Wedding Day Part 1

Wedding preperation/ceremony...

The day began at 4:00 A.M. Arlene and Marlou were arriving to start on hair and make-up. Both moms, Girlie, Kristi and I were getting hair and make-up done. Kristi and I didn't start our sessions until 6:00. So we just sat back for a couple hours laughing and talking with everyone. Arlene and Marlou are so good at what they do! They made us all look and feel so beautiful! The day before Marlou asked if me and Kristi wanted fake eyelashes. And Kristi said "Yeah, if it doesn't make me look like Bambi". Living in Hawaii, Marlou doesn't see deer like we do in Idaho and responded "What you don't want to look like a stripper". Haha! So the next morning we joked about having eyelashes like Bambi... the stripper, not a deer.

My shoes and earings were found online after intense searching. The shoes came from somewhere international and smelled so funny when I got them. I loved both of them! The garter... such a weird thing to me. Rillz wanted to do the whole garter toss thing so the day before the wedding I went and got one. Odd concept to me. Oh well.


Our rings in the awesome pokey flower!

My wedding dress in the hotel lobby. The photographer had the hotel staff hang it for her.

Girlie getting her face put on by Marlou

Doesn't this picture look like Kristi... The first time I looked at it I had to re-look. It is me, not Kristi.


But here is Kristi with Arlene getting her prettied up

Girlie all done and waiting. She was crackin me up!

My mom looking like death at this moment. She was a 4 a.m. appointment. Barely awake

Getting the dress on...

My mom already to go! Doesn't she look beautiful!

For some reason I like this one...

The guys were getting ready and I heard from my photographer that they were pretty funny! As you can see, they were busy putting each others shirts on and on backwards. Davy happened to have those goofy glasses in our wedding colors for each one of them to wear.

I happen to think Rillz is handsome :)

Why do boys have it so easy to get ready. It's light out and they get to just chill for a while. The girls started getting ready when some of the boys just got back from the bars.

Davy getting ready...

Elmer getting ready...

Rillz spending time on his hair. I wonder how nervous he was ?!?

The hotel is about 5 minutes away (in car), in a normal city, from Kaka'ako waterfront park (the ceremony place). But, when there is a huge floral parade that morning and a farmers market at Kaka'ako, that we found out about the night before, it could take a good 45 minutes. Yep, took about 35 minutes to get there. And luckily the farmers market was nothing to worry about.

Thanks to Davy, we had a live guy playing the songs we chose during the ceremony on acustic guitar. That was SO beautiful!

While guests waited he played: A Simple Love Song by Anuhea

While the bridal party walked down he played: Better Together by Jack Johnson

While I walked down he played: E Ku'u Morning Dew

When the ceremony was over he played: I honestly can't remember right now. Haha.

The ceremony was nice. Reverand Michael Nelson married us. He had kind of a weird vibe. When he started saying his speal he said "Thanks for all being here for Aurelio and Cindy on their special day". Yep, Cindy. He didn't think it was very funny when I looked around and said "Am I at the wrong wedding? Anyone here named Cindy getting married today?" I thought it was HILARIOUS! It's his fault he didn't know who he was marrying at his 9 a.m. appointment and deserved to be embarresed. That sounds mean on my part... but it was still funny!

Exchanging rings


Elmer and Kristi

Davy and Girlie

Brent walked my mom down

So happy!

Just Married!


It's the reverend marrying Aurelio and Cindy... haha

Me and my dad walking down. (Obviously these pictures aren't in the order that everyone actually walked down).

Gracie, the flower girl, walking down with mom and dad Rivera

Brecken, the flower boy, walked down with Jeff.

Nana and Nan walked down together

The aisle decoration

Hooray for being married now! We then took pictures... and more pictures! It was a lot of fun. Our photographer was found on Hawaii craigslist. At an awesome deal I must admit. Of course coming from craigslist I was quite skeptical. We met with her, Lora, a week before and after meeting we were way excited. Lucky us, she really turned out great! Our reception started at 12:30 so we figured we had lots of time between to do all sorts of pictures. Well, time ran out FAST. At 11:30 we were getting phone calls saying "get your butts headed back to the hotel". The parade was in full swing and the exact route we needed to take back. We didn't hire a driver or anything so we actually rode back with the photographer. Haha. It took an hour to get back! Yep remember the "should be 5 minute drive in a normal city" thing. Driving in Hawaii 85% of the time sucks!

So we got back to the hotel and then the reception started...
I wanted to post a bunch of other pictures but loading pictures on here sucks and takes forever lately. Everytime I try I get a whole 4 pictures in an hours time. This will never get posted if I keep trying. Now to start the endless hours on the reception details. Enjoy! :)

Day before the wedding

The day before the wedding (Friday) Rillz had his little "bachelor" party with some friends and family. They all went golfing. The guys were gone for 6 hours! Don't worry guys, I can finish all the last wedding details myself. :) I made the ring bearer pillow and flower girl wristlet the day before. I honestly had no idea for either. I stopped at an awesome craft store and just walked around lots of times until I got ideas. My problem was both of them just turned one years old. A typical ring bearer pillow is about as big as Brecken and a flower girl basket would just get thrown or dropped. This is what I came up with...

Both just went on the babies wrists. I honestly don't even know how long they lasted on them. They aren't the cutest things but when time is running out you just do what you gotta do.

After making those I went and had a manicure/pedicure with my mom, Kristi, and Nan. That was nice and relaxing. Then we went and ate. It was about 4:30 by now and I still didn't have my bridesmaids shoes and I had to be at the hotel by 6:30 to deliver the wedding favors. I was stressing a little. Luckily, Payless shoes was right next door and Kristi and I found a pair that was pretty cute! So off we raced to the house to grab everything for the wedding and quickly drive 45 min. to the hotel. We made it there about 6:35.

We met up with Rillz at the hotel because he had just gotten done golfing and was already in Honolulu (where the hotel is).

This is a picture of Pacific Beach Hotel where our reception was and where we stayed night before wedding and wedding night.

That night Rillz, Kristi, and I met up with Beang (a cousin) to help with seating charts and then the 3 of us went to McDonalds for some food.
Kristi and I stayed in a hotel room together that night. It was fun just talking until we both fell asleep around 11:00. The only thing that I missed was Heidi being there too. I just love my sisters so much. They are my best friends!
Next post... wedding day!

Surfing and Catameran

Brent, Kristi, and Jeff wanted to give surfing a try while in Hawaii. We asked our friend (basically Rillz's brother) Davy to teach them how to surf and take them out. I had a lot of fun watching everyone. Mali, Davy's 4 year old likes to go out and surf so she taught everyone how to get up on the board. She is just adorable. It was entertaining watching Brent, Kristi, and Jeff attempt fake surfing on grass.
Kristi getting lessons...

Jeff getting lessons...




Mali and her dolly

Me and Mali teaching Brecken and Dolly how to surf.

Brecken... natural surfer!

Rillz and I chose not to attempt the surfing just in case we broke our faces or something before our wedding day.

After surf lessons on the grass we went to Waikiki to take lessons out in the real world. We got to the beach and Davy asked us if we wanted to ride a catameran. Every one wanted to so we docked the surf boards and jumped on. It lasted about 1 1/2 hours. I enjoyed it. So relaxing out in the water. Mali got boat sick and Kristi did a little too. But other then that it was nice.

By the way... There is no Gunnar in pictures because that day he went with Grandma and papa to Polynesian Cultural Center.

After the catameran Jeff, Kristi, Brent, and Davy took the surf boards out. Davys mom and dad, Rillz and I took care of Brecken and Mali. Not sure why I didn't take pictures but it was a lot of fun. Rillz and I were playing with the little ones on the beach and a lady said "you guys have such cute kids". I had to tell her... neither of them are ours. But they do look like they could have been.

Kristi, Jeff, and Brent were sore the next day and arms were tired but all of them had a great time and all got up on their boards.

We went back to Davys house and Davy tried to convince us to stay for dinner. We had family flying in from Alaska. Davy and Rillz convinced me to call mom Rivera and ask if we could stay for dinner. They knew mom would tell them no but tell me yes. It worked. So we stayed. They made grilled oysters and steak and bought some poke! What a great night with family.

What a good day!