselves. We had 23 people including us and there are just a few things in retrospect that I can say hiring a wedding planner would have been to our benefit. I say save your money for more fun things and do it yourself.

Tuesday, Nov. 28th.
This was a quiet day. First day I was able to sleep in and we took full advantage. My husband and I went exploring down at the east end of the island which was a very interesting road to drive on. 🙂 Honestly after drinking the day before and driving all the way to the east end I wasn't feeling to good so we went back to the house and I laid down to take a nap. We ate dinner in and had a quiet night at the villa in the hot tub looking at all the stars.

Wednesday Nov 29th.

We were supposed to go sailing this day but it was raining that morning so we ended up post-poning our trip until Thursday. The wind really picked up this day and the ocean was pretty choppy. My husband and I decided to go to the Annaburg ruins since I had never been there and this was his first time on the island. It started to rain once we got up there but it is definitely worth seeing. As we were leaving the sun came out and we decided to stop at Francis Bay to do some swimming and snorkeling. We then headed over the Westin to visit with his parents and them moved over to my best friends house for a cookout that night. They rented Ambiance which is located just past the Westin over Chocolate Hole. It was another beautiful house. We headed back to the villa around 11:00 since we were getting up in the morning to go sailing.

Thursday, Nov. 30th.

We met Joe from Scubadu down at the National Park dock. We had originally wanted to go snorkeling in the morning and then head over to Jost for the afternoon. We had always go on the Calypso the prior years (they are wonderful!) but decided to try a different boat this time because my husband wears a knee brace and we thought this boat might be better for getting on/off, to the restrooms..ect. Because of the choppy water we decided to try sailing over to the south side of the island and spend the day snorkeling off some of the hard to reach beaches. The water was really rough so we ended up heading over to a couple of cays by St. Thomas. I don't know exactly where we were but the snorkeling was fantastic. At the second place I did see a turtle (my first one I had seen in my three times on the island) which was very exciting. This is another highly recommend on my list. Joe's website is http://www.sailvi.com/ and he was absolutely wonderful. We could've just sat on the boat all day talking with him. The trip was different then those we had done in the past because he doesn't take out more then one party at a time. So, we had the whole boat to ourselves and could decided where we wanted to go and how long we wanted to stay at each place. He is also a great cook and serves lunch right on the boat. We will definitely use him again. We sailed until about 4:30 and then just relaxed at the villa that evening. A long day in the sun means an early night to bed.

Friday, Dec. 1st.
It is our last full day on the Island. My husband and I got up early and headed into town to do some shopping. We stopped by St. John Spice (my first time) which is a great store and walked around Mongoose Junction. We decided to go back to the house and change into our suits and head for the beach. We drove down to Salt Pond but this was a difficult hike with my husbands knee so we ended up stopping at a few places in Coral Bay before heading to Maho for some swimming. Around dusk we headed into town for happy hour at Woody's and then headed over to the Westin to say goodbye to his parents. We relaxed at the house the rest of our last night in paradise.

Saturday, Dec. 2nd.
We went home. The end. Until next year.....the countdown begins.

Overall it was a wonderful trip. This time we spent more time running around and less time exploring the island but I guess that is the nature of the trip when you get married and invite 21 of your closest friends and family to join you! But there is always next year to continue the exploring and relaxing!

Thanks for bearing with me! I did mention it was going to be long....... 🙂