ResortHatch

Photo Credit: Olga Sam.

Fifteen years of marriage flew right past Janet and Brandon. It’s a blur, but they do remember the important parts. They met. Janet proposed. They got married, quickly. Brandon deployed for military duty and returned. Janet deployed for military duty and returned. They tightened an already thin budget when their first daughter was born. They moved (a lot). They had another daughter and squeezed the budget again.

Did anyone mention a wedding in that blazing quick summary? Kind of, but not exactly.

“I never had a big ‘walk down the aisle’ moment,” says Janet, one half of this Army veteran couple. “We were busy serving our country and starting a family. In the back of my mind, I always wanted a real wedding experience: the flowers, the dress, all the frilly stuff.”

Photo Credit: Olga Sam.

Brandon privately wanted that for his girl, too, but they never seemed to have the time or money for it. He did suggest, however, that for their 15th anniversary they tap the brakes on the speed of life, go to Sandals South Coast, and focus only on each other.

“I was surprised when he said he wanted to go to Jamaica for a vacation,” Janet says. “He’s frugal, so I didn’t argue.”

Photo Credit: Olga Sam.

Brandon’s idea for a tropical escape would accidentally morph into Janet’s long-awaited walk-down-the-aisle moment. It’s a good thing she waited because until it actually happened she never envisioned her aisle crossing a white-sand beach or her wedding chapel emerging from the Caribbean Sea. She certainly never expected Brandon to talk about their wedding as much as he does, but at least it’s in pure Brandon style.

“All I know,” he says, “is my wife looked smokin’ hot in that wedding dress and with her big smile.”

Janet politely adds that Brandon looked smokin’ … nice … in his uniform.

“The moment I saw her walking into the overwater chapel,” Brandon says, “gave me the same feeling I had when we first met.”

Photo Credit: Olga Sam.

Let’s go back through the blur to that part, when Janet and Brandon met. If you could have seen Janet sweating in the dirt, trying to withstand the most rigorous physical test of her life to make the cut as an Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) specialist, the word “romance” probably wouldn’t spring to mind. You also wouldn’t believe the sergeant putting her through the trial sensed an attraction.

“Janet had a drive that everyone noticed, especially me,” Brandon says.

Of the 11 candidates he tested during that round for the Army’s version of an elite bomb squad, Janet was among four who passed. Turns out, the drive and the attraction were mutual. After getting to know each other over a period of time, and realizing Brandon would be deployed soon, Janet initiated the marriage proposal. To speed up the process, they were married at a courthouse in Fairfax, Virginia.

“His parents surprised us by bringing a cake and something new, something blue, and something borrowed,” Janet says. “It started to change my perspective.”

Photo Credit: Olga Sam.

They didn’t have much time to think about new perspectives before Brandon went into prewar training and then shipped out to Iraq to take part in the military surge to expel terrorists. When Brandon returned home a year later, he and Janet cherished a few rare alone moments while she trained for her own deployment. She would also be gone for a year.

“Serving our country has been our greatest honor,” Janet says, “but in the back of my mind there was always something missing from the way we started our marriage. We were busy, so I kept passing any wedding ideas further down the road.”

There was something growing on Brandon’s mind, too. During his service in 11 countries and almost every state in the U.S., he would meet people who embodied the cultures of their homes. One group stood out.

“People from Jamaica are always so happy and fun,” he says. “Being around them made me want to go to the island with Janet and immerse ourselves to experience it for ourselves.”

Photo Credit: Olga Sam.

Brandon’s vision for a 15th anniversary vacation to Jamaica looked like this: Relax. Take long beach walks. Keep it simple. But then Janet began to explore Sandals South Coast online, and her eyes fixated on another kind of activity.

“Weddings,” Janet says. “I saw we could have the wedding I’d always wanted, with all the frilly stuff, and in a tropical destination.”

Brandon silently questioned what had happened to the idea of long beach walks and keeping it simple.

“When she mentioned the word ‘wedding,’ I braced myself for our quiet vacation to suddenly cost a fortune. I had to tell myself, ‘It’s OK, this will be an experience we’ll remember for the rest of our lives.’”

The planning didn’t take months or weeks. It took a phone call from Janet to a Sandals wedding concierge. Afterwards, Janet came back to Brandon with a bullet-point plan:

• We’ll be there five days and five nights.

• We’ll stay in a swim-up suite with a soaking tub on the patio.

• We’ll take an excursion to a waterfall.

• The wedding ceremony will be in an overwater chapel.

• The reception will be on the beach.

Brandon stood at attention for the final tally.

“It was a relief when she told me,” he says. “The total cost was half of what I anticipated. At that point, I couldn’t wait to get to Jamaica and give my wife the best memory I could possibly give her.”

Whatever Janet and Brandon imagined about Jamaica — happy, relaxing, beautiful — turned out to be inaccurate.

“It was happier, prettier, and friendlier,” Janet says. “When the plane landed, we saw the spectacular water. Then we heard the music and smelled the tropical scents, and the people treated us right away like family. They were genuinely excited for our wedding.”

Two friends from the military and their significant others also came to celebrate.

Photo Credit: Olga Sam.

“Going to Sandals would have been awesome for just the two of us,” Brandon says, “but being there with close friends took it to another level. We didn’t put any demands on them. It was just, ‘Here’s the time of the ceremony, go ahead and enjoy yourselves.’”

Janet and Brandon gladly followed their own orders. They took those long tropical walks. They drank rum out of coconuts on the beach. They held each other in their pool with the view. They weren’t sure what their friends were doing, but later heard them mention their favorite moment of the week: Janet and Brandon’s overwater ceremony.

“They said seeing us and hearing our vows over the ocean helped them understand why we were doing this,” Janet says. “For Brandon and me, the entire week made us remember why we got married.”

Brandon is now reminded every day. Whenever he pulls out his phone, he sees a picture of Janet holding her bouquet in the overwater chapel. And he gets that “first-met” feeling every time.

Photo Credit: Olga Sam.

“That picture is what I always wanted for my wife,” he says. “To make her as happy as possible and to have an experience to remember for the rest of our lives. Nothing can compare, and wow, she looks so incredible.”

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