Getting Maui'd

This time tomorrow David and I will be at the airport getting ready to board our plane to Maui. I'm so excited!! Hawaii is my absolute favorite place in the world, and it has always been my dream to get married there. Not only do I get to have my wedding in my dream location, I get to marry the most wonderful guy in the world. :o)

Custom Invitations Designed by My Friend Esther

We got engaged back in December, and after a few discussions and site visits to venues in San Diego, we decided to go back to Maui to have our wedding. We were afraid that the trip would be too far and costly for our family on the East Coast, so to make up for that we're having a second celebration at David's parents' house in West Virginia two weeks later. (If the mention of West Virginia made you conjure up images of the people on the show Moonshiners, scratch that thought! David's parents live in a beautiful little town called Shepherdstown which is known mostly for its college Shepherdstown University.)

To start off my preparations for the wedding I started with the most important part first (well minus the groom), I picked out a dress. My goals for dress were something with sleeves, something that wasn't poofy, and something with lace. I'm happy to say that I found something with all three!

Dress Shopping with Tara & Devika
(not the dress I chose)

I had grand plans of finding the coolest sparkly shoes out there to go with the dress, but in the end I didn't shop for shoes in time for my first dress fitting and just ended up picking out shoes at the store that I liked. They're pretty cute but not exactly what I had in mind originally. Oh well. 

Wedding Shoes

The color we chose for the wedding was champagne, so I wanted a bouquet and cake that was pretty neutral in color to match. A few visits to Pinterest and I found both a cake and bouquet that I wanted. I sent the pictures over to my planner and caterer and poof! That part was done. Who says wedding planning is hard??

Simple Tropical Bouquet

Wedding Cake

It crossed my mind to wear my wedding dress a second time in West Virginia just to get one more wear out of it (kind of painful to spend so much money on something you wear once!), but I figured it would be too hot and look out of place in a casual BBQ setting. I headed over to my local Banana Republic and was excited to see that they had a number of simple white dresses. 

Good Thing It's Before Labor Day!

David originally wanted to buy a tux since he didn't want to get married in a suit that 40 different teenagers had worn to prom. He ended up buying a suit instead though to keep with our light colored theme. With a tan linen suit picked out the next thing we needed were ties. I hit the mall to check out ties and almost all of the ties reminded me of something I'd see on men at work. The solid ties looked a bit different but nothing caught my eye until I wandered by the Burberry tie table. Go figure the only ties I liked were the most expensive ones. And we needed to buy three! Ouch. (David, his brother, and my Dad).

Shopping for Ties

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

Once our outfits were picked out the next thing to worry about was my hair. I never wear my hair up, but since we are getting married in the middle of the day and it is HOT in Maui in August, I figured it would be better to have my hair up and out of the way. My hair is still in the process of recovering from a brain surgery shave and radiation induced hair loss, so I'm a bit worried about being able to pull off the style I've chosen. Along with the random lengths of hair I also have hair extensions in one part of my head that will make everything a bit more complicated. Fingers crossed it works out.

Curly Radiation Hair

Final Hair Appointment

Wedding Hairstyle - Hope It Works Out

Next up on the list was choosing our wedding party and coordinating their outfits. David chose his brother Ken to be his best man, I chose two of my college friends Jenny and Christina as bridesmaids, my friend Devika's son will be our ring bearer, and my cousin Gieslle's son and daughter will be our flower boy and girl. My best friend of 26 years unfortunately won't be able to make it since she just had her third child two weeks ago. :o(  I'll miss you Garley! It won't be the same without you! 

Ring Bearer Ben

Bridesmaid Christina

(We decided to go no belt)

Bridesmaid Jenny

(Love this dress from the back!)

We picked out wedding rings, I had my mom's wedding ring from my dad reset as a necklace, I ordered some earrings online, and I received an adorable little bracelet from my friend Devika as my something blue.

Wedding Ring Selected

Something Old, Something New...

My Parents' Diamond

To finish our planning I ordered a handful of things from Etsy for our ceremony and reception and then boom! We were done! 

Fingerprint Tree "Guestbook"

Make a print, and sign your name

For the Flower Boy & Girl

Ring Bearer Ring Box

I think since we have a destination wedding, between the wedding planner and caterer all of the vendors were handled without me having to worry about it. The whole planning process was a piece of cake! Short of being worried I'd get fat between my last dress fitting and our wedding day, the whole process has been stress free.

For Like EVER!

(This won't work on our cake design

so it will be a table decoration)

I took my last dose of chemo three weeks ago, meaning .. uh oh ... I'm due to start my next dose while we're on the honeymoon portion of our trip! I take the chemo days 1-5 of each month, get a blood test on the 21st day, get a blood test on the 28th day, and then start the next cycle on that 28th day if everything in my blood panel comes back looking good. Due to the timing of this trip we leave on the 21st day and don't get back until the 30th day meaning I can only get a blood test on day 20 and day 32. 

Last Dose of Chemo

My oncologist gave me the option of picking up the chemo early and taking it on my trip and forgoing the 28 day blood test. Are you kidding me? This risk averse Volvo driver is not willing to take that chance. Instead I'm going to postpone my next round of chemo for a week and start again on day 35. I wonder if the extra week of recovery will help boost my blood counts. Come on white blood cells! You can do it! No more lingering right below the acceptable range, let's get back into normal!

Our Maui Vacation Palace

A HUGE thank you to my parents and David's for helping make our dream wedding possible. We can't wait to see you tomorrow IN MAUI!!!