"The best option in Cartagena!!!, he was highly recommended to us by the locals for his quality, awesome work, always on time and amazing experience. I work in the fashion Industry in New York and I seen a lot of photo-shoots and photographers so I knew what I was looking for when I stared looking for the photographer. Manuel Pedraza was the person that will be on charge of keeping my memories like if I'm still there; even if a whole year will pass I knew good shoots will bring me back to Cartagena and to my wedding. It was a rainy afternoon and Manuel and I had scheduled star our session around the city's walls at 3:30. He arrived on time but Off course we couldn't even make it out of my room!!! it was a storm out there and the hotel flooded; Manuel was so worry that I'll be sad for the rain and that my face will reflect the sadness of the rain in the pictures so he kindly suggested ... why don't you tell your bridesmaid to contact everyone and tell them that because of the rain instead having the ceremony at 5 is going to be at 6:30 so we all have time to adjusted and relax and wait for the rain to pass. So we did and we laugh and wait and take amazing pics under the sunset with my umbrella and the ocean as a background. He even told me my make up was a bit light and was not registry well with the flash so I got it fix in a sec and the result under the flash was perfect. I was worry about the time since we arranged 8 hours session since his arriving time; when the 8 hours arrive I went to thank him and he said: are you crazy how I am going to miss the best part of the party... you need the rest of the pictures!!! (we still had at that point 3 more hours to go with a new band) So I'm not going anywhere and you don't worry about me, enjoy your time because is your wedding and I want you to remember it for ever... is not than I have other wedding to go to after yours. I saw a lot of the final work and I'm extremely happy and satisfied that we worked together. www.pedrazaproducciones.com"
I don't even know where to star with Javier Barrera producciones. They put together every single musical group or band for my wedding; we wanted some instrumental music for the ceremony but at the same time some Caribbean rhythm on it and that's when the proposed have a piano man, a saxophone an a guitar. They did ask me 4 days before what I have on mine for my entrance and what did i want for each part of the ceremony in order to get it ready for the rehearsal and to get the scheduled down for everyone.
my ceremony was held at the Salon in the Hotel Casa del Conde pestagua, a colonial salon that can fit up to 80 people, (I had 75 guest total)We choose to have a Christian ceremony with a minister who also is a long time family friend, beside him we also had a few friends and my sister speaking and shearing some words about love, us and and how we met; One of my best friend Arielle Verinis whom has just released her latest album in the states offer to sing a song on the ceremony and in order to do so we ask Javier for some rehearsal time with the musicians and they totally help us with that.
Ones the ceremony was done we had a Colombian folk band (PAPAYERA)with dancers greeting everybody at the exit of the Salon and taking all the guest down to the first floor to the cocktail; they played for 45 minutes while my guest enjoyed finger food and Mojitos!!!!
Party time!!! now the official party has just kick in and the 6 band tropial/ cuban band star playing what will be the first out of three 45 minutes sets. The best complement for this awesome band were the 4 professional salsa dancer that we hired through Javier in order to entertain the guest while eating but also to teach them how to get those Latino and Shakira moves out.
I still get complements and thank yous from my well know American none Caribbean friends that for the first time learned how to dance Salsa, Merengue, Cumbia and Vallenato.
Ones the band had finished we had the best closing band / performance ever! a Vallenato group of 5 men with not microphone and just a few instruments, drummers,a guacharaca, an accordion and maracas for a whole hour trow the best show of the night; even the locals were amaze but the quality and ability of the leader singer on composing and improvising 3 songs about what the women at the party were wearing one by one then go to tell the history how my husband and I met in New York and how we end up getting marry in Cartagena then he star singing about USA and Colombia and how we had issues but we somehow end up happy together and every American in Cartagena who has arrive as a single person leaves marry or at least engaged! LOL!!!
If you ever want to see the video you can ask me and I can e-mail it to you.
Any way I have to say that I could choose a better team of magnificent people to work with, I'm so happy with how everything in my wedding day turn out and how all my guest had told this one was the best wedding ever they been to, this pays off all the planning and all the work for over a year.
Thank you Javier and I hope to celebrate my anniversary in Cartagena in order to party on the same way.
The best cake ever, no wonder why everybody recommend her she is professional and lovely to work with. She knows pretty much every location in Cartagena and knows how big the cake has to be in order to look perfect on the pics and in front of all the guest. She kindly worked my design with a stencil that I bough from NY and put the ribbon that I wanted on it.
She also offers a service where two beautiful girls wearing traditional clothes come to cut an serve the cake with style decorating the plate with a fruit sauce and a flower.
We also had so many options of flavor to choose from that I end up having two and people love the color and the flavor combination plus the quality of the cake was a 10!!!
Beside the wedding cake I had made a little birthday cake for one of my guest, she totally loved it and so did I. For my farewell brunch I placed an order of macaroons in the two colors that I've been using for everything on my week wedding, pink and orange. The flavor and the presentation came out perfect and my guest walked out with a little something sweet on their hands.
The best option in Cartagena!!!, he was highly recommended to us by the locals for his quality, awesome work, always on time and amazing experience.
I work in the fashion Industry in New York and I seen a lot of photo-shoots and photographers so I knew what I was looking for when I stared looking for the photographer. Manuel Pedraza was the person that will be on charge of keeping my memories like if I'm still there; even if a whole year will pass I knew good shoots will bring me back to Cartagena and to my wedding.
It was a rainy afternoon and Manuel and I had scheduled star our session around the city's walls at 3:30. He arrived on time but Off course we couldn't even make it out of my room!!! it was a storm out there and the hotel flooded; Manuel was so worry that I'll be sad for the rain and that my face will reflect the sadness of the rain in the pictures so he kindly suggested ... why don't you tell your bridesmaid to contact everyone and tell them that because of the rain instead having the ceremony at 5 is going to be at 6:30 so we all have time to adjusted and relax and wait for the rain to pass.
So we did and we laugh and wait and take amazing pics under the sunset with my umbrella and the ocean as a background. He even told me my make up was a bit light and was not registry well with the flash so I got it fix in a sec and the result under the flash was perfect.
I was worry about the time since we arranged 8 hours session since his arriving time; when the 8 hours arrive I went to thank him and he said: are you crazy how I am going to miss the best part of the party... you need the rest of the pictures!!! (we still had at that point 3 more hours to go with a new band) So I'm not going anywhere and you don't worry about me, enjoy your time because is your wedding and I want you to remember it for ever... is not than I have other wedding to go to after yours.
I saw a lot of the final work and I'm extremely happy and satisfied that we worked together.
www.pedrazaproducciones.com