A weekend of celebrations

Over the weekend, our family celebrated the 21st birthdays of two April born hotties (two of my cousins). They have separate birth dates but since they are both studying abroad, we needed to postpone the family celebrations to this past weekend when they both happened to be on island.

Saturday night we danced the night away for the lovely Ally's birthday and on Sunday we limed under coconut trees and roasted a whole pig for handsome Joe's. Below are photographs I took pre and during Ally's cocktail party.

I learnt that night that taking photos at a party is stressful. I was missing good photo ops, I was producing blurry photos (apparently I had it on the wrong setting all night - just my luck), and foremost I risked missing the party. I have drawn the conclusion that there needs to be 2 photographers and luckily there were that night: myself and my aunt. She was able to get more of the candid, dancing, need-a-camera-quick shots. And I was able to work on ambience, detail, quirky shots.

I also played around in photoshop to get this dreamy feel. It was a lovely evening and as such the photographs need to reflect it.

Paper dahlia hanging from the chandelier

Ally's citrus mint punch

Ally in the middle with her girlfriends

Ally and I worked on the paper dahlias/tissue paper pom-poms the night before. They came out great (thanks to Martha Stewart) but our only recommendation is to do rounded edges not pointed ones and that you can definitely use more tissue paper (the suggested 8 sheets was the perfect amount to make a half dome not a whole one).

Photos from Joe's beachside roast coming tomorrow :) 

Check out Ally at her blog The Ruffled Lace :)