Our "short" trip to the beach...

After breakfast, Momma Rocks and I donned our bathing suits and cover-ups, jumped in the car, and headed down to what we thought would be a 15-min trip to Bahia Honda State Park to see the ceremony site and have a little beach time.  Little did we know we would be side-tracked by a friendly, helpful, but very talkative vendor!

We are getting married on a bridge, and like most bridges, this bridge does not come equipped with chairs.

(Photo by me)

See?  No chairs.  And while Mr. Rocks would prefer our ceremony last only 5 minutes, it is an important event (I mean, hell, it is where we both commit to spend the rest of our lives with each other!), and I am thinking we should shoot for 30 - 45min.  And we figured that people will want a place to sit for those 30 - 45 min (cuz we are nice like that!).  So we will have to rent chairs (and a speaker system, while we are at it).  Luckily, the friendly folks at Mile Marker Party Rentals have chairs for us to rent.

(Mile Marker Party Rentals)

And more importantly, they will carry the chairs up to the bridge, set 'em up, and take 'em down when we are done.  So, I had emailed the vendor prior to flying down to FL, but had not heard back from her.  Which is no biggie - I mean, we are still over a year out from the wedding.  And April is wedding season in FL, so I assumed (correctly) that she was probably busy with 2011 wedding.  But I figured since we were in the neighborhood, that Momma Rocks and I would stop by the store and see if the vendor was in and had a minute to talk with us and give us a contract so I could give her money.

It turns out, when you want to give a vendor moola, they are more than willing to talk with you!  Actually, I am sure that, even if I was not planning on paying a deposit, the vendor would have still taken the time to meet with us.  She is a pretty neat lady - very friendly, a bit high-strung and type-a, and perfect as a person who would be (partially) in charge of setting up a wedding!

We not only finalized a contract, but she also gave me several photographers to contact - which was super helpful!   So, an hour later, we still had not made it to the beach, but we did indeed secure chairs for people to sit on whilst hanging out in the bridge!