In 1999 we were married in the Bahamas. Fifty friends and family joined us at the Atlantis Resort in Paradise Island.

We chose to get married in the Bahamas because our friends and family are all over the US (and it is much more interesting than Cary, North Carolina - where we were living at the time). We'd visited Atlantis when we were in the Bahamas the past Christmas and knew it would be the perfect setting.

Because we anticipated a very busy/potentially stressful day, we'd planned ahead of time to have "official wedding portraits" taken on our honeymoon. When we met with our photographer (Vincent Vaughn) we explained that we wanted more of a photojournalistic feel - no re-enactments after the ceremony and just a few posed shots. He did a PHENOMINAL job AND we had a full album of prints and negatives two days later before we left the island! We still had portraits taken on our honeymoon - people treat you very well when you're dressed up in wedding garb.

Our ceremony was held at the Cloisters, and the reception was at an outdoor terrace at Atlantis. The food was great and there was plenty of it. If you're planning a wedding in the Bahamas, or anywhere in the Caribbean, you have to adjust your expectations and set your mental clock to island time. The funniest parts of our experience were all the flowers we didn't order, the string quartet at the ceremony (which was two people) playing "Strangers in the Night", and the missing wedding cake (which, I give them credit for baking one during the reception).

All in all, we wouldn't change a thing.