Life is about the people you meet and the things you create with them

Live your dream and share your passion

When you eat, appreciate every last bite

Some opportunities only come only once-seize them

Laugh everyday

Believe in magic

Love with all your heart

Be true to who you are

Smile often and be grateful

…and finally make every moment count

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Saturday, September 29, 2012

LOVE YOU LONG TIME-DAYNA AND TREVOR GET MARRIED


WEATHER: It’s still bloody HOT-overcast today and 31C

HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Dayna looking beautiful

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Too much vodka

WORD OF THE DAY:  Buffalo Soldier

Today we have a wedding to attend
Trevor and Dayna get married.  Is there anything better than attending a wedding? Friends and family reunited and the vows of a couple committing to each other forever, it always tugs at the heart strings and this wedding was to be no different.

We had a later breakfast this morning at 9am.  The kids (and adults) were a little latter rousing this morning after such an epic day yesterday.  Swimming in the pool and going up and down up and down and up and down that water slide also take the wind out of their little energetic bodies as well by the end of the day.  We saw the Bride at breakfast and besides the worry on where the ceremony will be held (the weather looked a little dicey today) she seemed quite calm and relaxed.  We really had no plans as suck this morning as the wedding ceremony was at 4pm, so we headed back to the room to have a drink as we got the kids ready for the pool.  It was overcast today, which never stops the kids from getting in the pool, but the water was a little too cold for me to get into today, so with a cocktail in hand we just kept an eye on the kids as we relaxed on ‘our’ sun chairs at ‘our’ pool that there never seems to be too many people around.  It really felt like we had the whole resort to ourselves when we were down here.  The pool guys know our rooms numbers and they also know our cocktails that we are drinking-is this a bad thing?  Shelly packed her Bose speaker system, so with the music on with our own tunes, the kids happily playing in the pool and us relaxing with cocktails in hand with our best friends-does life get any better?  At this point it is a positive NO.  Even though we weren’t that hungry we ordered a club sandwich to tide us over till dinner which was going to be after 6.30pm and it was one of the best club sangas I have ever had.  I don’t eat them much anymore as I had a really bad experience with one when I was in India like 5 years ago (very sick) but maybe eating this one has turned my club sandwich tide. 

We were back to the room at 2.00pm to scrub up for the wedding.  The kids have been itching to wear their new wedding dresses for months and now they were able to put them on.  Shane knocked on the door passing telling me he was taking the kids down for a practice run on their duties during the ceremony and that Shelly and SA were nearly ready.  I had 3 dresses to choose from.  I got Shelly to bring 2 from home and I had one that I had bought with me for London in case we went to a show, so it was nice to have a little variety but I hadn’t thought about my shoes and ended up wearing my ballet looking Croc’s which didn’t look too bad really, but may have not been my first shoe of choice.  I also didn’t have a bag, so I compromised and used the drawstring hair dryer bag as it was black, and as long as I had the words ‘hair dryer’ facing into me all night then no-one would be the wiser.  It would have been nice to also have some hair straighteners as the humidity gives my hair that scarecrow straw look about it, and no matter how much non frizz I slapped on the ends it was having no effect.  Oh well, some things you just cannot change.  One drink later, we headed down to where the ceremony was to be held and waited for the Bride to arrive.  Trev was looking like a nervous Groom, but they had actually married under Australian Law a week earlier, so it really was a done deal and not sure why Trev seemed so unsettled.  It is a big testament to both Trev and Dayna that they had 57 people travel to Phuket for their special day, that’s a lot of people for an overseas wedding. 

Dayna was only a few minutes late.  We could see her walking along one of the corridors on the other side of the reception out of her building and even from there she looked a vision of beauty.  They had a Thai celebrant that was actually quite funny and he was letting us know how the ceremony was to go and what we were expected to do.  The kids entered first with Tess, Hads and then Zoe and they held little baskets with flower petals in them and they tossed them on their way in.  They looked so smart and so serious and they did a marvelous job.  Next was Hunter and he had the rings tied on a pillow and then the Bride with her father Barry, and Dayna looked beautiful.  The second that she came into sight Trev had tears in his eyes, it was so sweet.  The ceremony was beautiful as well and the highlight for me was Dayna’s Aunt Glynnis’s speech.  It bought a tear to my eye, it was heartfelt, the words were poignant and special and written from the heart and she also nearly lost it while doing her reading.  It finished with a combining of sands to become one and then the ‘you may kiss the Bride kiss’.  We had to get busy with the photos as the weather started to close in and just as the last 2 family shots had been taken it started to spit a little.  It was good for us ‘novice’ photographers, we got to ride on the coat tails of the ‘official’ photographer and I got all the family photos of the Elks and Randall’s which was great.

It was now 5pm and the reception didn’t start till 6.30pm.  So we made our way back to the room and had a few quite beverages.  Brad and Jodie had flown in this morning from a wedding that they had attended in Oreland, so it was nice to catch up with them.  I sued this time to upload my photos I had just taken to Facebook.  Some people give me hassle with the speed that I do load things, but I need to make the most of internet and connection time.  If I don’t keep on top of it all it snowballs and then it just makes it hard to catch up, take my blog for instance when I was 22 days behind.  I will never get that far behind again, well I hope not anyway.  So load I did while I had connection.  Considering we were in an international hotel I would have thought the internet would have been better.  It wasn’t free, I had to pay 20USD for 24 hour access-this was 24 hours of internet v’s over a 24 hour period, so I didn’t mind paying, but I had drama’s with my password not working, I was issued a new one, which didn’t work and in the end they must have given me a staff password as it was now valid for 30 days.  It worked but of you hadn’t been on for more than 15 minutes it would boot you off and you would have to re-login in again blah blah blah…..damn internet worries.

We lost track of time as Shane rang us at 6.29pm and said the Bride and Groom were nearly ready to enter the reception, the beauty of us being in the main building was it only took us a second to down the last of our drinks, grab the kids and catch the lift to where we had to get to.  Perfect-we were right on time, don’t know why the Bridesmaid was looking so worried!!!! Sorry Glenda.  We found out seats and we were all on different tables, I was lucky to have Brad and Jodie on my table though, so I wasn’t totally on my own.  The reception went well, the speeches, the cake, the bridal waltz and the buffet food was amazing with plenty of choice and I think the best lasagna I have ever eaten in my life.  The bar was set up just outside the doors which didn’t seem to slow us down with who ever went outside for a drink also got drinks for the rest of us, so they flowed plentiful all night which at the time is great, but the next morning I knew was not going to be great at all.  There was one more thing they had to do and that was the throwing of the bridal bouquet.  I wasn’t that fussed on getting up there, let some proper single ladies an opportunity to catch the bouquet, but Shelly and Sandy were having none of that and before I knew it they were all calling me up there, so if I was going to go up I was going to catch the damn thing, so after limbering up a little, throwing the elbows out I stood directly behind Dayna and she threw it and it came straight for me to the disappointment to some little people.  The theory is whoever catches the bouquet will be the next one to get married.  I’m not sure if I will be next, but marriage is on the cards, Zeme and I have spoken a little about it, not much as there is a lot to happen before that, but after being divorced it has not put me off the institution of marriage and I know I will get married again somewhere down the track.
        
After all the formalities were done, we ripped out our funny glasses and large blowup microphones and then continued to party the night away.  There was a DJ for entertainment and Sandy was all over the song requests early and gave all our ‘usual’ songs to play over the course of the night.  By the end of the reception it was like he was our own personal DJ.  He only had a few songs missing but was more than happy to accommodate all our requests.  The kids didn’t stop dancing all night and Hunter had moves that I hadn’t seen before he kept them coming till 11.15pm when the lights came on and it was time to leave the party.   

What a great night and even though we shouldn’t have, we stopped at the bar for one last drink before heading back to the rooms.  We certainly didn’t need any more alcohol so with one cocktail to finish the night upon leaving the bar we stopped to say goodnight to some fellow wedding guests and when Shelly and I went to leave there was no sign of Sandy.  So we thought she must have gone back to the room and we made our way to the lifts.  Shelly and I still don’t know why, but we turned around to have a look at the bar one last time and that’s when we saw Sandy asleep on one of the couches covered in pillows with her 2 blowup microphones still in her hands.  It was hilarious and after taking a few photos we helped her up and we all went back to my room for a night cap of Baileys, again another drink we didn’t need.  Sandy stayed for one and then hit the sack, Shelly and I had another one and chatted till 3.30am in the morning when we decided it was time to pull up stumps. 

So congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Elkin.
Thank-you for letting me be a part of your special day and as the Thai people say "love you long time"


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