Sarah and David’s St. John Wedding Surprise

Sarah and I started communicating in early March about her St. John Wedding.  She and her fiancé, David, had known each other since high school and reconnected later in life.  The two were expecting their first baby together and had a little “babymoon” planned to St. Thomas and St. John and wanted to be married on St. John before the arrival of their little one in late May.

After a few days on St. Thomas, Sarah and David made their way to Caneel Bay Resort on St. John on Easter Sunday, April 5.  Their wedding started with some photos in the Cinnamon Bay Ruins with Sage Hammond of Crown Images followed by their Ceremony on Cinnamon Beach with Anne Marie Porter at 5 pm.  The Ceremony was beautiful and heartfelt.  Sarah and David expressed their love filled vows and after an island prayer, they were pronounced husband and wife.

Anne Marie signed the the marriage license to make the happy couple “official”.  Sage was wrapping up with photos about 20 minutes after the end of the ceremony when Sarah looked at all of us and said “this is a bit awkward but I think I just peed my pants.” My instant reaction…”Excuse me?!” My internal monologue went in to overdrive: “there is no way…NO way!!” Sarah quickly said “I think I am just nervous…I’ve been nervous all day.”   We started making our way to the bathrooms and Sarah said “I’m fine…I really think that it was just my nerves.”  As a precaution, my driver returned Sarah and David to their hotel so that she could call her doctor. Within an hour, David and Sarah were at the Clinic on St. John. Within the next hour they had made their way to the ferry to St. Thomas so that she could be checked out at the hospital on St. Thomas.

At 8:59 I got the text from David…”her water broke”.  What we had hoped hadn’t happen had happened.

Sarah was seen by doctors that night as well as the next morning. It was determined that their baby was doing ok but would need to be delivered via C-section on the following Wednesday.  Not the plan that was in place for this little family BUT I am happy to say that Avery Marie Hewitt was born on April 8, happy and healthy!

Because Avery was early (34 weeks) she had to stay in the hospital for an extended amount of time. I was lucky enough to have some meetings on St. Thomas the day after she was born so I was able to meet her and see Sarah. We relived her wedding day over and laughed at the fact that she was able to rock her wedding style for almost two days…(thank you Beauty Lounge!)

St. Thomas really showed so much love to Sarah and David while they had to extend their stay.  Many of Sarah and David’s friends and family were also able to make the trip to St. Thomas to help them and see the islands.

Avery was able to leave the hospital on April 28.  The following day, Sarah and David brought Avery to St. John and we all went back to the location of the wedding ceremony…it was truly beautiful to share this experience with this new little family before they headed back home to Vermont the next day.

Sarah, David and I have talked about that day and who knows why things happened the way they did (I still think it was the full moon/lunar eclipse!) but I feel truly blessed that I was able to meet their little “wedding gift” and spend time with them while they were on St. Thomas. I wrote in Avery’s baby book “apparently you just wanted to be born in Paradise.” And that’s just what she did!