| Sunday, 15 July 2007 | |
Andrew and Marilyn are married! It was a beautiful, perfect day. I drove down to Santa Cruz on Saturday after filling up Patricia's and my car with their flowers. Eric and several members of the bridal party stayed at Chaminade the night before, and luckily they'd taken down all the vases, lanterns and linens so we fit just barely in two cars. Ken was very sweet and volunteered to drive me. That was particularly wonderful because I arrived at the set up completely relaxed =) Joyce, David, Ann and John all helped us set up the ceremony site and the ballroom. I started outside with the flower balls. I made seventeen fresh flower balls, some for the aisle, and some to be hung from the arbor at the ceremony site. I hung the first few, and then John kindly volunteered to hang the rest. He's MUCH taller than I am =) Ann meanwhile hung the flower balls from the aisle and filled the fountain with cut flowers. I even put a little carnation ball on top of the fountain =) We bought this beautiful watermelon colored organza to drape across the pergola as well. I was amazed at how perfectly the flower colors worked out =) I sent a fabric sample to the gerber daisy guys, and it looked like they died my gerbs to match the fabric! The balls were in all shades of watermelon and red and corals. I love how it turned out! Andrew and Marilyn loved it, so it was perfect =) They said it looked just like the sketch I drew them when we started the whole process =) They also really liked the bouquets, which were my personal favorite. The bridal bouquet and the groom's bout smelled really nice because it had lily of the valley, and Marilyn also got garden roses. She let her Mom smell it during the special music =) The bridesmaid's bouquets made me really happy, because I tried really hard to find flowers in the right colors of coral and watermelon to complement it, and it turned out wonderful! I made lists every time we got anything close to the right color =) Ended up with Latin Ambiance roses, Bliss Impulse roses, sonia, kyria, and bouvardia. Oh, and some porcelana spray roses. We had one small issue with the bouquets, the girls left them in the room where I had delivered them =) Poor Andrew had walked down the aisle, and we were all just sitting there waiting for the bridesmaids and groomsmen, when Angela, the coordinator at Chaminade, came to the aisle and signaled me. She was more concerned than everybody else, I just said, "left your bouquets in the room eh?" and ran and got them. I got to ride a golf cart and so it didn't take long. Angela told me Marilyn was practically bouncing when she saw the ceremony site =) I'm so glad everyone was happy!
Bridesmaids bouquets! I love the coral and watermelon colors, they were so bright and cheerful!
Marilyn's bouquet smelled wonderful, because of the lily of the valley and garden roses
Flower balls!
Fountain for cocktails
Jack was really excited to get to hold a bouquet =)
The food was great too. I almost managed to stay on my diet, although I'm sure there was some sugar in the salad dressing because it was way too good =) I ate only as much of my dinner as I was hungry for, and didn't eat the cake. =) I danced a ton too so hopefully that makes up for it =) was the dj, and he kept it fun the entire night. People were on the floor constantly. First there was the first dance, of course, and Andrew and Marilyn were beautiful. They glided gracefully around the floor. It’s always a bit surprising, that Andrew is so light on his feet. He is incredibly graceful. They both love dancing, and in the toast, it was mentioned that that is how they started to grow so close. Before Andrew finally made his “move” which was really the Patricia move, since both Andrew and Marilyn had confided to Patricia that something was happening, although they didn’t know what. Their first dance was in Japanese, it was a very nice song. They had a hard time finding it, but I think they ended up with a perfect song.
After the first dance, there was a father daughter dance, to the John Mayer song. Then a mother son dance, and Gloria was good!
Then, Mo announced a special bridal party dance. Eric walked onto the dance floor, looking confused, and the rest of the bridal party went out as well. Then Mo put on, Ice Ice, Baby. Eric immediately sprang into dance mode. He did all his craziest moves, including, taking off his jacket, busting out all the old badminton moves, and finally, the ultimate. The worm! However Eric’s never actually danced an entire dance before, so he ran out of moves. Fortunately, Marilyn was calling out Lisa’s name, so she took the floor for several seconds, while Eric caught his breath. Evidently, Marilyn’s mother Margaret remembered Eric dancing to Vanilla Ice at Patricia’s wedding and thought it was the most wonderful thing ever, so she convinced Marilyn to put it in. She came up me later and complimented me on Eric’s dancing.
The things that Patricia, Veronica, and Marilyn’s family remember Eric for is dancing to Vanilla Ice and doing pushups in the rain.
Then came the line dances! We had a wonderful dance lesson Wednesday from Jack and Patricia on three line dance, the Electric Slide, Cruising, and the Tush Push. The Electic Slide was first, as it’s the easiest, and tons of people joined in. Eric’s parents, Marilyn and Andrew’s parents, and even Andrew’s cousins that didn’t have the lesson picked it up really quickly. (Alexis, Jasmine) We did Cruising to the beach boys, one of Marilyn’s favorites. It was so much fun! It’s cha cha to both diagonals, front, back, then two half turns, then a grape vine infinity (grapefine, turn, grapevine turn) and start over. Then, the most difficult, the Tush Push, to the Footloose song, which as you may know, is extremely fast. (Heel toe, heel, heel right, heel toe heel heel left, right heel, left heel, right heel, clap. front Bump bump, , back bump bump, then scoop for your ice cream, which is basically a thrust, twice. Then cha cha forward, cha cha back, cha cha turn, cha cha turn, turn 90 degrees, start over. Mo played the line dances twice. It was AWESOME. Later, there was a disco song on, and Patricia and Jack were doing a new line dance I hadn’t seen, so we all tried to join in, and sort of picked it up =) It was fun doing the hand circles and disco pose =)
Andrew and Marilyn thought they could hold out and not kiss every time a glass was clinked, but the guests insisted, so they gave in. Their kisses were fairly chaste though, and as short as they could get away with, except for one very nice dip =) They gave the crowd what they wanted.
As the bar was closing, Andrew gathered up a group of people for one last shot, which was his ninth. They went slightly over their thousand dollar limit, but Juan obtained the two last shots. Since there was no one else there, Andrew asked Eric to take the shot with them. I was so proud to capture this moment on camera. Eric’s first shot. Awwww.
Eric's first shot. He was very brave, but the burning didn't appeal to him =) Pain is not a flavor =)
Later that evening: We took a group photo of the survivors, the people who made it to the end. Bobby’s world was turned upside down. He was waaaay toasted. Julie and Veronica were also happily buzzed, and Andrew’s world was spinning, although he swore, he wouldn’t forget anything. We took the party to the bridal suite, where we promptly got a noise complaint, which led to hours of ShhhhhhH! And Marilyn giggling at the shushing. We all enjoyed the carrots and pepper Chrissie packed, and Veronica got the idea of tossing a carrot in the air and catching it in her mouth. She managed that finally, after the carrot fell on the ground several times, and then Julie got the bright idea of making it a two man show. She tossed the carrot at Veronica, as Juan left the room because he was worried about a fastball coming at him. It just took two tries though. There was a bobbi pin guessing contest. Andrew had guessed 60, Patricia had 55, and there were 57 pins! Then they did Patricia’s hair, and she promised she had more bobbi pins in her hair, and the actual number was 52.
The survivors
The very happy couple =)
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Since I got the bouquets, I was standing in the hotel where the bridal party walked out from =) I actually really like getting to do that, you get to smile at everyone, and they are so excited and happy it's fun. Marilyn looked SO beautiful! And serene, and giddy with happiness. I adored their ceremony. Andrew thanked his parents and Marilyn's parents in a beautiful little speech right at the beginning of the ceremony, which I thought was wonderful. And their vows were so sweet, I nearly cried. Marilyn did cry, she needed a tissue =) They did a sand ceremony, which I think is a neat tradition, and very practical outside in the wind. 
The reception was really wonderful too! I loved the toasts! Andrew's dad is so funny =) He said how all of Andrew's friends are more Asian than he is... and had Eric stand up =) After the fathers, I had the bright idea of recording the toasts with my nifty video camera. I hope someone recorded the dad's toasts as well, that is the one thing I wish I'd done at my wedding. Eric's toast was wonderful, funny and sweet. He talked about Andrew's best qualities, especially his loyalty. They've been friends for almost twenty years! Patricia's toast was very wonderful too. She and Veronica are like sisters to Marilyn, they even used to live together in Hong Kong. Everyone was so happy and loving, the energy in the room was wonderful. I love weddings, can you tell? 
