TALLAHASSEE — they looked like a wedding.
Sixty or 70 friends at an extravagance Caribbean hotel, like the governor and a former Tampa mayor. A beaming bride in a white dress with a flower within her hair. A photographer flown in to capture photographs with the smiling pair with aqua liquid to their rear.
But lawyer standard Pam Bondi states no ceremony took place from the Ritz-Carlton Grand Cayman on Saturday. And lots of inquiries continue to be about when and just why Bondi produced the last-minute choice never to become hitched.
Did Bondi bow to traditional critics exactly who sensed the woman jaunt across oceans had been politically tone deaf? The 46-year-old now states she’s going to end up being wed in a small, personal ceremony at a Tampa-area Baptist chapel.
Did leakage on news sites and social media sites result in the pair to scared from promotion? A photo of Bondi offering cocktails throughout the planes journey towards Cayman isles quickly produced the rounds on the internet.
Or is something most personal and heartbreaking engaging? Bondi and her fiance, 62-year-old ophthalmologist Greg Henderson, invested the sunday enjoyable friends and family and so are nevertheless on holiday together. But that featuresn’t quit folks from wondering whether one of the two had gotten cold ft or if there clearly was a prenuptial disagreement.
From getaway, the happy couple emailed the Times/Herald to state the conjecture are inaccurate. Said Henderson: “the audience is enjoying a pleasurable and blessed journey and are generally crazy about both.”
Bondi might creating the lady marriage to Henderson for several months. In November, she informed the Tampa Bay days that she got hoping for a spring affair. Governmental insiders in the course of time caught wind that a location wedding was actually in the pipeline for Memorial Day weekend, but details happened to be set while the guest checklist had been special.
The very first info talked about publicly came from an unlikely source: condition Sen.
Paula Dockery, whom coincidentally is on the same industrial journey with the Cayman Islands on Thursday. She snapped a photo of Bondi offering cocktails on marriage party and uploaded they on her behalf Facebook page.
“She seemed therefore delighted and I also asked authorization to bring a picture and blog post on FB,” Dockery told the Times/Herald in a-twitter change. “My intention would be to display their pleasure with other people.”
Southern Florida blogger Jose Lambiet caught wind of Dockery’s article and used up with a phone call into the Ritz-Carlton. The guy said a staffer confirmed the facts.
“She said the marriage is at 5 o’clock on Saturday in addition they happened to be at rehearsal” in the period he called Friday, Lambiet mentioned.
Facts altered the very next day. Lodge associates declined Bondi or Henderson comprise guests whenever Lambiet labeled as again so there was actually don’t reference to a ceremony.
“Saturday i got eventually to thinking, there will be something cooking indeed there,” he mentioned.
Bondi affirmed toward Tampa Bay instances on Saturday your wedding is delayed for a few days but would not state the reason why. She expressed the sunday as a “celebration of upcoming nuptials.”
Also a number of the guests welcomed to participate the couple in Cayman did not know about the alteration in plans as they embarked for your Caribbean. Former Tampa gran penis Greco mentioned they aren’t positive as he learned truth be sugar daddy free dating told there would not feel a wedding, probably in the jet experience here.
“Some knew, plus some don’t,” said Greco, just who traveled together with his spouse, Linda McClintock. “But people know before Saturday.”
There was clearly however hanging out and also compassionate terminology your wedding couple, but no conformity, Greco said. “that they had a prayer and multiple Bible scriptures and mentioned that is what they had chose to create.”
Greco stated the guy comprehends when the couples concurred that a service in a chapel near house might be most installing.
“that does not shock me once you understand Greg for as long as I known your,” Greco said. “he is a person who resides their faith.”
The special invite listing provided Gov. Rick Scott and his wife, Ann. Nothing with the different closet users and/or lieutenant governor happened to be mentioned among the guests.
Most company and acquaintances contacted by Times/Herald dropped to remark. Asked whether he planning a wedding would definitely take place, Scott answered vaguely on Wednesday: “we gone for Pam’s celebration.”
As Scott invested Saturday from inside the Cayman Islands, tropic violent storm Beryl endangered northeast Fl. Scott’s personnel stated the guy watched the storm directly and gone back to Florida for scheduled events on Sunday and Monday.
“we stayed along with they the whole time,” the governor stated. “the moment we visited an amount 1, I happened to be right here.”
Bondi enjoys experienced by far the most critique during the week-end, not only when it comes to privacy close the lady wedding ceremony projects but the details by themselves.
Greco, having have their share associated with the spotlight, bristled at some negative reviews strangers directed at the attorneys standard. This lady initial choice in order to get hitched at a Caribbean hotel instead of a Florida chapel was personal, not governmental, he stated.
Dockery, who is still vacationing in Cayman, additionally stated she was shocked in the effect and labeled as they “absurdity.” She got rid of the image from their myspace wall, but it was already copied onto numerous websites.
“basically had identified this will be anything besides a very joyful and lighthearted minute for Pam, we undoubtedly won’t bring contributed despite having her permission,” mentioned Dockery, a Lakeland Republican.
But Lambiet thinks Bondi produced exactly what the guy considers an advertising problem.
She got naive to imagine that Floridians would not be interested in learning the woman marriage, the guy stated, and must have-been most upcoming by what she planned.
Past Gov. Charlie Crist started using it inside their highly advertised 2008 event to Carole Rome, based on Lambiet. Interested citizens gathered outside of the St. Petersburg chapel to brighten on partners, and Crist made sure the mass media had gotten every pictures they wished, the blogger stated.
“I think she were unsuccessful miserably at a potential PR coup,” Lambiet said, making note that Bondi’s title has become floated as a future gubernatorial applicant. “assuming you simply can’t deal with this, how can you deal with a campaign?”
Except that the happy couple’s e-mail later part of the Wednesday nights, Bondi will not be viewed or heard from. We know the woman is on vacation with Henderson not much more.
However, the one thing is clear: it is not a honeymoon.