Real Wedding: Janai & Trevor at Sandals Ochi
Photo Credit: Sophie Natalie Photography
Janai and Trevor want to make this clear from the top: “Ours is not a traditional cookie-cutter love story.” They did not have a traditional cookie-cutter wedding either. Their against-the-grain love story led them to Jamaica, saying, “I do” on a glass floor in an overwater chapel at Sandals Ochi, a luxury all-inclusive resort built for couples chasing romance.
Photo Credit: Sophie Natalie Photography
“Friends still tell us how happy our wedding week made them feel,” Trevor says. “They hadn’t experienced anything like it.”
“It’s even more amazing because of how our crazy story started,” Janai says.
That’s where it almost ended, at the beginning.
There shouldn’t have been a second date. There almost wasn’t a first date. The relationship barely made it past Hinge. When Janai saw Trevor on the dating app, her mind told her, “Not my type,” but her heart said, “You might be making the biggest mistake of your life if you swipe left.” She waited a day to swipe right.
Then came the infamous first date.
“Everything that could go wrong went wrong,” Trevor says. “I planned the date for the day after my company holiday party, a Sunday. I stayed out too late, didn’t feel my best, and lost my wallet.”
Janai: “I arrived at the restaurant 15 minutes early. He showed up 15 minutes late. And he had this huge ginger beard that wasn’t on his Hinge profile.”
Trevor could have redeemed himself. But he didn’t.
“He ate chips messier than anyone I’ve met,” Janai says. “I kept looking at crumbs stuck in that beard. But strangely, it didn’t bother me.”
Trevor continued to test her limits when the bill came.
“All I had was a gift card,” he says. “The restaurant didn’t accept gift cards or Apple Pay. So …”
“I paid,” Janai says. “At the end of the night we gave each other a side hug.”
Trevor told friends he blew it, he’d never see that girl again. Janai to this day cannot explain the feeling she had about this guy. He definitely didn’t put on a show. He didn’t care that his date was an NFL cheerleader because he didn’t even know she was an NFL cheerleader. Janai’s dog liked Trevor.
To his shock, Janai called. “What about a second date?” she asked. This time he’d bring cash, debit, and credit. The second date would lead to a third and fourth. Trevor would shave his beard. The story that almost never began continued to a rooftop with a view of Atlanta’s skyline where Trevor dropped to a knee and spilled his heart.
“But I blacked out,” Janai says.
“I had to repeat my entire speech,” Trevor says.
Despite mistakes, messes, and unconsciousness, they were engaged. By comparison, the wedding, even with layers of customization, would be wobble-free.
Where We Can Be Us
Janai and Trevor knew they’d have a destination wedding. Friends had taken the traditional route in the Atlanta area, where a ballroom can cost $35,000 — just the space with nothing else — and where a total wedding tab of $100k has become the cookie-cutter norm.
“Our family and friends live all over the country,” Janai says.
“Would they rather travel to Atlanta or go to Jamaica and wake up next to the ocean?” Trevor says. “We could give them a memorable experience with the nicest people and the best hospitality in the world.”
Janai envisioned a fun, romantic Caribbean wedding blended with elegant personal touches. When she mentioned her ideas to wedding reservationists at other resorts, the responses surprised her.
“The answers were, ‘We can’t do that’ and ‘You can have blue or orange.’ I didn’t want to go to Jamaica for my wedding and be restricted.”
She asked the same questions to the Sandals wedding team. Can I have these colors? Can we position the chairs like this? Can the dance floor be over there?
“They answered, ‘Yes. Absolutely. We love your vision.'”
It’s the kind of flexibility Sandals is known for with couples planning their big day.
Photo Credit: Sophie Natalie Photography
The conversations quieted Janai’s busy type-A mind. She had a feeling about this Sandals wedding, similar to the feeling she had for Trevor before their story even started.
“This is our jam,” she said to Trevor, “and it’s going to be phe-nom-e-nal.”
Vacation-Celebration
The two of them packed for a five-day Jamaica vacation.
Photo Credit: Sophie Natalie Photography
Swimwear. Beachwear. Casual and formalwear. The bride also packed for a Janai-style wedding week. Menus. Welcome bags. Name tags. Tea candles. And a 30-page binder with charts and diagrams. She took all of it to the wedding team at Sandals Ochi, ready to do some convincing if necessary.
“Thank you, we love this,” the planner said. “Your wedding will be amazing.”
Free of the plans, Janai turned to vacation mode.
“Five minutes later, we were at the pool with drinks,” she says.
They kept their swimsuits on for a walkthrough later that day. Around the resort they saw sunglasses covering the eyes of the 33 friends and family members. Nothing could hide their enthusiasm about being in an adults-only, one-love paradise built for couples.
The Day of Everyone’s Lives
If an “all wrong” first date could be repeated, this would be the time: the morning of a wedding. Not in Jamaica. Not for Janai and Trevor. After another Caribbean sunrise, Trevor and his groomsmen strolled through the Sandals Ochi lobby and took a 10-minute shuttle to the resort’s golf course.
“Here we are, riding golf carts on mountain fairways, listening to Bob Marley, and drinking ice-cold Red Stripes,” Trevor says. “The best morning on the best day of my life.”
Meanwhile, Janai had her hair, nails, and Hailey Paige dress primped.
Photo Credit: Sophie Natalie Photography
Everything after that starts to blur, right up to her walk into the overwater chapel, where her eyes shifted from the ocean to Trevor.
Photo Credit: Sophie Natalie Photography
“I kind of blacked out again,” Jania says, “but everyone says it was magical.”
The next thing she knew, she and Trevor were man and wife, heading toward their hillside reception.
Photo Credit: Sophie Natalie Photography
She remembers this part vividly. So do the guests. It’s safe to say none of them had seen a bride disappear from dinner with nine other girls and return with her hair nine inches shorter.
Photo Credit: Sophie Natalie Photography
“It’s a tradition for an NFL cheerleader to change our look and dance for her new husband. Once we finished, everyone started dancing. Not a single person was sitting.”
Photo Credit: Sophie Natalie Photography
“I’d never seen anything like that,” Trevor says.
“Or the fire dancer,” Janai adds. “What better way to close a reception in Jamaica?”
Anything is Possible
Everything that could go right about the wedding did go right. Janai and Trevor had so much room left in their budget that they added a checklist of “specials.” A two-hour welcome party.
Photo Credit: Sophie Natalie Photography
A Mento band. A rehearsal dinner on the beach. A cocktail hour. A steel drum band. And, the day after the wedding, a catamaran cruise with unlimited food and alcohol.
Photo Credit: Sophie Natalie Photography
“All of it, plus our room for five nights, added up to a fraction of the cost for a wedding at home,” Janai says. None of it was cookie cutter — not the venue, the mood, the people, or any of this crazy love story. “It will always be ours. We found out at Sandals that anything is possible.”
