A Hawaiian Affair: Ceremony Details

While we were having our intimate "first look", my bestie (and her fabulous hubby) worked diligently at putting our ceremony site together. I felt a lil' bad having my guests work on our wedding day, but that's what best friends are for, right?! They did a wonderful job and if I hadn't told them before, THANK YOU! mwah!

Bestie Lauren being my wonderful ceremony decorator. :o)

I didn't talked about this, mainly because it was a last minute project and I just never got around to it, I made custom water bottle labels and just placed them over the original water bottle labels. We provided transportation for our guests, so it wasn't like they were able to leave after the ceremony to get a drink; we provided beverages for them. No dehydrated guests on my hands!

It was actually quite cool and cloudy on our wedding day, so our palm fans weren't really needed. But I was glad to have them, just in case.

We had a very flowerless wedding. Our "pew" decorations weren't any different. It's amazing what a paper lantern and ribbon can add to an aisle.

Very simplistic. Very us.

Next up: The Ceremony!

All images courtesy of Frank Amodo.

__________________________________________
Previously:
The first look.
Gettin' glammed.
Welcome BBQ

A Hawaiian Affair: The first look.

In my last post, I briefly mention that we were not only planning on meeting before the ceremony, but that we were also exchanging cards to each other. Only we both forgot to get each other cards. Opps. That morning, while I was looking for the thank you card I had for my H&M stylist, I realized I had 2 extra cards. Perfect! One was rushed over to Mr. Mek.

I actually don't remember much about leaving the hotel or the drive to the ceremony venue. I remember my mom telling me that the shuttle was at the hotel, which meant Mr. Mek was leaving since he was taking the shuttle with the guests to the venue. I remember frantically trying to get all my crap together and then throwing it all in my bestie's car. Then magically I was at the temple.

Our Photographer set up our "first look" meeting. He strategically placed Mr. Mek so that I could sneak up behind him and tap him on the shoulder to turn around.

It went something like this:

Then I was all like, "Mr.Mek, I have a card for you." and he was all like, "What a coinkydink, I have one for you too." Okay so not really, but you get the idea.
Mr. Mek wrote this:

"To my Boopsy:
You make me happy, you make me smile, you make me proud to have you in my life, but most importantly you make be BETTER. No matter where we are or where we end up in our lives just know that we will be there together...forever and ever. As long as we have each other, we have everything.
You are not only my wife, my best friend and my partner...you are also my world.
Yours always,
Mr. Mek."

::sigh:: He's a keeper.

This is me probably telling Mr. Mek how adorable he is. :o)

Of course, writing such sweet thoughts is rewarded with smooches!

and giggles.

It was nice intimate moment between two in love. And the photographer and the tourists who happen to be around. :o)

Mr. Mek putting both cards back in his pocket and next...we're off to the ceremony

All images courtesy of Frank Amodo

A Hawaiian Affair: Girls gettin' glammed.

And so....the recaps begin!

[all images courtesy of Frank Amodo, unless otherwise noted]

Above photos were taken by bestie, Bear.

Mr. Mek and I had a fairly busy morning. After a well rested night together (we both crashed fairly early the night before), we had gotten up around 7am and ran down to Watanabe Floral to pick out leis for our wedding ceremony. Talk about waiting til' the last minute on that one. Luckily they had was we were looking for, a white jasmine lei and a maile lei. Then we remember that we were supposed to turn the rental car in....the day before. So after a quick trip to drop off our rental car and an even quicker breakfast, we said our good byes for the first half of the day and Mr. Mek left to relax in my 'rent's room.

By the time I got back to my room, May, our H&M stylist was already working her magic on our moms. While May was working her magic on me, my two besties (and kiddies) came over to get ready with us. Frank, our photographer, arrived shortly after I got all dolled up and shot some of the chaos that was in my tiny hotel room.

Mommy Mek on the left, MIL Mek on the right. (photo by Bear)

Wishin' I had gotten a "pretty" hanger, although my clear plastic hanger doesn't look too bad.

I was a two shoe bride. One pair for the ceremony and a more practical, comfortable pair for the luau.

And the grooming chaos beings:

Bestie, Bear, doing her step daughter's hair.

Bestie, Lauren, helping me put on my jewelry.

Helping MIL Sushi with her hair.

Helping Bear with her daughter's hair. She's also our flower girl, although instead of flowers she'll have the parasol she's holding.

For some reason I love this photo.

Our flowergirl, isn't she adorable?!

Meanwhile, here is what the guys were doing:

Absolutely nothing! (photo provided by Bear)

In the midst of the chaos, I remember that Mr. Mek and I were supposed to exchange cards at our "first look" meeting (more on that later). Only, neither one of remembered or had the time to purchase cards. Luckily, I had extra note cards that I had gocco'd as thank you cards for our vendors.

Despite having 4-5 grown women, 2 kids and a photographer in a tiny hotel room, Frank managed to capture some great portraits that made time seem to just stop in place.

Sisters

"Hmmm...wonder what the day has in store for me today."

Welcome! Here are some gifts...

Two days before the wedding we hosted a Welcome BBQ for our guests. Really, it was a way to spend some time with everyone and to let everyone meet and get to know each other a little better before the wedding.

Let me start by saying that our welcome BBQ did NOT go as smoothly as planned. First off, the weather in Hawaii, while we were there, was extremely windy and more rainy than usual (even considering that Hawaii is usually quite rainy in the winter). We had our BBQ held at Bellows, which is an Air Force owned beach. I thought I had done my part and did all the legal paperwork to host our event there. I had to collect all of our guest’s driver’s license number and their vehicle information and fax it to Bellow’s security forces 48 hours before the event. The day of the event, my family and I get to Bellows and check in. It was soooo incredibly windy that we were afraid everything was going to blow off the tables and it definitely was too cold and windy to take a dip in the ocean. As the guests start to arrive, my dad and I start to get hounded by phone calls. The guard at the gate won’t let them on the post. We had about 11 people that were stuck…off base. When I checked in for our pavilion by the beach, they forgot to inform me that I also had to check in with security forces to confirm the guest list I faxed them 2 days prior. Needless to say, one of the guests waiting outside the base is in the Army and he ended up signing everyone in as his guest. So 30 minutes later, everyone was on the post and starting to enjoy themselves.

Unfortunately I was enjoying the day more than documenting it, so I don’t have many photos of the BBQ. :o( Here are the few photos we do have:

Mr. Mek adores the kiddies:


We got the buckets for $1 from Michaels and put cookies, stickers, coloring books and crayons inside for the kiddies. The kids put the buckets to good use!

See how windy it was. There was no beach swimming on this day. :o(

I didn’t even take photos of the welcome boxes I made for everyone. But I luckily one of our guests did:

(rocks were placed in each welcome box so they wouldn't fly away at the BBQ)

There was some variation to each box, but some of things we provided were:

• Cookies from the Honolulu Cookie Company
• Map of Oahu
• Crossword Puzzle
• Beach Ball
• Water Gun
• Playing Cards
• Postcards
• Stickers
• Hershey Kisses (to rep' Hershey, PA)
• "Survival Kit" (included Spongebob and Hello Kitty band aids and Tylenol)
• Photo sharing Card/Instructions
• welcome letter with wedding day timeline (vector images from www.istockphoto.com)

While I didn’t have "official" bridesmaids, I did have my two oldest and bestest friends in tow. So, to show my appreciation of them over the years, I made them their own little gift bags. My main gift to them was a blurb book I made to showcase our friendship over the past 16 years. It took months to put together. Without them knowing exactly what I was doing, I asked them to send me photos of us and letters we wrote to each other over the years. Here’s how it turned out:

Amariah Rauscher from ollie ollie drew me this great illustration, which I used for the cover of the book.
On the first pages I indtroduced ourselves. "These are a few of my favorite things....when I was 13." In our middle school days, we passed around a lot of slam books, so I used the infomation from them to add to this page. I scanned in our signatures from old letters and added an old yearbook photo from our tween/early teen years.

There were lots of photos from our early teen years...

and I went through TONS of old letters, picked out the best ones and added them too.

I also made sure to add our most current accomplishments and milestones.

I ended the book with a poem of friendship and a photo of us when we were 18.

So while our BBQ wasn't the fun in the sun I was hoping for, I did get to thank all of our guests for joining us in Hawaii with lil' gifts. :o)