Her offbeat partner: Dave “Bastard” Archer, Tattooist
Location & date of wedding: Smathers Beach, Key West, Florida. April 1st 2008
What made our wedding offbeat: We got married in 1995 at the courthouse with no ceremony and no pictures. It was just the two of us, we were broke, and it was lame. Our 13th anniversary was coming up and I wanted to do something to finally be able to remember our wedding as a fabulous real wedding day! Of course we decided to do something 2 weeks before, so we improvised and everything ended up working perfectly! …like it was meant to be…
Our biggest challenge: To plan it in 2 weeks! I ventured to Goodwill and found a $20 wedding dress exactly my size! A friend of mine helped me to jazz up the dress with black accents, and made me a gorgeous custom veil.
My whole wedding outfit ended up costing less than a $100: dress ($20+$25.50 dry cleaning), custom veil+black bows accents on dress$25) shoes (payless$16.95). We worked on my dress 3 nights after work and it was done, my husband rented a tuxedo here in the only tuxedo rental place in Key West.
I contacted weddingstogokeywest.com10 days before our wedding, and they made it happen! Easy and simple for us and took care of everything. We got the simple “buy it now” wedding package with a click of the mouse. God, I love technology.
We even got to release a dove! That was pretty awesome in its own cheesiness.
We kept it simple and it was just both of us just like our first wedding but this time it felt like a wedding and we have some real wedding pictures to prove it.
My favorite moment: The ceremony itself. It was intense and we both had teary eyes.
My offbeat advice: I personally had a lot of fun not spending tons of money on the clothes and ceremony — I thought it relieved a lot of the stress people end up having when they spend tons! In my case, finding my dress at Goodwill for $20 made it unbelievably fun to play with.
Key West Citizen
Letters to the Editor
December 22, 2007
Caring professionals saved the day for couple
I am writing to thank three Key West business professionals — Ray and Eileen Jensen of Weddings to Go! Key West! and their photographer, Patty — who recently came to the rescue of two young friends of mine, Michelle and Graham.
Last weekend, Michelle and Graham traveled from North Carolina to Key West to be married — only to be stood up by their destination wedding vendor. They arrived at the pre-arranged and paid for location and discovered they were alone — very alone, without flowers, photographer or an official to marry them.
Ray and Eileen were on the beach performing another wedding ceremony and noticed the distressed bride and groom. Eileen immediately offered to perform the wedding ceremony for Graham and Michelle and called her photographer Patty, who agreed to come and take wedding photographs for the distraught couple. They even gave the couple a ride to their hotel and came back the next morning with a CD of the wedding photographs.
Thanks to Ray, Eileen and Patty, a gale force disaster was avoided for these two young people. The professionals from Weddings To Go! Key West! all donated their services to the couple. The payment they asked? "Do something nice for someone."
It is so refreshing to hear a story like this and to know that there truly are caring individuals willing to go out of their way to help, as the saying goes, to "pass it forward." I have never had the pleasure of a visit to your beautiful city but I can tell you one thing, I wouldn't hesitate to visit a community that truly cares for its visitors.
Thanks Eileen, Ray and Patty for saving Michelle and Graham's big day. What a lovely and generous Christmas gift you gave them.
Susan Culler Soden, Columbus, Ohio
See Michelle and Graham in the news by clicking here.
Key West Citizen
December 25, 2007
Wedding day disappointment averted when Good Samaritans stepped in for no-shows
BY MANDY BOLEN
Citizen Staff
Michelle and Graham Smith were not leaving Key West until they got married on Smathers Beach.
Mission accomplished. Although it did not go as smoothly as expected, it turned out better for the couple and the island.
Despite four weeks of planning, the North Carolina couple nearly had to forsake their "I dos" when their wedding coordinator failed to show up at Smathers Beach at 4:30 p.m. Dec. 15.
The flowers and photographer that were included in the wedding package for which they already had paid were nowhere to be found either.
"When we got to Smathers Beach, there were other weddings going on, so we thought one of those officiants was ours, and just waited," Michelle McCarthy-Smith said.
As it became obvious they were all dressed up with no one to marry them, Michelle grew concerned.
"She was visibly upset," said Ray Jensen, who owns Weddings to Go with his wife, Eileen.
The Jensens were performing another ceremony at Smathers Beach and, upon learning of the young couple's plight, immediately offered to perform their ceremony for free once they finished with their contracted ceremony. Coordinators from Fanta Sea Weddings in Key West also made the same offer, Michelle McCarthy-Smith said.
"Eileen and Ray Jensen said they'd do our ceremony for free because they didn't want us to walk away from Key West thinking negatively about it and the people here," she said, still shocked by the generosity. "They did say they would see if their photographer could take pictures, but that they would have to charge us for her services."
But photographer Patty Kemp refused to accept a dime from the newlyweds.
"She just told us to do something nice for someone else," said Michelle McCarthy-Smith, a real estate appraiser in Lumberton, N.C.
The couple was enjoying breakfast at Camille's the next morning when Kemp called and dropped off a CD filled with wedding pictures, along with a letter for them to send to the credit card company disputing the charges from their former wedding coordinator Ron Scott, owner of Chapel by the Sea, who apologized profusely when he learned of the error.
This was the first wedding he had missed in 16 years, he said, attributing the oversight to a recent relocation of offices.
Scott also said he thanked the Jensens, and has been in a similar position several times when an officiant or photographer is missing, and he has covered the bases for distraught couples.
Jensen wanted no credit for the donation he and his wife made to a young couple with lilting Southern drawls.
"It was no big deal, really, anyone would have done the same thing," he said. "Something like that can be a black eye for Key West, and we've got enough black eyes. It's not always all about money. It was just the right thing to do."
MAJOR PRAISE to RAY and EILEEN … WEDDINGS and COMMITMENTS to GO… see their ad here on P AND E… if you missed the FRONT PAGE FEATURE ARTICLE in the CITIZEN on CHRISTMAS DAY… you missed the BEST about GOOD SAMARITANS ON GOOD SMATHER’S BEACH… You are GREAT PEOPLE! And the TRUE SPIRIT of “ONE HUMAN FAMILY!”
news
Ray Jensen
Cubans Land In Boat Built From Mercedes
POSTED: 2:21 pm EST February 23, 2008
UPDATED: 2:33 pm EST February 23, 2008
KEY WEST, Fla. -- Authorities say 24 Cuban migrants built a boat out of a Mercedes Benz and washed ashore across from the Key West International Airport on Friday.
Ray Jensen, a wedding photographer on assignment nearby, grabbed pictures of the makeshift boat being pulled from the water and hauled away.
The two dozen Cubans arrived on the eve of historic change in their country as longtime dictator Fidel Castro announced he was stepping down. Elections will be held Sunday, and Castro's brother, Raul, will take control of the nation.
The U.S. has a "wet foot/dry foot" policy regarding Cuban exiles. If the migrants make it to shore, they are allowed to stay in the U.S. If they are discovered en route, the Coast Guard returns them to Cuba.
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