The wedding

Relatives started to filter in around 2 or 3PM. Until things started moving, people just enjoyed the scenery. This is niece Laurian and her BF, Robert.

Niece Stephanie and her BF, Jason.

Lauren finished helping Heather get dressed, then people began assembling down by the water.

Esther and I brought Heather down the steps to meet Dan. This was a non-traditional wedding. "Wi naah gi wi gyal weh. Wi tek Dan inna di famly."

They looked terrific together. Dan wore a silk guayabarra, something the old-style Jamaicans wear. Heather's dress was simple but elegant.

There was a lot of talking and response between the marriage officer and the two. He got it done pretty quickly though.

Heather looked very happy. Dan is pretty quiet, but I'm pretty sure he was happy, too.

The crowd seemed to enjoy it, too.

Especially the young people. This is nephew Josh with his GF,  Stephanie. I asked him later if he had a lock on all the pretty girls in Jamaica. He told me with a straight face, "Just one at a time, Uncle."

Finally the rings went on.

And off they marched to sign papers.

Their official licence was HUGE.

It was edging toward dark, and the owner asked me to get people to the table before it got dark. I told her herding Jamaicans was kind of like herding squirrels, but got started on it.

Eventually we got started and had a nice dinner, interrupted by me as Master of Unceremony. Then it was on to dessert characterized by Heather's quirky choice of cupcakes (supplied by a cousin's bakery in Mandeville).

Esther and niece Tiffany arranged a small wedding cake that never got cut until we returned to Kingston. Just as dinner was ending a rain squall blew in from the sea and chased us into the pavilion. There the kids drank and danced until midnight or so.

Then it was all over but the waves.

Morning of the day

Things started coming together on the wedding morning. First off they started to build an arch for the wedding.

Heather practiced in her wedding shoes for a while.

Then we started off on a bit of exploring. The small headland to the east of Strawberry Fields Together was the last site of conflict between the English and the Spanish, much earlier in Jamaican history. We took off in that direction.

We looked back across the small cove to the Strawberry Fields site.

Then we got out on the headland. It's rugged out there. Part is loose soil and ankle breaker rocks; part is sharp, eroded limestone. You have to go very carefully on the limestone. If you fall down you will certainly come up bloody and torn.

I have always loved waves crashing on rocks. I can never get enough pictures of foam jumping up in the air. But if you look in the background, you can see a rain storm coming across the sea. It caught up with me while I was stuck in the middle of the limestone, so I got soaked...

not before I caught this cauldron in the middle, though.

The rain stopped quickly enough, leaving the weather cool. Then we came across something entirely new - bussu! Here is a shellfish none of us had ever seen before. The daughter of the carpenter (Deandra) was collecting them to eat. This one was still wriggling.

They are really UGLY, looking like a cross between something prehistoric and something I would expect to see invading the ship on Star Trek.

You can roast them in the shell or pluck them out and drop them in oil to fry them. Lauren and Heather immediately organized a small expedition to make sure the girl had enough to eat.

Here is the native location. You have to surprise them and pry them off quickly with a nail or something like that.

Things began to heat up with wedding prep.

The crew began to weave orchids from the farm into the plaited palm arch, then added geraniums, crotons, and other flowers.

They kept filling in more and more.

They finished it with a bromeliad crown and a bouquet hanging inside.

Esther and I took a turn in the arch for the lady who owns the site.

Uncle Paul provided and set up the sound system. Dan and Heather had chosen their own music in place of the standard wedding march.

Cousin Tif (the photographer) had a vision for the tables. Here she was dressing the tables.

Tif also put together the bouquet. These were my favorite orchids from the trip to the farm.

Things came together late in the afternoon with the arrival of the marriage officer. He had some coaching for Heather and Dan before the ceremony. More to come...

The run-up to the wedding

We traveled across from Kingston to Robin's Bay the day before the wedding, in case we need to do anything over there. Along the way we stopped at Castleton Garden, a botanical garden situated along a river in the mountains.

Everywhere you go in Jamaica you see these curry animals (goats destined for curry).

These orb weavers almost never become curry, however, except accidentally. This one was huge!

This river was made for the song "De ribba bed come dun, de ribba bed come dun, de ribba bed come dun, something something in the mawnin'" We have seen this one raging and muddy after a big rain.

The gardens are filled with unusual plants and trees. This one struck me with its symmetry.

Lauren and Heather had some sisterly fun together fooling around on the rocks and sliding into the pools.

It was nice to watch the two of them this couple of days.

Dan got a little pensive. No cold feet, though.

Eventually we got through to the North Coast without too much car sickness from the windy roads.

The road was bad from this point. We had a lot of potholes to dodge, so these kids on bicycles were able to race ahead of us for a couple of miles before they got tired.

Then we got close to the water. The girls wanted to stop immediately and get out, but we pressed on.

When we got there we found some guys working on a new piece of decking right where we wanted the ceremony to be! This became the focus for the afternoon and the morning of the wedding.

It turned out that we didn't have much to do except have lunch and loaf away the afternoon

So we did some loafing and some exploring. There were tons of hermit crabs around. One of the kids even found one without a shell.

They were all sizes. There are enough snails around so they don't usually lack for housing.

Loafing took precedence for a while. Here Lauren rocks Heather and Dan in one of the hammocks on site.

Later on I took the helm of the hammock for advanced loafing. I was not alone.

There had been a really huge storm. The beach and rocks were covered with bamboo and cane trash washed down in the rivers. This guy was in charge of cleaning it up. After he filled this bucket he was quite overcome by his own loafing instinct and just lay right down on the rocks.

Later on we got to know a few more denizens of the site. There were a couple of pups that were kind of cute.

This one adopted his own coconut as a chew toy, shredding the coir with his teeth. Esther used to tell me about sleeping on coir mattresses - itchy, poky, and uncomfortable. Ah, the old days!

Lots of lizards were around. This one did his mating display every few seconds for a long time. The orange was kind of unexpected.

Eventually we got tired and headed off for bed. But the girls saw this giant toad jumping and wanted a picture of it. We're not sure what kind it is, but we saw something similar in Puerto Rico.