THE GRANDEUR OF GRAND FALLS

Over the holiday weekend I spent both days visiting Grand Falls, the first day with a friend and the second day with Kevin and our dog, Yoshi. Grand Falls is located on the Navajo Nation about 45 minutes outside of Flagstaff. It is an amazing and very unexpected sight. In the middle of a flat, barren, dusty, treeless, tumbleweed infested desert suddenly appears a great chasm in the earth and in that chasm roars a mighty river with spectacular waterfalls ... but only at certain times. Dry most of the year, this place comes to life in times of good rain and snowfall. It is also surrounded by the softest, finest, black sand dunes I have ever seen. It was definitely worth enduring the ten miles of purely evil dirt road washboards to witness a little of nature's grandeur!

FEATURED IN THE WEDDING CHRONICLE

We are excited to have one of our weddings featured in the new edition of The Wedding Chronicle! The wedding is that of Jessica and Derek Nilson and can be found in the March/April publication. Jessica worked very hard to get her wedding in print, so we have to say thank you to her ... thanks Jess :-).

JANELLE AND PEDRO WEDDING

After shoots on Wednesday and Thursday in two different sections of the state, we moved on to Phoenix Friday evening for Janelle and Pedro's wedding on Saturday. This was definitely a grand event, beginning at 9:30AM at the hotel in which everyone stayed the night before. A limo picked up Janelle and her bridal party at 9:45AM to take them to their hair and makeup appointments at Dolce Salon and Spa in Chandler. The guys took time to play at Golfland throughout the morning.

After Dolce and a much needed lunch, the limo returned for the bridal party to drive them to the wedding venue at The Wright House in Mesa, during which time they popped a bottle of bubbly to toast the occasion. Once at the venue things rolled quickly with getting ready as Janelle and Pedro planned on seeing one another before the ceremony to do their formals. Check out the look on Pedro's face - absolutely priceless!!! And for good reason ... Janelle was a true vision in her beautiful gown covered in elegant lace and her catherdral length veil flowing in the wind - and let us not forget, the unique chocolate brown and white polka doted shoes. Janelle said during the limo ride that she was not altogether comfortable with the idea of all attentions being on her, but it was hard for it not be on this day.

After formals, the ceremony took place during perfect, golden late-afternoon light - just magical. After a few more formals the party began and raged through the night. A final limo arrived around 11:00PM to wisk the happy couple away after a grand sparkler send-off by family and friends. All in all, it was a perfect wedding story.

We wish to thank Janelle and Pedro and all of their family and friends for being so gracious and welcoming. You were all just so sweet and wonderful to be around and it made our nearly 14 hour day (the longest wedding for us to date) fly by. We also wish to extend a special thank you to Lori Painter of the Wright House who made the wedding and reception flow flawlessly. We hope you two are having fun in Jamaica and we hope you love the photos as much as we do!