Jacob and Erica’s DESTINation Wedding at The Henderson Beach Resort in Destin, Florida

Why do you want to capture your wedding on video? I am hoping that you will be able to capture the love between Jacob & I. I sometimes feel like our love story is really a once in a lifetime type of love. Sometimes it really feels surreal how we found each other. Not only that, but in the 6 years that we have been together, we have been through SO many trials and tribulations and have come out on the other side stronger. We hope for you to not only capture the real love we have for each other but also the love we have for our people. We wouldn’t be having the wedding that we are able to have without our tribe. Our families and our friends (who are like family) are the only reason we are still able to have our dream wedding. These people have been with us from the start of our relationship and through every high and every low. Without them, we wouldn’t be the couple we are today. We cannot wait to just celebrate our love with our favorite people in the world, and I hope that that is shown too. Also, I’m not sure if i can request this or not.. but I was wondering if it was possible to request our video to be a little more “light & airy”. I know your style is more dark and romantic and I completely understand if you’re not going wanting to change that, but one of the reasons we chose this resort and the beach is because of the brightness and scenery and I want to make sure it’s all captured like that. I feel like our personalities are bright and outgoing so I was hoping that our video could be a bit lighter & brighter than how some of our videos usually are. I mean we obviously love your work, which is why you booked you! I just wasn’t sure if we could request that.

Why did you pick Me? We love your videos. You really portray a love story in your videos and that’s what we wanted. We wanted something that not only showed everything that happened our wedding day, but something that portrayed the emotions that we felt throughout the day so we could relive it over and over again. After having to move our wedding due to COVID-19, we will be so thankful when our day is finally here. We just want something uniquely “us”. We want a video that one day our grandkids will watch and say “I want a love like that”.

You guys.. What do you do? How do you spend your time together? What is important in life to you? Jacob and I really love nothing more than quality time together. It’s definitely one of both of our love languages. We both work so much that we only see each other in the evenings and on Sunday’s. He works in IT and I own my own businesses so it’s not often that we have time to just chill. We love just being together. It doesn’t matter what we’re doing. Jacob loves to work with his hands and build things. He’s always taking on a new project. We both love to cook, so we cook a lot together. Cooking for him is really one of my favorite things to do. There’s a on going joke that I cook so he can clean which is pretty accurate. We just kind of compliment each other like that. It’s amazing because I feel like Jacob is strong in every category that I am weak in and I am strong in every category that he is weak in. As cheesy as it is, we really complete each other. We love our families and our dog Lola. She is our baby. We were planning on bringing her to the wedding but with everything going on right now the resort isn’t allowing pets for the time being :( but she is our PRIDE and JOY. We both are so excited about starting a family of our own one day. I think the most important thing to the both of us is just being together. We have been through a lot in our relationship. We have lived 13 hours apart when I did an internship with Disney World. We made it through 4 years of college together. We got engaged in 2018 & bought a home together a few moths later. Then in June 2019, Jacob had a fall and hit his head. The accident left him with two brain bleeds and multiple brain contusions as well as a four inch skull fracture. He also had a seizure after the incident. He spent 3 days in ICU. After we got home I had to learn how to be a caregiver and take care of him. For the next 3 months I had to drive him back and forth to work every day, and watch his every move so his brain could heal. By the Grace of God, he healed perfectly fine. We made it out the other side stronger and more thankful than ever for each other with a new outlook on life. Then in January of 2020 Jacob comes home with terrible stomach pains and ends up in the hospital again, having to have an emergency appendectomy. This was right at 90 days before our wedding. Then in March COVID-19 shows up and we find out we have to reschedule our wedding. After everything we’ve been through, we were so looking forward to April 17. But we just rolled with it and now are looking forward to June 5 more than anything. After everything we have experienced the last couple of years, the most important thing to us is just being together. If we could both just quit our jobs and travel city to city just experiencing new places together we would. We really never grow tired of one another.

The proposal... Tell me everything (all the details) It was December 15, 2018 and we had plans to go to the Moody Gardens Festival of Lights with my family that evening. It was an annual trip for us so it was nothing out of the ordinary. I had worked all day and was looking forward to a fun night off with my family. I took my time getting ready, as I thought we were in no rush, and had no idea that Jacob’s entire family and my brother were already at Moody Gardens hiding out, waiting for us to get there. When we finally got there a couple hours later, I went straight to get a drink and some popcorn (I love popcorn) to enjoy while looking at the lights. Little did I know the surprise that would be waiting for me inside. We were barely down the path of the lights when we stopped under the beautifully lit trees and my mom told Jacob and I to step in the grass and take a picture. I took off my coat, turned around to walk out to take a photo, looked up and saw Jacob’s family holding signs that read, “Erica Marry Me?”. My jaw quite literally dropped and I froze in time. Jacob had to practically pull me out to the spot where he told me how much he loved me, got down on one knee, and asked me to spend forever with him. Everyone who had walked by, stopped to witness the magical moment and after he put the ring on my finger, we kissed and everyone cheered! It was the most amazing moment of my life, thus far. The only thing that will compare is when I walk down the aisle, say “I do”, and become Mrs. Erica Rone. My favorite thing about the proposal is that Jacob came up with it all on his own. He knew how important it was to me for our family to be there and he put so much thought and effort into it. I even found a drawing after the fact in his room where he had mapped out the entire proposal. After the proposal, I found out that the diamond in my engagement ring was actually the same diamond that was on the ring that my dad used to propose to my mom back in the 80s. I was so shocked because I had no idea that the diamond even existed. Jacob knew how much I looked up to my parents’ relationship and he Wendy above and beyond to make sure that I always had a piece of them with me. It was so cute how much he cared about making it absolutely perfect.

The Venue/s? Why this place over everywhere else?: When we got engaged, we both knew that we wanted a beach wedding. Jacob always joked every time he had to get dressed to go to a wedding, that he didn’t want to wear shoes at his wedding. So a barefoot beach wedding it was! As a wedding makeup artist, I have been to just about every venue in the area and I really wanted something different than any wedding I had ever been to and I knew my friends had never been to. I also knew how much time and effort went into weddings, so I didn’t want the day to just fly by and it be over. I wanted to do something where we could celebrate all weekend. Doing weddings, I also knew that I didn’t want a huge 300 person wedding. I wanted 100 or less people. We knew that having a destination wedding would be the best bet because we would be able to limit it to only family and close friends. We really only wanted people there who really knew us and wanted to be there to celebrate us. We went and toured venues back in March of 2019 and this venue was the last one we looked at. We pulled up and my jaw dropped. I knew this was the place. It is just a picturesque resort. Everything about it was exactly what I had to envisioned. I knew that I wanted a beach wedding, but I didn’t want people watching my wedding from their balcony windows and that was something I wasn’t sure if I could accomplish. The Henderson is located on a private beach right next to The Henderson State Park so it just could not be a more perfect place.

What experience do you want to give your guests?: We are hoping that our wedding weekend will be a relaxing getaway for our guests but also the most fun time that they have ever had! We want them to be able to just enjoy themselves. With me being in a sorority and Jacob in a fraternity in college, we have a huge group of friends that know how to have a good time and tear up the dance floor. We are also looking forward to just getting away with everyone. Since we are getting married on a Friday, we are having our rehearsal dinner at the resort on Thursday and continuing the party until everyone leaves on Sunday. It’s definitely going to be a weekend to remember!

Vendors!

Venue: The Henderson Beach Resort
Planner: Forever I Do Weddings
Photography: Darren Hoyland Photography
Makeup: Merle Norman Orange & Bridge City
Hair: Jaime Cooley with Embellished Salon Destin, FL
Flowers: Forever I Do Weddings
Decorations: Amy Peveto
Officiant: Todd Shores
Catering: Primrose at The Henderson Beach Resort

Jake Austin FilmsDecember 9, 2020