Bryan Morris - Aruba’s Premier Wedding Photographer

I’ve had the honor and priviledge to cover the elopement of Lori and Scott at the Civil Town Hall in downtown, Oranjestad, Aruba.

Lori is the artist, she creates jewelry, crafts, enjoys painting and reading and of course who can pass up a day at the beach.

Now Scott enjoys his big boy’s toys. He’s into ATV’s, dirt bikes, jet skis and his Jeep Wrangler that he runs around the farmland that they live on in rural Ohio.

Scott asked Lori to marry him since Christmas Eve 2004. They’ve been together 3 years previous to that. The idea of an elopement on Aruba was birthed after getting a week stay in a condo on Aruba as a gift. Lori thought “Why don’t we make this a wedding moon?” This happy couple has been together for 7 years and they enjoy quiet, peaceful nights with a fire by the pond and driving their Jeep with the top of on warm summer days.

Upon asking Scott what does he like most about Lori, Scott replied with a politically correct response “I like everything about Lori” we do know that he has a or maybe a couple favorites, right Scott?
Like a true lady, Lori’s response to the same question about Scott was: “I love Scott’s smile and laugh the most. We laugh together every day and I think that’s why we’ve been together for so long.”
Lori and Scott it was an absolute pleasure documenting this very important day. Thanks for allowing me into your lives.

Blessings,

Bryan Morris

If you didn’t have enough you can see more here.

I need you to listen to the words of the song, this is Lori’s current favorite and it’s great. I really like it!

On March 18th, 1948 during a Netherlands-Suriname-Curacao conference in the Hague, the seeds of independence and a National Day for Aruba were sown by the then Aruban leader Shon A. Eman who presented a petition signed by more than 2000 Arubans in favor of independence.

Almost thirty years later during a parliamentary session on March 16th, 1976, it was agreed that March 18th would be Aruba’s National Day - the day to celebrate Aruba’s national anthem and flag and this was celebrated for the first time in 1976.

Exactly 10 years later, in 1986 also on this important date, Aruba celebrated the achievement by Betico Croes of a dream that had been three generations in the making - Status Aparte - an autonomous status withing the kingdom of the Netherlands. On this date in 1996, a monument was inaugurated in remembrance of the 2.147 people who, back in 1947 and 1948 had signed a petition in favor of Status Aparte.

Aruba’s National Anthem, “Aruba Dushi Tera” is a waltz composed by Juan Chabaya “Padu” Lampe (lyrics) and Rufo Wever (music)

The Aruba flag has four colors: Bunting Yellow, Larkspur (or U.N.) Blue, Union Jack Red and White. The flag of Aruba consists of a red star with white outline set against a sea-blue background with two parallel yellow stripes.

The star symbolizes the four points of the compass, denoting the varied source of more than 40 nationalities living in Aruba. Each of these colors is significant: the color RED symbolizes love for the country and the WHITE outline surrounding it represents the white sandy beaches around Aruba as well as the purity of Aruba’s inhabitants who respect justice, freedom and righteousness. The BLUE color of the flag denotes the color of the surrounding sea.

The TWO yellow stripes on the flag denote the free position of Aruba with respect to the Netherlands and other islands while maintaining closeness with them.

The YELLOW color is used to symbolize abundance - as evidenced by the sources of economic and industrial prosperity, representing the island’s past and present industries of gold, aloë, tourism, the oil refinery and so forth.

Aruba Dushi Tera

Aruba patria aprecia

nos cuna venera

chikito y simpel bo por ta

pero si respeta

Chorus:

O, Aruba, dushi tera

Nos baranca tan stima

nos amor pa bo t’asina grandi

cu n’tin nada pa kibre

Bo playanan tan admira

cu palma tur dorna

bo escudo y bandera ta

orgullo di nos tur!

Chorus

Grandeza di bo pueblo ta

su gran cordialidad

cu Dios por guia y conserva

su amor pa libertad!

Chorus

Congratulations Aruba,

Bryan Morris

Are they really?

I wonder who’s the dishonest person that came up with that quote. Anyway, there’s none of that here. I’ve promised you that I’ll be featuring a few weddings from last year that I haven’t blogged. So, with no further ado, I present to you Mrs and Mrs Eklund. They were married on the beach at the Divi, the ladies of Aruba Weddings For You, again did a superb job with the setup.

Nina Boo and Stefan Eklund came all the way from Sweden to promise each other an eternal life together. We really appreciate the fact that they’ve chosen Aruba our island for such an important milestone in their life. And above that I’m elated that I was chosen to document the event.

I don’t take it for granted when people come from abroad to get married on Aruba. They could’ve chosen anywhere else.

They are really in love and easy going, this really shows in the images that we’ve captured. They didn’t mind getting low to get some different angles.

Blessings,

Bryan Morris

The pleasure was all mine to do a family portrait session with family Mendoza from Pa. while they were on vacation here in Aruba.

Robert & Debbie Mendoza have a beautiful family consisting of three beautiful girls (Rachel, Rebekah and Christiana) and one cute baby boy (John Peter)

What a great family, very easy going down to earth. What struck me with this family is that every single one except to Dad have biblical names. Did I say they were a great family????? God bless them!

They’ve opted to do this shoot a few hours before leaving the island of Aruba at the Renaissance Resort.

Besides the famous Renaissance Island the resort also has a little beach at the beach towers. I’ve added quite a few of the images of this shoot as it was pretty difficult to choose just a few so I’ve decided to post quite a bit as I haven’t posted any images so I’ve decided to treat you with a little extra. So no further a dew, for your eyes only, I present you the Mendoza’s.

Blessings,

Bryan Morris

Over the holiday season we had our annual Christmas dinner at church. This year we had the kids perform for the first time. Our church is a pretty young church so things are falling in place little by little. I was extra proud of this event as my kids were part of the performance. As a proud parent you know I had to get my camera to cover this. They’ve covered one skit and one song. Very Nice.

The moral of the skit was: Whenever someone fall, most of us for some reason tend to tease them, taunt them, constantly remind them that they fell instead of……

…..Helping them like these good Samaritans are doing.

Here they are dancing the song “We are a little people with a big praise”

Blessings,

Bryan Morris

….AKA Baby Zelica was born on June 23, 2007 to my wonderful friends, Curtis Challenger and Yline Kelly. It’s a total blessing to have them in my life. I’m so elated to see how Curtis has metamorphosed  into a dad. The transition really makes me happy and proud. In this present day that the trend to just be a sperm donor, Curtis opted to be a father. As Baby Zeli, as he calls her was born, she took supreme precedence in his life. He never directly voiced this to me but I know that his major goal in life is to take care of his wife to be and daughter. It just makes me proud to know this as this I’ve pledged upon becoming a father also. I really want to make this infectious in the world as this seem not like the cool thing to do but in all honesty it is. You can’t imagine how it feels to be a great contributor to society raising world leaders. And by world leaders I don’t necessarily mean in the political arena, if they so choose to go that route, I’ll be supportive of their decision, however what I meant was you can change the world leading one person at a time to the right direction.

Curtis Keep up the good work, God has something great for you. Time is all it takes.

Now back to the baby, I seriously have to pinch her cheek anytime I see her. Baby got’s cheeks. These images here are of her at 6 weeks,  I was on a quest for images to display on the blog and I found these that were not blogged yet.

Enjoy,

Bryan Morris

This is the final set from the three part series La Familia. This is Ishaq. This was actually the first one (child) that I shot with Shaydee being the girl last. As you know the girls need to spend way more time getting ready. I however decided to display them in the order they came.

Experimenting with Aruba’s wild life.

Ishaq just lounging in Aruba’s arrid landscapes.

Ishaq is in the party mood.

Just chillin’

Life is hard on the island.

This is the angry look.

This is not such a big celebration here on the island of Aruba. Tourism is by far the biggest industry here on Aruba and the Americans (Thank You!) make up the largest percentage of tourists visiting Aruba, so thanksgiving is however still celebrated on Aruba to some extent.

I would personally like to wish you all a happy Thanksgiving.

I know that Thanksgiving is all about celebration with your family and eating a hearty portion of food. Today as you celebrate Thanksgiving with your loved ones, don’t forget to whisper a prayer giving God thanks for everything in your life.

“In every thing give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”1Th 5:18

The part I want to really stress on from this scripture is the first part, “In every thing give thanks…..” In the good, give thanks, in the bad, give thanks.

Be blessed this Thanksgiving,

Bryan Morris

Today it’s Naeem’s day to shine. What can I say about Naeem? He’s probably my shadow. He consumes all his energy to emulate me in all arenas.

Blessings,

Bryan Morris

Do you see the modern day Gandhi. (No offence mainly the looks but really the wit as well)

Here he’s acting out Madagascar

Here he’s enjoying nature at 30 feet

How cool is nature?

Up, close and personal

Enjoys being goofy

This is the first of a three part series. I have to many nice images to post them all in one post.

You might think that me being a photographer would have a gazillion of images of my kids. Well I’m sorry to dissapoint you but I don’t have. After all day on the road shooting when I come home I don’t want to break out a camera to shoot my kids. I purposed to shoot them more often and even if that don’t work at least once a year around there birthday. I have gotten this idea from a fellow photographer.

It was Shaydee’s (7) birthday in September, Naeem (6) and Ishaq’s (5) in October. The season slowed down quite a bit and last week I’ve decided to go and take them somewhere and take a couple shots of them.

WOW, I really loved them all. I didn’t even go far from home. It took me 3 minutes away by car to get to the spot, very close to the Alto Vista Chapel. I took them one by one to avoid one distracting the other.The entire shoot took me about 1 hour.

See some of what was captured in that hour. I tend to shy away from studio as Aruba is a beautiful backdrop. So by now you know that the shoot was done outdoors. I must also add that my kids are growing up so quick they are really getting big. I had fun doing the shoot and decided that I’ll be repeating this more often. I love my kids! It’s really funny to get them in their moment and capture them just the way they are. Their expressions really show this. Every picture you see is them in real life.

Blessings,

Bryan Morris

This is a candid shot of all three of them walking back to the car after the shoot.

Shaydee just enjoying nature.

Doing what she loves best!

Isn’t she cute?

Blowing kisses in the wind.