For Melissa and Jason, Barbados wasn’t just a pretty place for a destination wedding. Barbados is their history, their home away from home. Literally.
Jason’s grandparents lived on the island their entire lives, on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean – and Jason’s father, aunts and uncles were all raised there. When Jason and Melissa began dating three years ago in Toronto, he began taking her to Barbados to spend time with his family. She too fell in love with the island. So when they began planning their wedding, there was no question it would be here.
“It was there that I grew up exploring the beaches and cliffs as a boy,” Jason said. “There was always a feeling of freedom and life slowed down out there, with the sea breeze blowing and relentless sound of the waves.”
Melissa and Jason chose The Crane, a hotel located one beach over from his grandparents’ property. “We decided to get married at the Crane Hotel to be close to the same rugged beauty, freedom and wind that we knew so dearly,” he said.
One of Jason’s favorite memories from the wedding day was doing portraits in the very cave that his grandfather dynamited and made into steps many years ago so people could access the beach from the top of the cliff. “I remember as we walked along the beach that afternoon to take our photos with Aaron, I almost cried as I told him that the feeling of the wind-blown beach, the fading afternoon colors, and the waves crashing in were just what we had hoped for for so long,” Jason said.