Sewn Together: Dinner and Deodorant

Dinner after our rehearsal was pretty standard, as far as rehearsal dinners go. We went to Hee Hing restaurant in Waikiki, which conveniently had underground parking. (Parking is a pain downtown.)

My mom spot-ordered off the menu when we got there, and like any good restaurant, they brought the food out hot and quick.

Everyone loves a duck burger!

Though I was worried about eating such a heavy meal the day before the wedding-nerves kicked in, the food was good, and it was really the last time I'd get to eat a complete meal for a couple days.

Part-way through, we presented our gifts to our parents, siblings and pastor.

The parents received gift certificates to Roy's.

As good as an Oscar for that drama act earlier?

The pastor got a donation for his support and some of his favorite muscat-grape candies.

My sister got one step closer to completing her Pokedex.

And our brothers..

They got deodorant.

Aqua Reef for my brother, since he spends so much time in the water, and Swagger for Sak's brother - since he's baller like that.

Maybe I should back up a bit? Sak has this thing with the Old Spice commercials - he thinks they are hilarious. He doesn't wear the stuff himself, but he loves the commercials. A couple Christmases ago we wrapped a tube of the stuff in a magazine ad with the D&D guy on it, and gave it to my brother. It was pretty funny, to say the least.

So to continue the joke, we gave them some more deodorant (you can never have too much, right?) along with a note that said "Here's tickets to that thing you love".

Before you think we gypped them with three-dollar antiperspirant, there were gift certificates for Ticketmaster enclosed in their cards. They are two college boys that love music, sports and a good time, so I hope they get to see something good with them!

What I didn't anticipate was that the deodorant would be such a big hit with everyone else too.

*sniff sniff*

Anyway, we had a good time eating and laughing with friends and family. Before we closed out the night we whipped out our cameras...

...And took some group pictures, because you can never have too many group pictures.

Though most went home to sleep after dinner, there proved to be just a little more in store for Sak and I that night...
Our wedding week in review:

• We took care of some last minute DIY details, and officialized everything.
• We vacationed with our out-of-towners, and threw a yummy welcome beach brunch.
• Sak saluted an angry dragon during our wedding rehearsal.

Sewn Together: Practice Makes Perfect?

After a sunny afternoon on the beach for our welcome brunch, we freshened up for the rehearsal.

Queue the bridal fit-o-rage.

I rode with Sak's family to our venue, fully expecting my family to be "right behind". Right behind turned into late. Really late.

Under the disapproving eyes of my future in-laws, who I could only assume were making negative judgements about the type of unreliable family their son was about to marry into, I frantically called my family. The reason they were late was because they couldn't find my brother. Apparently he and my cousins decided to hop to another beach after the brunch, and they left watches and cell phones on dry land while they forgot-what-time-it-was in the water.

The venue attendant, tired of waiting for "the rest of our party", went to go wash his car in the lot.

Yet eventually they all showed up.

Instead of relief that my brother arrived - I was angry. I fumed a bit at all of them for a while. So now not only did the in-laws think we were unreliable, we were also fire-breathing dragons of pure wrath. Poor Sak.

In the end, I guess I was just one of those brides with a pretty quick turn around in the mood department. In retrospect, I'm glad everyone enjoyed the trip so much, even if it meant being late for our rehearsal. Above all, I wanted everyone to have fun!  Having a Hawaii destination wedding is much more than a celebration of marriage - it's a full blown vacation for everyone involved.  Beaches are a natural part of that experience.  I just hadn't understood the concept of "island time"!

Anyway, after I vented and everyone went around apologizing, we began, and everyone was happy again as usual. 

Except my dad, who "had a moment" on our first pretend-trip down the aisle.

An auntie hands drama-dad a tissue.

I think he was hamming it up, but I guess we'll never really know the truth.

My aunt had made me an impromptu veil for the occasion, and my mother gave me the silk bouquet of lavender flowers she had used in her own wedding, twenty-five years prior.

Penga-Sis was nonplussed at the honor of holding my shower-plate-bouquet.

It took us approximately three tries to get things "right". Sak had made three different versions of our processional song, depending on how long it would take us to "get down the aisle". The hard part was trying to figure out how much time to allot Sak's grandmothers to walk down. My cousins stood in as "grandmothers", teetering at a slow pace to simulate the time we'd need.

We had to remember the Bible verses we picked, since I forgot the program at the hotel.

Our videographer friends got some day-before practice.

And as you can imagine, things got more and more hammier as time went on. As the pastor said "you may be seated", our brothers and sister decided they'd be seated too. I don't think it works that way.

Our pastor wigged out a bit upon realizing our wedding bands were nearly identical in size and shape. Though it probably wouldn't have mattered much if we had swapped rings.

Some got a little spacier as the time went on too. When was dinner again?

"Bouquet, sister! Bouquet!

Of course, we couldn't practice everything then and there. Sak replaced our final kiss with a salute to his future wife!

And of course we were given our first blank stares of incredulousness as everyone heard our recessional music for the first time. Although some of you can probably guess - we did end up using my much-desired Star Wars Throne Room song.

It seemed that Sak would not only be marrying into an unreliable, fire-breathing family - but a hammy, nerdy one as well.


Our wedding week in review:

• We took care of some last minute DIY details, and officialized everything.
• We vacationed with our out-of-towners, and threw a yummy welcome beach brunch.

Sun 'n Saks: Beach Brunch

Finally, on the eve of our wedding day, it was beach brunch time!

Early that morning, Sak was left at Zippy's to wait for our humongous order of breakfasts. My dad and I went to the local grocery store, FoodLand, to grab some fruit - and Penga-Dad got sidetracked by the huge display of poke (marinated sashimi). He came back with a couple buckets of spicy and not-so-spicy varieties. Not on the original menu, but definitely no complaints here.

We lugged all our supplies over to an empty spot on the beach, far from the main thoroughfare of Waikiki.

As guests arrived, I offered them breakfast - their choice of Portuguese sausage, spam, egg and rice; spam, corned beef hash, egg and rice; or breakfast sausage, corned beef hash, egg and rice. Variety, ha!

Of course - they could add some pineapple or papaya to cut the grease, and try some of the tasty poke.

I was happy that nearly all our out-of-town guests could come.

Some even came on rented mopeds!

I'm glad they were happy to see me too!

They ate.

Climbed palm trees.

Swung on Banyan tress (until Sak yelled at us for being mean to the poor tree).

Traded Pokemon.

Napped in the warm breeze.

Took group photos.

Interestingly, all the people in this photo had the same English teacher in high school - Mrs. B in the middle!

And hit the water, of course.

I was forbidden from entering the water though - as I was already sporting the tell-tale sign of tourism: a sunburn. I hid under a sarong and took a nap. What a horrible hostess this girl is.

As the afternoon wore on, we packed up and headed back for some much-needed showers. "Wedding" came back to the forefront of my mind, and there would be no stopping from that point on.

In hindsight, it's kind of interesting that there's a monkey behind me.

Penga tip: Try to let go of your stress and remember to have fun before your wedding. Even if it's just a little bit. :)

Sun 'n Saks: Out of Towners

Pleasantly freed from the stresses of planning, I started my third day on the island with what else?

Kidding. I didn't play videogames all day. We went to the beach too.

Okay, so I was also looking for a good spot to hold our welcome brunch, too. I guess one can never fully escape.

Sak somehow ran off with his family then - and I didn't see him for the rest of the day. Instead, I met guests as they arrived, even dragging my poor friends to the Honolulu Zoo the moment they stepped off the plane.

And of course, out-of-town bags were distributed, along with some leis.

Some of the bags we handed out personally, and others we left with friendly hotel bell-hops.

For dinner, we found our officiant, his family and my uncle. I ate cold noodles, not realizing I'd soon be sick of eating them in Japan.

I found Sak again the next day, and we grabbed our friends and hopped on a bus to Hanauma Bay - a preserved cove area teeming with fish.

We checked back in time to meet more friends with incoming flights, and passed out out-of-town bags.

To put it simply - the out-of-town bags were a good use of our time, and the contents did not go to waste.

One friend popped open the Tylenol within seconds of receiving her bag. Must have been a stressful flight. Another friend ate all his snacks within a ten minute period. My dad used uh, more than one pack of tums after those delicious Portuguese sausages. Several guests reused their water bottles throughout their stay. And the band-aids.

Well, I should have put more band-aids in the kits.

Coral is pretty sharp there - eh? And to my delight - more than one person was surprised at the "bonus" sparkly band-aid. Muahahaha.

If you have the time and resources - I highly, highly recommend creating out-of-town bags for your travelling guests. I promise that they will appreciate them!

It was really surreal to have my friends in Hawaii, on vacation with me. I typically only see them at conventions, so it was quite a different setting. We ate dinner together that night:

We did some fire bending:

And some water bending:

And as we walked down Waikiki Beach, we re-enacted the Bojangles scene from one of my favorite movies - Moonchild.

And otherwise acted like our crazy selves.

But eventually the night dwindled down, as they were all tired from their flights. We finished with some fruit smoothies in the Waikiki International Marketplace:

Muscle Office Special sounds interesting.

And eventually we crashed. Or at least Sak did.

Tomorrow would mark the last day of our lives as singles.