W Day 2

We spent the next couple of days nipping out for supplies to complete the wedding prep.
Numerous visits to Wallmart, Longs drugstore, Ace hardware etc. Plus we enlisted the help of some creative neighbours to help put the gift baskets together.
I learned that somewhat confusingly it is common to call long standing neighbours your Aunt & Uncle. So they're not related but have been present when Heather and her siblings were growing up.

It was our own fault for leaving it to the last minute but we could barely find time to finish writing our vows and thank-you speech. Time consisted of lots more family drop-ins and soooo much food. I'll have to take a couple of weeks off before I regain my appetite for any beef or rice!

Even in the morning of the wedding I was busy helping wrap the tables and hang the paper puff-balls before retiring to complete my writings while the bride got her hair done.

Heather's dad did an amazing job of cleaning up the back garden and erecting tents and sourcing tables and chairs from various neighbours and friends. For what was supposed to be a low key ceremony/get-together, at least back when it was in the planning stage, it had quickly gathered momentum into a highly stressful but ultimately amazing looking scene.

It all came together so well, the finishing touches came when one of Heather's mum's friends showed up with $000's of flowers for us to use.

The view from the back seats

One neighbour provided her nice wooden bench which Heather's sister then decorated and gave us our throne to sir at!

I had resisted for as long as possible as it was already around 80 degrees but I got my kilt outfit on and once the Scottish trio had decided how to lace up our shoes so we all matched it got underway.
Heather's nephew Kai came in with our little island ring pillows.

Kai, Heather, Helen (mum), Helyse (sister) and Steve

Heather's long time family friend Stephen did a great job with the ceremony especially conveying how this was a family gathering, a mixing of cultures and new friends and families meeting for the first time.

Unusually the groom was the best dressed person there, ha ha! You can see the various relaxed forms of dress. We thought we'd get into our shorts later but the kilts proved too much of a talking point that we all kept them on. "So what do you keep in there?" being the most common one.

"I do".... again

As part of the ceremony, leis were handed out to the important people!

And we're off.... to take more photos.

While everyone else got started on the food, more about this later, we went with Heather's dad to take some photos at a nearby pier.

We got some good smiles and congratulations from the half dozen locals fishing off the pier.

Luckily it was mildly cloudy and combined with my lightweight kilt I wasn't quite dying of heat like I'd thought. Steve wished he'd been given the option of a lightweight kilt!
Pretty hungry by this point but the bride and groom couldn't eat quite yet as when we returned we went through the list of various family photos. And yes there was a list in case anybody was left out.

The Sina family

The Jessiman family

Plus cousins

Neighbours

Finally we managed to get stuck into the food. We had representations from Scotland through (canned) Haggis, Neeps & Tatties and then various Hawaiian and Filipino food including some great Kalua pork and fantastic range of desserts. I made little cards telling people what the dishes were, well, I guess it was mainly to let the Scots know!

Then onto the cake. A two layer vanilla cake, the raspberry filling was nice but the winner was the lilikoi cream layer (passion fruit).

Us!

A few folk found humour in asking us when the Scotland based ceremony would be now that we'd done New York and Hawaiian ones. We were just glad the day was done as the work involved, especially for Heather, coordinating this and the different families arriving at various times throughout was pretty stressful for such a "low key" wedding.

Guest Canvas!

End of the evening

Some floral souvenirs

Holiday within the holiday: Day 3

Up at 5am for the short flight to Honolulu. Heather was well pleased after being given the choice of hire car and selecting the Fiat.

FIRT

Ever since she visited Edinburgh in 2009 and spotted a car with what looked like FIRT written on the badge these have provided a kind of in-joke and shouts of "firt" nearly every time they are spotted. They are actually reasonably popular in NYC and they have only imported the sporty models.

First stop was the Nu'uanu Pali lookout for views over Honolulu.

I discovered that there's lots of Japanese tourists in Honolulu. One of the streets has a luxury row of shops, Gucci, Burberry, Prada, etc after one another catering to these visitors in particular.
In the same way New York has a lot of signage in English and Spanish, Hawaii has signs in English and Japanese especially in the high tourist areas.

Even in Honolulu you notice a slightly more of a city feel especially compared to Kuaui.

Another of Heather's old friends now runs the Hawaiian Chip Company along with her husband. So we stopped of to visit their building and came away with some purchases and freebies including some freshly baked chips, mainly taro and sweet potato. We subsequently had to carry a bag full of these packets of crisps all the way back to NY as excess hand luggage. Luckily we made it look like we'd just bought them in the airport.

We spent most of the rest of the day in the massive Ala Moana shopping mall. I discovered it was the largest open-air shopping mall in the world and is sadly Hawaii's most visited destination!

We did a little drive past Waikiki Beach and the Diamond Head area and then went back to the mall for dinner.

The airport was only 7miles away and in normal conditions we would've left in plenty of time to refuel the car, hand it back, get the shuttle bus to the airport and get on our plane, however.....

It started pouring down with rain just as we were coming back to the mall. While listening to the radio in the car we discovered that a couple of the roads had flooding and combined with rush hour traffic we were at a standstill for a lot of the drive. Thus we got to the check in desk about 15 mins before the flight was due to depart, the last flight of the night.
But I guess due to that more relaxed way of life and the general friendliness of everyone, it wasn't a problem and in fact the flight was delayed 10mins while they waited for the other half dozen passengers to arrive. There was only about 30 people on the little propeller plane.

Home by 8.30pm and just in time for one of many meals with the many visiting members of Heather's family!