Rehearsal + Luau

Paul and I had a very small wedding party. 

My sister Molly was my maid of honour. Paul's mate Dan was his best man. We also had three gorgeous flower girls, and a dapper ring bearer. Two of the flower girls were daughters of Dan & his wife Amanda. Our third flower girl & ring bearer were our friend Kieran & Amy's son & daughter. The handsome ring bearer is also our Godson. Kieran was our emcee, which is a very Aussie thing to do. He told jokes, kept things moving and introduced each mini event along the evening (you killed it Kieran). I also had my two girls Katie & Justine as personal attendants. For us it was best to keep the wedding party small and intimate.

Thursday before the luau we had a quick rehearsal. 

Getting the run down from the planner.

Paul walked Vanessa down.

Molly & Dan.

Here comes Will.

There goes Will.

Charlotte & Sienna quickly became BFF's.

Daddy & I.

There they are, minus one flower girl. 

Little Hayley broke her arm at the beginning of the families holiday. 

She got in a little later than expected with her Mumma.

Thank you to my niece Haley for snapping the rehearsal pics for us :)

After the rehearsal Paul & I invited all our guest to join us for a Luau. A fun time was had by all! There was a buffet, drinks were included with entertainment to finish the festivities. 

There was a great turn out. Almost everyone was able to make it.

Grandma & Paul were the cutest couple at the wedding.

Flower divas!

Thanks Mummy for the smile from Will.

Katie's wearing a kitschy honeybees flower crown :)

These two in their Daddy's sunnys just kills me.

Can you spot Kieran & Dan being good sports up their with their daughters learning to hula.

and just before the entertainment this happened...

All this time I thought Mara wasn't coming to the wedding. I put on a brave face, but I was devastated. On the night of the luau I looked up to see my friend Jimmy walking towards me. He had "just flown in", a little behind him I caught a glimpse of Mara, and I lost it. They worked together to surprise me with her. Julie was in on the surprise and she got photographic proof. 

Look at Will & Mummy watching the pretty ladies twirl fire.

We had a spectacular time. If we make it back to Hawaii I'm sure we'll attend another luau. The food was a buffet, so you can't expect fine dining. But the entertainment was a once in a lifetime experience.

Thank you to Julie, Kieran, Molly and Evan for the luau pictures :)



Mr. & Mrs. Forsyth

We did it! We finally did it! 

Three weeks ago, already, my how time flies. Paul & I made our relationship street legal. We are now husband and wife...forever & ever. I couldn't be more happy or more proud to be his wife. It is truly one of the greatest feelings in the world.

About 50 of our loved ones made the journey to Maui to help us celebrate this momentous event. Let me tell you, it's very humbling to have so many people go above and beyond to make your day special. We feel so lucky to be surrounded by so many amazing people. Not all of our nearest and dearest could make the treck. Unfortunately, both of our Mother's couldn't be there, but we know they were celebrating for us from afar. That was always the inevitably unfortunate parts of having a destination wedding, and being an intercontinental couple. 

Hawaii was the ideal solution for us and our guests. Maui was the closest to a middle point that we could find. Luckily for us Maui is an amazing place to convince people to travel to. 

Paul and I arrived a week before the nuptials. That way we could get over our jet lag before the big day. We could also take that time to spend some quality time with our guests before the big day & our honeymoon.

I'm going to break these blogs into a few, because there are too many photos to share! We'll start with the pre Mr. & Mrs. and work our way through.

We shared a hotel with Paul's younger sister, Vanessa. It was so fun to get some time together. Ness lives in Perth (about 3,000 miles from us), so our visits are never long enough.

Our first day on our way to dinner.

On our second day we took a little drive in search of a hike.

Once we got to the hiking destination the rain had come in. We had to wait it out in the car for about thirty minutes or so. Word to the wise: If you every go to a 'forest' type area in Hawaii be sure to have bug spray. We stood outside in the rain for no more than five minutes and I had at least twenty very itchy bites.

It ended up being less of a hike than we anticipated. 

But there were plenty of beautiful sights to be seen.

A few days before the nuptials and after a swim we took a walk down the beach. We decided to sneak a peak of the ceremony spot while we were there.

I did a terrible job of getting photos of our gorgeous Godson, Will. He must have been very annoyed with the camera flash at this point. He shares the same birthday with my brother. They both celebrated their birthdays on Maui. Later this night we celebrated on his behalf with his Mummy, Grandad a couple bottles of wine and lots of laughs. No photographic proof though! 

My Poppa Bear and little Bro Josh arrived on the day before Josh's birthday! We celebrated by leaving them for an appointment for our wedding certificate. Kidding! Kind of, we had an early morning appointment, but after that we celebrated with coffee and a delicious lunch.

That mega babe to my right is Katie. She's one of my dearest friends. She also moved away from home a couple years before me, because of that we click on so many levels. We also just happen to really enjoy each others company. She and her awesome husband Evan joined us for a little lunch that afternoon.

A few days later we took a ferry boat to the island of Lanai. My Aunt Molly, her two sons and my Grandma all live on Lanai. My Aunt Jenny was there already visiting from Minnesota. Jenny gave us a little tour of Lanai. We got to see where both Grandma, Molly and the boys live. We also popped into a friend of my Aunt's shop, The Local Gentry. It was absolutely beautiful. If we weren't there with the boys I could have spent hours in there. After shopping we grabbed some lunch together then we were off to the stables. My Aunt runs a beautiful ranch there. We were privileged to take a horse back ride guided by my Aunt through the trails while we were there.

 

Going riding was absolutely wonderful. I hadn't been riding since I was about ten years old. Paul and Vanessa hadn't been riding in ages either. Tom back there used to ride all the time, so he was also keen to join. Lanai is a very small, but very beautiful island. We ended up with a little less than a full day there. I would have happily stayed much longer had we planned better. Another hot tip: If you decide to ferry to Lanai from Maui you do need to book ahead.

Beach on Lanai.

Post Lanai sunset in Lahaina on the drive home.

The next day my homeboy Rob got in! Almost as soon as he got there we went straight to the water for some snorkeling. Paul and Rob did a fair bit of snorkeling, while I watched from afar. 

More quality time with Ness. While Paul waved from Black rock. Rob and Paul did a little cliff jump from Black Rock. I opted out, on the off chance I injured myself. I'm pretty clumsy and not a very good swimmer, so that was an irrational but real risk!

More pics to come! Unfortunately, we missed pics with a lot of people and we didn't document everything we did. But that just means we were having entirely too much fun! 

Next up our rehearsal and the Luau.

To be continued...