JoAnna & Chris: Key West Wedding

On February 11, 2006, beneath the setting sun at the Casa Marina Resort in Key West, Florida, families and friends came together to celebrate two of their own. It was a day for strangers to meet and form everlasting bonds and a time for family members to reunite after spending many years apart—and it was the day for Christopher Gabrys and JoAnna Kremer to present themselves as husband and wife.

“It was the first time people from all the different parts of our world came together,” recalls JoAnna of her nuptials. JoAnna and Chris, who now live in Brooklyn, New York, met eleven years ago while attending college at Indiana University. The couple’s guest list included family members and friends from all over the world, with one family member traveling all the way from Australia to attend the ceremony. Florida was the natural choice for the location because exactly one year earlier, on February 11, 2005, Chris asked JoAnna to marry him while vacationing in the Keys.

JoAnna took her glamorous walk down the aisle wearing a Forever Yours Bridal gown (with a few unique touches added by the bride), which she purchased at the Myrjan Bridal Salon in Brooklyn, New York. Chris wore a platinum Ralph Lauren Chaps tuxedo that first caught his eye in a picture he saw on the Internet.

At the reception, the couple’s friend Aodaoin blessed JoAnna and Chris—in both Gaelic and English—with a blessing written by her father especially for their wedding:

A hundred thousand blessings for you, long life, happiness and health, a smooth pathway and the protection of the Angels on the rocky road thro' life.

The couple and their parents also performed a Polish wedding tradition at the reception, to honor Chris’s family’s Polish heritage and to unite the two families. “This was important to me,” JoAnna says, “as a way to honor Chris’s parents and to embrace our new extended family.”

“My favorite moment was when we were taking our wedding pictures under the setting sun,” reminisces Chris. “The photographer was raving about the light. We had a great time taking candid shots with our family and friends.” The couple agrees that the most memorable aspect of the wedding was seeing all their family and friends interact with one another and forge new friendships. “The dance floor was packed, everyone was making friends, and my brother even got inspired to propose to his girlfriend,” recalls JoAnna. (She accepted, of course!) “The whole day was just perfect,” says Chris. JoAnna agrees; the day merged two separate lives into one, and brought together family and friends in joyous celebration. “I wouldn’t have changed a thing!” says JoAnna.

~ Schanina Winfield