"Dobry den", jon and i practiced this as we boarded the ferry to the san juan islands. our yoga teacher yohana is czech and i had asked her to teach us a few words for our wedding last weekend. Dobry den, means hello, which was by far the easiest one to remember. not knowing what a difficult language it is, i wasn’t feeling completely confident after studying the little piece of paper she had handed us.

petra’s family is czech. both sets of her grandparent’s are still living over in the czech republic. all four came over to attend her beautiful wedding on orcas island at rosario resort. it was such an awesome treat for the whole family to be together for such a special celebration.

i had asked yohana how to say "smile!" in czech. she smiled and said, "there is no such saying, czech people don’t smile." i said "that can’t be true, look at you". she pieced something together for me to say, to conjure up smiles from the grandparents. it was really long and difficult to remember, but we practiced it as we drove in the van to the wedding. i was a little worried about the no smile issue. but as i suspected it couldn’t be true. this family was all smiles! i didn’t even have to bother with telling them to smile in czech, which was good since i completely went blank.

almost all smiles! maybe if i would have attempted a little czech i could have had them all giggling.

these two are so right together! i wish you could all hear petra’s voice, it is so calming and sweet. it was a joy to photograph them in such a special place. really enjoyed getting away for a long sunny weekend and all the love in the air!