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.

Sun 'n Saks: Taking Care of Business

After a stressful day of last-minute details, we woke up early to meet with "H", a kimono dresser. I entered her seemingly western house, finding an entire traditional tea room set up inside! Whoa!
Turns out, H teaches tea ceremony classes at the Japanese Cultural Center (our venue!). It was really a neat experience to be dressed in such a traditional setting, as opposed to our messy living room back home.And we finished in just about thirty minutes. Sweet.

After that successful meeting with H, I felt a whole lot better about the kimono change. I was really worried that it would take forever, and that I would miss the whole party! And just to note - on the actual day itself - dressing only took 15 minutes. H is a kimono dressing speed machine.

Next, we headed downtown to drop off our cake topper at Satura Cakes. I cannot say enough about how wonderful our cake-coordinator, Kristy, was - she took good care of Sak's "baby", even coming to oversee the final set up herself!

And while we were in the area - we might as well get our marriage license too, right?
We popped in, paid our $60, took an oath to promise we weren't lying about our age - and that was it!
After accomplishing so much, all before lunchtime - we headed back to the hotel, pumped for some out-of-town bag assembly.We stuck mostly to our original plan, using whatever treats we could find individually wrapped at Costco. Sak's brother ate any and all leftover snacks.

Once my parents had landed and unpacked at the hotel, we loaded their rental van with all our reception decor.

After a quick stop at Zippy's for some snacks and an Orange Bang (melted Creamsicle in a cup!), we ran off to our venue to meet our decorator/coordinator - the hive's own HitchedinHawaii!
After I freaked out in a post about not having any time to set-up, Maria graciously took pity on me and sent me a PM with an offer of help! And seriously, I would have been stuck in some crazy stinky hole without this fellow bride. She really knows her stuff! Three cheers for the 'bee, from me!After stuffing all our crap into her truck, and realizing we had forgotten to bring a few signs, we headed over to the University of Hawaii to hang out with my brother a bit. Some of his friends would be playing Maria's assistants on the day of, so it was good to queue things up with them. Then another Wal-Mart trip, and it was back to the hotel to find the missing signs and finish up some last minute poofs.
I must say, transferring all the wedding stuff to Maria felt SO good, like I was tossing away all my built-up wedding stress (sorry, Maria!). And with that, my brain switched to full vacation-mode, and I was ready to relax. Business was done, and the fun could officially start. At least for now.
(All pictures by either my parents, my in-laws, or myself)