Reflections... Our Wedding Day pt 4

*in case you missed it... you can find part 3 here *

... the wedding was perfect! I couldn't have imagined it being any better. Is that crazy or what? How is it possible that our wedding day turned out to be better then we could ever have imagined and we didn't even know whether it would happen only a week before.

The ceremony was beautiful. Matt and I said 'I do' amongst tropical flowers, palm trees and the ocean behind us. We had loved ones around us; supporting us, encouraging us and just 'being there' for us. It was a very hot day, around 32 degrees, but I barely noticed.

Our wedding party - too bad all our guests weren't in this picture too!

We enjoyed an incredibly unique reception with traditional Hawaiian music and fantastic food, right on the ocean. We had a private table just for our group. Such a blast and totally unforgetable!

We couldn't have planned anything more perfect. God had a better plan for us that we had for ourselves. And seriously... what a story!

Reflections... our crazy wedding story pt 3

... So we were all booked to go to Hawaii along with a group of friends.
*you can read part 2 here *
*or part 1 here *

Matt and I looked up local photographers and found one for a good price that we liked. We called him up and he said he only had one date of availability; the following Thursday. We looked at each other and said, "Okay, guess we'll get married next Thursday!"

We knew we wouldn't be able to plan a full reception last minute. My family and I had been to a Luau a few years back run by the Christian group YWAM and wondered if that would make a good dinner reception. After all, it was entertainment and great food! We called them up and sure enough they were more then happy to accommodate our whole group for the Thursday evening show.

The next day we drove down to Arlington and stayed over night with some very dear friends of ours. The following morning we all met up at the airport (at least all of those from BC and Washington state. There was also a group of family coming from Toronto) and took off to Hawaii.

Once there we started to plan out little details. There was a beautiful garden at the resort and we decided that we should hold the ceremony there. My dad talked with the resort and planned out chairs and a hoopa. My mother and Aunt drove up the street to the florist and planned out the flowers. Our friend Ashley started practising some music for during the ceremony. And I attempted to relax.

Once that was all arranged; we vacationed. We hit up the beaches, the local dining and enjoyed everyones company around the pool. This was why we had decided on a destination wedding in the first place. We wanted to spend quality time with loved ones in a beautiful location. It was wonderful.

There were a few hiccoughs along the way - if you can even call them that. I had no place to get my hair, nails or makeup done. But no big deal, I did them myself. My maid of Honor ended up with some kind of eye trouble. No problem, we got some antibiotics from a local doctors office. I passed out in a Subway restaurant the afternoon before the wedding; not exactly what you envision for the day before you wedding, but I sat through my rehearsal ceremony and was in bed by 7pm.

I woke up the morning of May 7th, sat on my giant lanai with my best girlfriend Ally soaking up the beautiful scenery and feeling 100% calm. Finally, after a year and a half engagement, a cancelled wedding and alot of stress, I was going to marry Matt.

...to be continued... (the final part...)

Reflections... our crazy wedding story pt 2

... So we had decided to look into Hawaii.
*You can read part one here *

My family had been several times and found the islands to be such a relaxing place. We had no idea what availability would be like or the prices of flights at the last minute, so after deciding on the island we wanted we started looking things up online.

The Big Island of Hawaii. Kona is located on the left.

I love Kona on the Big Island. It is very low key, with no high rises or over commercialised tourism. We found a condo resort in our favourite location and gave them a call to check their availability. Turned out the recession had hit them hard and they had many rooms open. They were also going for a great price - $80 a night for a one bedroom with a full kitchen, living room and lanai.
We then proceeded to check into flights and found the same thing, great deals. Flights for around $400-$500 round trip from Seattle. Awesome!

Kona. See how tiny it is? That's why I love it so much.

We called up all our guests. Sadly, not everyone was able to reschedule at the last minute. Some were not willing to travel with what was going on, others hadn't wanted to risk wasting their vacation time and had booked other trips and some just preferred to stay home. We totally understood everyones decision. It was stressful for all involved, not just us.

But we really appreciated those who stuck with us and trusted our judgement on the new plans. I don't think you will ever understand how much your support meant to us at that time. Your phone calls, your emails, you kept us sane!
A group of us went ahead and booked the trip to Hawaii - approximately 48 hours before we were to leave. We still had no idea what we were going to do as far as a wedding ceremony, photographer, flowers, reception, anything.

Once the flights and condos were booked, we talked it over with my dad and decided that he would be the one to marry us. He already had a legal licence to do so, so it just made sense. We also decided to sign our papers here, as it would have been too complicated to go through all the necessary steps once in the States. We only did the legal part of it. No ceremony, no vows, no hype. Just sitting casually in my families living room. In the eyes of the government we were now legally married. But in the eyes of us (& God) we were not.

We started to pack our bags and think about what we were going to do about everything else.

...to be continued...

Reflections... our crazy wedding story pt 1

   

     This time 3 years ago Matt and I found ourselves in quite the stressful situation.
We had spent months planning our destination wedding to the Mayan Riviera along with approximately 40 guests accompanying us from BC, Alberta, Ontario and Washington State. We were due to leave in one week and then... the swine flu hit.
At first it wasn't a big deal. Sure, alot of people were getting sick, but we weren't about to change our wedding around at the risk of catching a flu bug. We probably wouldn't catch it anyway. But then the government stepped in and stopped all travel to Mexico, causing all our flights to be cancelled; basically cancelling our entire wedding.

     The travel company offered us last minute trips to Jamaica and Cuba. Sure, we would have to re plan our entire wedding but the resorts were similar and we could probably pull it off. But within 12 hours of making those offers they were retracted, and we were told we would have to reschedule our Mexico trip for months down the road. We explained to them how this wasn't possible. Our guests had booked time off work for this trip and put money into it, we weren't going to reschedule. They told us, 'too bad, we aren't giving you your money back.'

     Thankfully, CBC news got ahold of our story through our travel agent and immediately set up TV and newspaper interviews. You can read the news story on us here . *just a side note - we never said we were going to file a class action lawsuit. I guess that sounds a bit more dramatic though doesn't it* After we had been on the air a couple of times we got a call saying that if we stopped talking to the media, the travel company would refund our whole parties money. No problem, we just wanted our money back. Nothing like a little bad publicity to do the right thing eh?

     Now that everyone had their money back, what were we going to do about a wedding? We had several options. We could have a last minute wedding here, but we felt like it would turn into a 'pity party' event. Already when we saw people we knew they were giving us the sad head tilted to the side look followed by, "I am so sorry..." line. No thank you. Thats not what I wanted for my wedding day. Matt and I considered running off to Greece and eloping. Seriously. We actually considered this. But our friends and family had been so supportive through the whole situation that we really wanted them to be a part of our special day.

     So we decided to try for another location. First place that came to my mind was Hawaii.

...to be continued...