They say what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Well, that is of course, if you don’t happen to meet the love of your life. What was supposed to be a weekend with friends playing softball, unexpectedly turned into a lifetime partnership for James Alva and Eddie Rodriguez.

We met in Las Vegas, during a softball tournament. At the time I was living in San Francisco and Eddie was living in Los Angeles. How we met is actually a funny story. My friend invited me over to his hotel room to have a drink for his birthday, I was still all dirty from practice but went over anyway. When I knocked on the door, Eddie answered looking good and freshly showered. [Laughs] I was so embarrassed. I tried to start a conversation with him, but he wasn’t showing any interest in me. Literally no eye contact and one-word responses, so I took that as my cue to leave. I hadn’t even reached the elevator, and my friend sent me a text to come back to his room because Eddie liked me! I went back to the room, and I knew that day that I would marry him.

A few years later we went back to Las Vegas because we would go every year to celebrate the place where we met. I planned a romantic couple’s weekend away, or so he thought, little did Eddie know that I had also arranged for both of our families to be there for the surprise engagement!  We had dinner at the Wynn Hotel that night and after dinner, we were supposed to go back to our hotel to change before going out later that night. I had it all planned with the Mandarin to have the lights nicely dimmed at the bar when we arrive so Eddie could not see our family when he walked into the small bar. But, almost as soon as we walked in, his eagle eye spotted our family anyway. [Laughs] He was very confused and as he walked over to me, my sister shoved the red Cartier ring box into my back. I just kept thinking, it’s now or never. Before Eddie could turn around, I got down on one knee. The photographer started snapping a bunch of photos that blinded us and poor Eddie was in shock. I asked him to marry me, and he couldn’t even process it. I had to ask him twice, and then he said yes!

We wanted a metropolitan style wedding that equally blended two cultures and two religions. It was important for us that our guests experience both cultures that we come from, and since we both love NYC and our families were in the area, we thought it would be the right place.

In the spring of 2018, we were busy looking for wedding venues in Los Angeles and needed a break, so we took a trip to Puerto Rico for a vacation. When we planned the trip, we would have never known that this would have been six months post a devastating hurricane. Despite the damage from the hurricane, we decided to go on our trip anyway. We fell in love with the island and the spirit of the people immediately. Rather than being sad about the damage, they were so thankful to still be alive and to live there. Everyone kept thanking us for coming, and people kept asking us to tell our friends and family that it was safe now to come and visit.  One day during our trip, we took a guided tour. The tour guide showed us a beautiful hotel that was being transformed for a wedding that evening. Eddie and I saw the wedding setup and both looked at each other with that look in our eyes like we were thinking and feeling the same thing. We spent the last day of our vacation hunting for wedding venues and the last place we saw that day was called the Antiguo Casino de Puerto Rico. We knew that we had to be married there.

Azure and Andaleeb were all amazing! Andaleeb created the most beautiful wedding invitation I have ever seen. The black acrylic invitation with gold foil was so chic and regal.  Everything from the sheen on the invitation to the thickness to the font and the design all screamed royalty. The custom box envelope was like nothing we had ever seen. So many people told us that they had never seen such a beautiful invitation. Most of our friends and family still have the invitation up on display as a keepsake. When we met with Andaleeb, she took the time to really understand our vision. She quickly got that we were looking for elegant, classy, masculine, and that wow factor. And boy did she deliver! When it came time for printing the wedding day stationery, we knew we had to work with Andaleeb and Azure again. Andaleeb knew that we wanted the escort cards to be beautiful and unique. She suggested the perfect solution with each escort card (black with gold foil) wrapped around a single stem red rose. The effect was powerful and memorable. Azure also printed our table numbers and menus. Each menu had the guest’s names printed on them, and it made our guests feel really special.  Our guests kept saying that so much detail went into each element of our wedding, and so much of those details were tangible for our guests with the pieces created by Azure.