I remember back in the day when I decided I wanted to be a photographer; I’d stay up late at night and scour my friend’s photography blog and think about how badly I wanted to do what she did. I’d dream of taking pictures, of editing them, and hoping that one day, I’d be lucky enough to have someone hire me to take their photograph. Of course, the icing on the cake would be if I ever was able to shoot a wedding, but that seemed like a long shot. And as I sit here today, sharing photos of a destination wedding I shot a few weeks back, I have to remind myself that dreams do come true…as cliche as that may sound. And sometimes, dreams happen that are so unreal, we never even had the foresight to imagine them.
It’s always an honor when someone asks you to shoot their wedding; to be part of one of the most important days of their lives. But when someone asks you to shoot their destination wedding, where you know they could have chosen many other local photographers to do the same job, it is completely and utterly humbling. Never, ever ever ever in a million years did I think it would be that important to someone to have me fly down to Aruba to capture their day, but the fact that Paige & Doug invited me along, well, I still get chills thinking about it. We spent four days in Aruba getting to know Paige and Doug’s family and friends–all 100+ of them! (One of the largest weddings the hotels had seen!) We flew with them on the airplane, and hung out with them at the tiki bar and rode up with them on the elevators. By the time it was the day of the wedding, I felt as though I could call each guest by name. And although we were bumping into guests left and right, we didn’t get a chance to actually meet Paige and Doug until a few minutes before their rehearsal dinner, and immediately, I could see why such a large group of people would take five days out of their crazy lives and follow these two down to Aruba to see them married. From the heartfelt speech that Doug gave the night before the wedding, to the way their sweet baby girl Savannah ran into his arms after skipping down the aisle, to how absolutely stunning Paige looked the day of and the angel of her grandmother’s she carried with her on her bouquet, this wedding could not have left sweeter footprints on this little heart of mine.
Huge thanks to the whole #itsscotttobeyou wedding party for making this weekend memorable. The love (and fun) was overflowing at the resort the entire trip and if you haven’t yet seen the thousands of posts on my IG feed, I’m still pinching myself that this weekend was really even happened.
Let’s start with the view from our room at the Riu and a quick little engagement session on Friday night.
After starting the day at the beach, I met the girls in their hotel room while my second shooter, ALEX, hung with the guys. Having him there with me on this trip and him seeing what I do was really once in a lifetime. 
A favorite of mine.
We all felt like little Savannah at the trip’s end.
Doug and Paige, your entire week was spectacular. Thank you for taking me along on your ride. It was really the wedding of a lifetime for Janelle Carmela Photography! Congratulations to you both, and sweet Savannah, on this new beautiful life.
