Winfield mom of bridegroom has fun in sun at St. Thomas
When the destination of the destination wedding you're attending is St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, you can go to a beach ceremony one afternoon and snorkeling with the wedding party the next.
That was the experience of the mother of the bridegroom, Colleen Gray of Winfield Township, who flew to the Caribbean Island earlier this month to watch her son, Lee Neubert, an anesthesiologist in Elmira, N.Y., marry his fiancee, Jackie Lee White.
Gray, her 90-year old mother, Patricia Gray, and other members of the wedding party flew from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia and then on to St. Thomas on June 4.
“The total travel time took seven hours,” Gray said. The 27-member wedding party stayed in two houses near the town of Red Hook on the east end of St. Thomas.
Gray said her daughter, Rebecca Dominguez, pregnant with her second child, stayed at home in Redding, Calif., over worries about the Zika virus. But her husband, Benjamin Dominguez and their son, Rowan, attended.
She said one house, the Villa Serenti, was for family members and a second was for friends.
“We were in this house that could sleep 18. It had two full kitchens. It was really quite a fabulous house,” said Gray. “The owner brought in Italian tile, Grecian marble looking counters.”
Gray said it was a private home before it was visited by Sports Illustrated models looking for a more private place to stay during a photo shoot.
“He (the owner) rented it to all these swimsuit models. That was the start of his business,” said Gray. “Now it's known as the wedding house. It's big enough for them to have their reception there in the orchid garden and on the patio.”
Gray said the women of the wedding party treated themselves to a daylong session getting their hair and makeup done.
“We took limousines to the nearby Lindquist Beach and the ceremony,” she said. “He and his fiancee wanted a beach wedding and this was fabulous.”
She said the next day, she and her mother relaxed around the pool at the house.
The following day, she said, “We went by ferry to St. John. We took a car ferry to go to Trunk Bay.”
Considered by many to be the most beautiful beach on St. John and often called the most pristine in the Caribbean, Trunk Bay was donated to the National Park Service 50 years ago by the Rockefellers.
“It was beautiful. We went snorkeling. There is a coral reef,” she said. “There were other things to do. They rented paddle boards and Hobie Kats to go sailing.”
“We went to Magens Bay on St. Thomas. We drank rummy drinks and swam,” she said. “We saw sea turtles and did more snorkeling.”“I would caution that Trunk Bay has limited parking. We parked a couple of miles away, and there are these big shuttles that would take you in for a fee. That got a little pricey.”“At Magens Bay, there was a lot of parking,” she said. “The picnic tables were up close to the beach. Older family members could enjoy themselves. I loved Magens Bay. I think if I were to go again, I'd spend more time on St. John because it had more of a native feel.”Island legend has it the English sea captain, privateer and navigator of the Elizabethan era, Sir Francis Drake, used Magens Bay as an anchorage point while waiting for ships to plunder.“It was just beautiful. There was always a gorgeous breeze. The house we stayed in had an infinity pool that looked out over the ocean. It felt as if you were in the ocean all the time you were in it (the pool),” she said.“Every day we would wake up and say to one another, 'Another day in paradise,'” she said.“The sea has that aquamarine color, the gorgeous cliffs going down to the sea, the sand-covered beaches. The ocean is placid enough to let your 3-year-old grandson in the water. There were no bad currents. We felt very comfortable there,” Gray said. “I would say all of the beaches we went to were top-rated.”“We did have a big storm that took the power out, but it was overnight, and our place had a generator,” she added.Gray said the low temperatures were in the 80s and the highs were in the upper 80s during the day.“You wanted to be in the air conditioning. You wanted to be in the water or in the air conditioning.”Gray also fell in love with the cuisine, which featured a lot of dishes straight from the sea.“I ate a lot of seafood, lobster, and I had a local fish, it was a whole fish,” Gray said. “There was a lot of beautiful seafood, although you could get hamburgers because they are set up for tourists.”She said many cruise ships put in at St. Thomas, but do so primarily at the capital of Charlotte Amalie.The wedding party stayed on the east side of the island, where it's more challenging to move about.“None of the roads are marked. We had to use GPS on phones, otherwise we would have had a terrible time finding the way,” Gray said.“The road looked like a path. ... all of a sudden you go around this curve and there is a beautiful house,” she said.Gray flew back June 9, but if she has her way, she will be returning to St. Thomas.“I want to go back. Just the whole beauty of the area ... whenever you see pictures of places in perfect light. Every day looked like a postcard,” she said.
