So here’s the story.  Meet Dina & Amita.  Dina found us on the internet (thank you Google!) and sent our website to her friend Amita, who was planning a Hindu wedding on a cruise ship.  (So cool!)  Amita, her fiance Abheeshek, Michael, and I all had a long phone conversation getting to know each other, talking about the possibility of them flying us down for the cruise, and figuring out logistics.  So, first and foremost we have to thank Dina for finding us!  Here’s the REALLY cool thing – Dina is from Tennessee , Amita lives in Mississippi, and Abhee lives in Florida!

Fast forward nearly a year of mounting anticipation and this was our view as we descended into Tampa – yay!

From the moment we started to meet family members in the hotel and cruise to the moment we departed the ship we felt so welcome by the entire group.  We had a great chance to party it up with Amita, Abheeshek, and their friends, and spent a wonderful time on the Mexican island of Cozumel.  I hope you enjoy the visual journey of the cruise!

The pre-wedding events and wedding ceremony were held in a gorgeous theatre at the front of the ship.  This resulted in several people (myself included) becoming a bit seasick….but it was beautiful and therefore all worth it.

Here’s Michael hard at work.

See what I mean? The theatre was amazing!

Before the ceremony we had a few moments alone with Amita and Abheeshek on the incredible ship.  I love their colour choice – it goes so well with the ocean setting for their wedding (and goes very well with their wedding photographers too!)  And I redeemed myself from the seasickness by taking most of these shots…

So cool…I especially love the sparkles of Amita’s outfit playing with the light.

There were some great dancers on Abheeshek’s side to help start the ceremony.

Over a dozen cruise passengers not connected with the wedding sat in the upper balcony of the theatre and watched the entire ceremony.  They were absolutely fascinated.

From a photography perspective, we loved working in a theatre – the lighting was flawless. If anyone in Edmonton wants to get married anywhere with stage lighting please call us!

The day after the wedding we had a surprise for our gorgeous couple.  We had planned a mini photo shoot with them on Cozumel, Mexico.  We’d been to Cozumel before, and were a bit familiar with the island.  We met Amita & Abheeshek at Señor Frog’s, and told them we had already secured a great driver to take us to a beach out of town for the photo shoot.  Little did they know their driver was Michael!  We had rented a Jeep, scouted out a beach, and whisked them away to a stunning waterfront with a beautiful dock for a private photo shoot.

As Amita would say…”oh, dang!” These two are so good looking, check out Amita’s amazing eyes!

Now that the year has drawn to a close, I can say without question that this is my favourite ring shot of the year.  I’m really proud of this one.

We had a bit of time to ourselves after the shoot, and visited an awesome cliff-side restaurant called Coconuts where we ran into some of the wedding guests.  We had left Edmonton at -46 degrees Celsius (-51 degrees Fahrenheit for our American readers) and feet of snow to see topless Santa decorations in a Mexican bar.  Hence: coolest job in the world!  It was really strange to see Christmas decorations without snow though…

Absolute perfection.

This is the vision we were met with coming back to the ship after our stop in Cozumel.  Our Royal Caribbean ship Grandeur of the Seas is the one on the left. I’ve posted it already, but I think it deserves to be up here twice.

We finished the cruise with a crazy, fun reception.  Abheeshek, I had no idea you had such amazing Michael Jackson-esque dance moves!

Amita & Abheeshek, thank you both so much, and congratulations!  We had an amazing experience with you, and we look forward to keeping in touch over Facebook.  I hope we’ll meet again soon (Andrew really wants to meet you too!)

I’ll tell you all the story soon about how Amita & Abhee found us, and the amazing cruise we just returned from, but here are a few memories from Mexico.

Merry Christmas everyone! We’re taking a brief break for the holidays but will be back hard at work in 2010.