Mac’s surprise birthday at the beach.

I always like to do some­thing spe­cial for Mac’s birth­day and as we’ve been mar­ried for 14 years it seemed like a won­der­ful oppor­tu­nity to renew our vows this year on the beach at Bay Head. Our girls, Madeline and Cameron, were espe­cially excited about the sur­prise part of the event! They helped with prepa­ra­tion, made deci­sions with me on how to dec­o­rate and most impor­tantly kept the secret for more than a month prior to the big day!

We’d just descended on our beach rental prior to his birth­day on the 4th and every­thing came together at the last minute. Mac’s eldest brother Rob announced he was vis­it­ing for the week and was a great help. Alexandra, our friend and ex stu­dio man­ager, fresh from her hon­ey­moon and divine wed­ding we all attended 3 weeks ago in Paris, popped down to help the girls and me with bou­quets and dec­o­rat­ing the tiki torches with starfish and hydrangeas. Mac had no idea, thought we were just hav­ing a fam­ily din­ner that night. Thankfully the weather gods played ball, the day was supurb and the cer­e­mony was set for 6.30pm on the sand.

Rob envei­gled Mac onto the beach at the pre­scribed time. It didn’t take long for my hus­band to fig­ure that the sur­prise was on him! Luckily he was thrilled! Mayor Curtis offi­ci­ated and Uncle Rob held our sand jar, dec­o­rated by the girls, as the four of us poured in a lit­tle sand.

After the cer­e­mony we were joined by a small group of close friends in time to raise a glass of cham­pagne to toast Mac. We feasted on seared tuna, lob­ster salad as the sun set glo­ri­ously behind us. Once night fell we let off a few fire­works to the kids delight, the per­fect fin­ish­ing touch to my roman­tic birth­day surprise!