Saturday, December 14, 2013

The two of us become one

     And we are off again on World Tour though part of us feels we never stopped.  What better way to start the next phase of the journey then by having a big party on the island of Koh Samui in Thailand to celebrate us getting married.  We were blessed to have 31 members of our family and dear friends travel half way around the world to come share this day and week with us. 
      We had done most of the planning before I had left for Baja in February.  Trying to organize a wedding from the other side of the world and a year in advance was a little nerve racking.  Ann was the wedding planner at Rocky's where we had the celebration and from the very first emails she was incredibly helpful, professional, and willing to try to make any idea we had about the day a reality.  We didn't really know what we were going to get until we arrived and our expectations were blown away.  We very much wanted to make sure that our guests that traveled from afar would have a good time and be taken care of, and Rocky's delivered.
     We boarded our flight from Seattle to Thailand with Kathleen's mom and sister where we spent a few initial days in Bangkok. We then flew to the island of Koh Samui and stayed at a smaller beach town on the north end of the island.  We met some of the early arrival friends there and played in the water and kayaked. 
     My mom, brother, sister-in-law, nephew, and dad also flew out and we ended up meeting them at Rocky's several days later.  Rocky's was the perfect place to have picked for our wedding.  An incredibly charming and romantic spot on the southern coastline with tastefully designed rooms, a private beach with kayaks, tiki bars, delicious food, and the friendliest staff ever.
     We had wanted to combine Eastern (Thai) tradition with Western tradition in our wedding celebration.  The ceremony started off with a Thai drum parade playing music while chanting in Thai "Here comes the groom".  My nephew Elias (the ring bearer) and I walked behind a few Thai dancing girls who were throwing flower petals. 
We all walked down to the flower arch on the beach and then waited for Kathleen.  The drummers kept up their music and then began chanting ("Here comes the bride") while a traditional Thai fishing boat came into view around a point of land with Kathleen aboard. 
The wind and surf had been high that day so the boat was bobbing around a lot.  As it was directly off the point the engine began to sputter and guests had visions of capsizing or washing up on the rocks.  However, the crew were able to get the engine to recover and make it to the beach without soaking or drowning the bride.  The boat entrance had never been done at Rocky's before (uniquely Kathleen's vision) and the staff was very concerned that there would be a disaster, especially with the waves the way they were.   Kathleen's Mom Uta then walked Kathleen to the altar.
     Our officiant was Krissy Moehl.  She had been Kathleen's roommate when we first met and had been one of the first people to watch us as we got to know each other in the beginning including our first trip out of town together when we all went and spent New Years on Orcas Island.  Krissy had never officiated a wedding before and she turned out to be the absolute perfect person.  She's like family to us, knows us well; including our favorite things and incorporated all of this into a very personalized and meaningful ceremony.  We can't ever thank her enough for performing our ceremony.  It was incredibly thoughtful, tailored to us and just perfect!
The ceremony ended with us releasing 50 butterflies to symbolize new beginnings, good fortune, and joy as the butterflies go out to spread news of our love and commitment.  Soon they were all over the flower arch and even landing on our guests.
Champagne and canapés were served as we signed the marriage certificate and had some pictures taken.  We want to thank all our friends who took so many wonderful pictures and have shared them with us.
     The party then moved off the beach and headed to the tiki bar while dinner was prepared.  Soon it was time to move up to the room above the restaurant where dinner and dancing would occur.  I had asked my brother Tom to be the master of ceremonies since he tends to have a loud voice when he needs to.  Little did we know that when he would announce our entrance to dinner it would be in the manner of a WWF wrestling announcer (it probably didn't help that he had been at a Thai boxing match the night before). He had everyone, including us, in hysterics as we entered while "Celebrate" blared from the sound system.  Appetizers were served along with a delicious Thai buffet.  We had a guitarist play several sets during dinner.  His voice was so good that we kept thinking it was a recording until you would look in the corner and there he would be playing.
      Following dinner there was dancing with DJ Blair keeping a great mix of 70s, 80s, and modern music going that had everyone dancing (including several people who had not danced in years or decades).  Somehow (and we are still not sure how) Blurred Lines ended up being our first dance.  It wasn't really planned that way, we had opted out of a first dance when planning with DJ Blair, but we started to dance to it and everyone backed off to let us have it as "the first dance".  If you don't know this song then Google the words to see why it was so funny (and start listening to the radio because it gets played every 15 minutes).  It was perfectly inappropriate and therefore appropriate for us.
     After working up a sweat on the dance floor there was an intermission for fire dancing.  Two Thai fire dancers performed on the beach to blaring techno music.  Everyone was fired up (pun intended) and was hooting, hollering, and dancing cheering them on.  We were so appreciative and rowdy that they ended up doing a double encore for us with exploding fireworks swinging all around them.  The entire beach was alight with swirling flame and exploding sparks.  We had seen fire dancing before but never anything like this.

 Then it was back for more dancing including a "dance off" between Chelsea and I.  I consider myself lucky that I didn't end up with a knocked out tooth, broken nose, or just being head butted to the ground.  After another hour or so we went back out onto the beach to release about 25 Chinese lanterns or "Himmel's Lanterna" (Sky lanterns in German).  As the balloon takes off from the hot air inside, a wish is made.  A lantern was sent off in honor of Kathleen's dad Joe and everyone made their own wishes with their lanterns.  A few crashed into the ocean but most of them drifted off and could still be seen miles away floating down the coastline.
     We went back to one last round of dancing until we couldn't anymore.  When we finally got back to our room we found that the Rocky's staff had decked out our bed with a towel sculpture and flower petal heart.  Rocky's really knows how to throw a wedding. 
     Thank you from the bottom of our hearts to all our family and friends that came and shared that day with us.  It was the people around us more than the place and activities that made it such a special and wonderful day.  The memory of that day and the days around it will be lifetime treasured memories. 
      
    

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