My best friend Lorena and her husband celebrated their marriage with a wedding in their hometown this past weekend. I was lucky enough to be one of her bridesmaids so Neil and I drove the 14 hours down to Melbourne, Florida on the night of the 28th.

We drove through the night and checked into our amazing hotel around 4pm on Thursday. When we left Kentucky it was 31 degrees and when we got to Florida it was 65 degrees. I’ve only been to Florida between the months of March and July so this was definitely a nice change. It was like May in December and I loved it!

We unpacked and headed down the road to this little beach diner that Lorena suggested, Long Doggers.

We woke up the next morning to this gorgeous view.

We ate breakfast at the hotel where I noticed that they served all their drinks in fancy drink containers. And they serve cranberry juice.

After breakfast, we met Lorena and Chad at the mall so we could pick up a few last minute things for the wedding and also, my late Christmas present from Neil 🙂

For lunch we went to a little beach pizza place, once again, suggested by Lorena.

We had planned to go to the beach for the rest of the day, it was a LOVELY 75 degrees, but I needed a bathing suit first! We stopped by a little beach store (notice everything is “a little beach…”) to pick one up and then all of the sudden it was time to get ready for the wedding rehearsal.

The rehearsal was short and the dinner was fine but the dessert was better.

The next day was wedding day! I met the girls at a salon a few minutes from the hotel to get our hair done. I really wish I had remembered to take a picture of my hair do but I didn’t…all I have is a picture of what my hair looked like later that night after I took it down.

The wedding day went just about as smooth as any other wedding day goes. AKA, not smooth at all. We were rushed while getting our hair done at the salon, we were really rushed while we were doing our makeup at the hotel, and we were really REALLY rushed during the whole pre-ceremony picture time. Being a wedding photographer, I’m aware of all the time that’s needed to take portrait pictures during a wedding but most people do not. Lorena’s wedding photographers understood that so it was all good and the ceremony started right on time.

The ceremony itself was really short, just like Lorena and Chad wanted it to be, and once it was over and we had a few more sunset pictures taken the reception started. The entire wedding party decorated the reception hall and Lorena’s mom catered and it was just a wonderful wonderful night with fun had by all. Lorena looked gorgeous and they both looked extremely happy.

The next morning I took a few more pictures of the view from our hotel balcony because I still couldn’t (and still can’t) get over the fact that we were in Florida in January.

We spent the rest of the day with Lorena and Chad and few of their friends on the beach. I finally got to lay out and enjoy the beautiful Florida weather.

That night we joined a group of Lorena’s friends and family for dinner at an Irish Pub.

Our last morning in Florida it turned a tad chilly. Not by Kentucky standards, of course, but cooler than it had been the past few days before. Still. It was so beautiful.

After breakfast we hit the mall to walk around a bit before the 14 hour car ride. I drove the first half while Neil slept.

And then Neil drove the second half all the way home. We got home around midnight on Monday night/Tuesday morning. All in all it was a wonderful trip. I really wish we had been able to stay longer but since Neil had to go back to work Tuesday afternoon we stayed as long as we could.

I wanted to take more pictures than I did; I took my camera and was fully prepared to document everything but instead, I ended up enjoying the trip to its fullest. Something I really want to work on this year is being able to balance life with photography and I know this trip was just a start.