From the Bride… We’re living in New York, and both originally from China. I went to school in Florida and Key West is always my favorite place in FL. Chandler took me on a trip to Key West last May and proposed on the lighthouse right across the Hemingway Home. In addition, Ernest Hemingway is one of my favorite American writers. My undergraduate thesis is about his short story “The Snow of Kilimanjaro”. As a result, Ernest Home & Museum became our first choice of the wedding venue.
We met at a friend’s game party. It was an adventure game in an escape room in New York and we were in the same game group. I like Chandler’s intelligence, rationality. I’m growing up to a better person with him. We feel we understand each other without more words and we bear with each other’s differences.
Chandler: I like Roxanne for her unconditional care of me, her maturity and faithfulness, her artistic tastes, and her advice that help me be more mature. Being with Roxanne ever day makes me willing to take more responsibilities and be unsubdued by difficulties. She constantly gives me courage and hope. She has become the very reason for my being.
I did some general research about wedding planning and the wedding planners at Key West. I was lucky to get Destination Wedding Studio by my side. They provided me the wedding timeline and recommended vendor lists so I knew what I was supposed to do for my wedding and made my selections of wedding vendors easier. I went through the vendors’ websites and social media accounts, and some wedding website reviews for decisions.
Because we chose Hemingway Home & Museum as the venue, I decided to have my wedding invitations mainly in green to match the color. I contacted an online producer in China, reviewed their wedding invitation templates. I chose one simple template, edited the design and had them print it out. I also got the candy boxes which match the invitation style.
For the theme color, I usually like black & white and most soft colors, so the flowers are in soft colors, and table linen is in light grey. I thought blue could go well with the greens in Hemingway Home, so I had my bridesmaids in light blue, groom in navy and groomsmen in dark blue.
The decor is one of the things I care most at my wedding. Thanks to my planner Peggy for suggesting a long table as my reception table, then I started looking pictures on Pinterest & Instagram for decor inspiration. Those pictures really helped shape my final thoughts about decor – a long reception table decor by hanging top with flowers, branches, glass balls, and lanterns. I sent some pictures to my planner and florist, talked about the ideas and they handled the details for me. Peggy also got the chargers/napkins that match the flowers perfectly.
About the unique wedding cake: I found some book shape wedding cake on Pinterest and decided to have one because I and Chandler both love reading. And we’re having the wedding at Hemingway Home, so Hemingway’s books were the covers.
Most importantly, my bridal veil was made by my designer friend. It became much more meaningful!
My favorite memory of the day was the first dance, the groom and friends’ performance, and dancing after dinner. I was glad to see that everybody was having fun.
From the Bride: We got married at Sunset Key Cottages in Key West, Florida. It is a beautiful private island just off of Key West. It has gorgeous little cottages that look out to the beach and is filled with lush bougainvillea gardens all around. When we got engaged it seemed like a large task to find a great venue for our wedding. I am from Texas and my husband is from the UK but we live in Australia and met 5 years ago in Brazil. We had guests coming from four different countries so finding a “middle ground” that had meaning to us was really important. My family has been vacationing at Sunset Key Cottages since I was a little girl. My parents are Cuban so we love that their culture is so close to Key West. We instantly knew it would be the perfect place for our wedding. It has family history and we loved the idea of giving everyone a vacation to a new place. Sharing a place that we love with everyone we love was a great feeling.
Busy Bees Events, a Florida-based wedding planning and design company, teamed up with a group of talented vendors to create this cosmopolitan beach styled shoot, which showcases a natural glam aesthetic. Here is what Bettina Benizri of Busy Bee Events and J. Morgan Florals had to say about this culturally exotic styled shoot:
“When the new Conrad Hotel opened in Fort Lauderdale Beach, I automatically had a vision of a wedding I wanted to create after seeing the spectacular view of the Atlantic Ocean from the deck. The hotel has a modern understated elegance, and my design was meant to complement that perfectly with touches of the tropical aura that this location exudes. I envisioned a mix of gold spheres, tropical monstera leaves and cascading, delicate white phalaenopsis orchids; so of course, I started to pull the look together with my amazing team of vendors to help bring this vision to life. For the bride and groom, I knew I wanted Doreen and her fiance as I’m working with them to design their wedding in the summer time. They are both from Africa and moved to the states for college. And then they fell in love and stayed, just like me!
With our gorgeous couple from Cameroon Africa, a place that heralds the most exquisite emeralds, our vision was fast to follow. We wanted to show a modern tropical wedding that showcased the couple and the venue rather than distract from them. We used monstera leaves that we painted with gold veins to add personality to them and a touch of glamour, as well as a plethora of white orchids. For the bride’s bouquet, we used a gold hoop as our base and entrusted it with the emerald green leaves and orchids, which created an unexpected twist. The table we used added some height with its tall centerpieces, which drew attention to the landscape’s stunning views and varied, simply lined containers intermixed with hand-painted candles.”
From The Bride: For our wedding, we knew we wanted to create not just a beautiful environment, but an experience as well. While we both consider ourselves to be religious people, we didn’t want our wedding to be completely traditional. Cayne and I have always had our own connections to nature and the ocean, so we knew we would want to incorporate them into our theme. We decided a beach wedding at a private estate, in Islamorada, would be perfect. It was especially perfect because we could host the rehearsal dinner, ceremony, reception and brunch all on one property and all in different places. Since we were getting married on Earth Day, we though we could incorporate my love of plants and fondness of fresh flowers as part of our theme. We even picked our caterer based on our theme; we went with a lady who does farm-to-fork, so everything was natural and fresh. Our color palette was very simple. For our flowers, we went with ivory, subtle blush, pops of burgundy and lush green garland. For the ladies’ attire, we had different shades of ivory, sand and champagne. For the men’s attire, we had different shades of blue, white, and sand/brown. I like to say our theme was “A night of growth, love and nostalgia.”
Charna and Vishal’s Munticultural Wedding was initially planned at The Florida Keys , but the venue was destroyed by hurricane Irma. Although the loved the resort, The Biltmore was their second option, and they just fell in love with the architecture and the history of the place. They knew it was their place from the start!
