My mom's wedding

On Saturday my mom got married.  It was a pretty big event.  I think maybe 300-400 people were there.  It was a luau style wedding reception.  The ceremony was held in the cultural hall since we didn't know how many people would show up, it's a good thing because almost all 32 tables were full of people.  They would have never fit in the Relief Society room.  When you invite Polynesian people to a wedding, the parents don't just come by themselves, they bring their whole families, so everything was planned in case a ton of people came.

Friday night we began setting everything up.  It took a long time because my mom and Willard kept changing their mind about stuff.  We started out with just black table cloths and then ended up with black and red.  They were going to get married in the chapel but then it ended up in the cultural hall.  We were going to blow up balloons on Friday night, but then changed it to Saturday afternoon.  Needless to say, we were there moving things around for a while and then just standing there.  Gary and Colleen (aunt and uncle) came up from Arizona for the wedding and helped with getting things set up.  

Note:  Since I stole these pictures, I couldn't resize them so parts of them are cut off.  Unfortunately I'm not in most of the parts cut out! :-p  I'll repost more pictures later.....after I steal them from Becca.  Ha ha

My mom decided to do cheap decorations from the dollar store because center pieces have the tendency to grow legs and walk off at polynesian functions!  Can you imagine?!!!  It's a good thing they did because I witnessed this happening by then end of the night!  Kudos to Colleen for making my balloon arch a reality!  I like to throw random ideas out there and not know how to make them happen.  Also someone else had used the cultural hall before and had balloons all over the ceiling.  Gary used his mad balloon gathering skills to get them all down.  Another one of my random ideas....to throw knives at the balloons to get them down.  Never mind the fact that the knives might get stuck in the ceiling or what to do when the knives started coming down.  My idea of scaling the chair rack was much better!  After all that balloon gathering, there were 5 times more balloons to gather after reception was over since people can't just look at the balloons, they have to touch them too.  I didn't know that balloon arches had legs too because at the end of the night, I saw it walk off like the center pieces. 

Willard sang Josh Groban's The Prayer and You're Still You.  The program for the reception was filled with dancers and I sang From This Moment and At Last.  I ended up singing two songs cause Sariah bailed out of singing at the last minute and my mom wanted someone to sing From This Moment.  I also think I sing At Last better than Beyonce.  ha ha  Becca sang My Valentine and Rachel sang Heaven.  Sariah sat around and took credit for the singing because people were confused and thought she sang.

I really didn't want my current fatness immortalized in my mom's wedding photos but oh well.  I have nobody to blame but myself, the Barnes & Noble Cafe, Wendy's and those delicious Frosties, and McDonalds and those oreo McFlurries.  I've kind of had a years worth of dessert bingeing.

Rachel sleeps so much she sleeps standing!  Just kidding.  We had maybe 5 cameras going at once, someone was bound to have their eyes shut.

Colleen told us to do something crazy and this was our response.  Sorry!  We're a reserved bunch and not too exciting.

Teo, enjoying the festivities.  This little boy has more poly pride than all of us put together.  He likes to go to my mom's Samoan ward luau's and parties.

Poor Ben.  He got a bloody nose during the reception and it was all over his shirt.  Sariah said he stuck the toilet paper up his nose so that he could go out dancing again.  The silly kid has some crazy dance moves.  Think Elaine from Seinfeld with a mixture of Karate moves.  ha ha!  I think Nephi might have gotten some video of it.

It was a late night.  By the time we got to my mom and Willard's house it was about 11 and then we stayed and opened presents.  Needless to say, I was really tired by the time I got home.  When I woke up in the morning I was telling Chris how surprised I was that Mockie only got up once in the night and he told me she actually got up 3 times.  I just slept through the other 2.  An odd coincidence was that one of my friends that I used to work with lives right next door to Willard.  When he gave them an invitation, she said "That's Abish's mom!"  It's been a few years since I've seen her.  Small world!

Thanks Colleen for the pictures!  I stole them off your facebook!  hee hee