Hola!

I recently returned from an 8-day trip to Samaná, Dominican Republic, where I photographed Toronto couple Kim & Matt’s beautiful wedding. We stayed at Cayo Levantado, a luxury, all-inclusive resort, located on its own island in Samaná Bay.

As you may recall, I made engagement photos of Kim & Matt last fall at Toronto’s Evergreen Brick Works, one of which became one of the most popular posts on my photography fan page on Facebook.

Having never photographed a destination wedding before, I was really excited for this experience. On top of that, I got the opportunity to jump on a plane in the dead of winter and then relax by the beach in 30ºC weather for a week. Pretty hard to turn down.

After landing at the tiny Samaná airport, we were whisked onto a coach bus and drove for about an hour through a very poverty-stricken landscape and arrived at Cayo Levantado’s mainland pier. The bus loaded onto a small passenger ferry and took a short boat trip over to what is known as Bacardi Island.

The rooms are split up into 20-something villas, spread out all over the island. Our room was beautiful, spacious and had a floor-to-ceiling window/door that led to a balcony, overlooking the ocean. The strangest thing about the room was the gigantic window from the bedroom into the bathroom, which rendered the entire room privacy-less. The trade-off was that I could look out at the ocean, while brushing my teeth.

That night, Kim & Matt invited their guests to join them for welcome drinks in the Daiquiri Bar, where I met Matt’s twin brother, Andy. Over the course of the week, I had to look closely to figure out which brother was which.

One of the first days of the trip, Kim & Matt took the guests of their wedding on a whale watching tour off the coast of Samaná. We saw a lot of jumping and one of the whales kept waving its fin at us.

Despite feeling incredibly sea sick by the end of it, it was an amazing experience.

Tuesday was Kim & Matt’s wedding day. It was a photographer’s dream to have such picturesque backgrounds to use for photos.

Matt and the boys cooled down with a Cerveza Presidente, Dominican’s national beer, before the ceremony. Meanwhile, Kim was finishing up her preparations.

Kim and Matt opted to not get married on the beach, which I agreed was a wise choice, considering the wind that comes off the ocean is very strong and there would have been sunbathing people in the background of all their ceremony photos. They cleared a section of the main dining area for the ceremony. It was a beautiful spot for a wedding.

After the ceremony, the staff brought out champaign for all of the guests for a toast by Kim’s brother.

Cayo Levantado was an incredible resort to use for photography locations. I had a lot of fun exploring and scouting and then eventually taking Kim and Matt to all the locations I had planned for us to use.

Before the week was over, Kim, Matt and I took a trip into Samaná to take some casual portraits of the newlyweds.

Matt even made a friend while we were in town.

It was a wonderful week, a beautiful wedding and I had a lot of fun with Kim, Matt and their guests. Thanks to Kim and Matt for showing me a wonderful time in paradise. All the best to you both.