The whole story

Now that Cas and I are almost done with this trip of a lifetime, I find myself with a few minutes to tell a little more about the wedding. We got cleaned up and semi-ready together. Cas left for the beach before I was entirely done, though. I was supposed to wait in the room and get my flowers from the wedding coordinator at five pm. At that point, I was actually ready to go. I suppose I was a little excited. 

 

I was instructed to wait for the porter, who would deliver me to the beach on a golf cart. So I waited. He was supposed to come in fifteen minutes. I didn't see him until after the ceremony was supposed to start. When the porter was only five minutes behind schedule, there was a knock at the door. It was housekeeping. The nice lady who came to make up the room looked very puzzled. I asked her if she had ever knocked in a door and had it answered by a woman in a white dress holding flowers before. She said no. I asked if she had seen a porter lurking around. Another no. So I waited and made small talk with a very nice Fijian woman as she changed the bed linens. 

When she went out to get fresh sheets, she said the porter was coming. I took the cue, thanked the woman and made my way to the stairs. I got into the cart, and the driver deposited me at the start of my aisle. Our wedding package included sarong-clad serenaders. That sounded so unique when we read it on a computer screen in Dallas, but if you spend a little time in Fiji, you will find that singers in sarongs are everywhere. 

No matter, these were our sarong-clad serenaders. As I walked and willed myself to go more slowly, they played Somewhere over the rainbow. I hadn't even asked for that, but it was perfect.

When I got to the end, Cas was there. The ceremony was beautiful. It was held in a thatched roof bure on the beach. The sunset was behind our celebrant as the ceremony went on. It was the prettiest place I have ever seen a wedding happen, and it was our spot. I was super nervous, and I imagine Cas was, as well. To his great credit, Cas wanted to speak with the celebrant before the ceremony and make sure the vows were more about marriage as a partnership, rather than any kind of an unbalanced relationship where one is subservient to the other. Checking on that was his idea. See why I picked him? He's the kind of guy who thinks of stuff like that. 

After the ceremony, we posed for what felt like a million photos. It was probably only a few hundred, but it felt like an eternity. Once the photos were taken and the cameras were packed away, we had a super romantic dinner in a different bure down the beach. We were the only people present except for our waiter in a very large area. The rest of the people having dinner nearby were about 75 feet away from our table for two. We had fantastic food and a bottle of champagne. It was a really perfect night. 

Oh, and in case anyone was wondering. My lucky pennies were intact when we got back to the room.