Our Wedding - August 23, 2008

A lot of people have been asking about our wedding so I thought this would be a good solution to tell our wedding story here:

August 21: Meet the Burkharts
All the wedding flowers arrived from Hawaii, my dress was picked up by my mom, and my sisters and I were frantically cleaning the house because my aunt and cousin were staying at our house for the night and then they stayed at the Dockside for the rest of the weekend.

I met up with Jacob and his family plus ALL the Burkharts (15 or more of them) that I had never met until that night. We met at the Muddy River (Delicious BBQ!) in Portsmouth, NH and had a family dinner. I barely ate because I was so anxious about the wedding and also meeting all these new people/relatives all in one weekend. The Burkhart brothers and sisters were extremely nice and so welcoming. Each of them told me that they loved me from the first time they heard about me and that they were so excited to meet me.

After dinner, they had a very traditional bridal shower with funny games. My mom and sister also met up with us because I wanted some familiar people with me. All in all it was a really fun night.

August 22: Rehearsal and Rehearsal Picnic
The wedding party and extras met up at the Dockside for the wedding rehearsal at around 11am. We rehearsed and headed over to the Rehearsal Picnic at Fort Foster’s in Kittery, ME that the Jacob’s parents planned for us this whole past year.

The picnic was a lot of fun and there was so much food!!! The Burkharts got tons of cooked lobsters, BBQ, corn on the cob and Uncle Tom Burkhart brought special sausages from Ohio, tons of fruit salad and salad in general. They also bought 20 different types of desserts. It was so delicious and everyone seemed to have a great time. They had little center pieces at each table. They cut out surfboards out from wood and painted them and then had sand with a little umbrella and little towel…it was really cute.

After everyone ate, people went kayaking, played field crumpets and just walked around ocean. Some of my bridesmaids got burnt and it really showed the next day for the wedding…it was funny. While people went off and had fun, I stuck around and talked to different people to keep the crowd going. It was so good to talk with people.

After the rehearsal picnic, some of my bridesmaids and I went to get our nails done at Elizabeth Grady. After our nails, we went to Margaritas in Portsmouth for a drink and then we all headed to our respective places for sleep. I could barely sleep. I took a shower and then dried my hair. My dad came into my room to practice our Father/Daughter dance…it was so cute. My dad was so good all weekend and seemed to really enjoy himself. He even played field crumpets. I thought that was so cool…along with my brother and my cousin, Brit.

August 23: Our Wedding Day!!
The day started at 5:30am and I was so nervous and could barely sleep. I went to the hair dressers first and then to Elizabeth Grady to get my make-up done. We arrived at the Dockside at around 9:45am to get dressed in Jacob’s room that he had for the weekend. After I got my dress on, I passed out the small scrapbook/memory books that I made for my bridesmaids because their big gift was their dresses. I also got all the leis out and leid each of my bridesmaids. The Photographer was there the whole time I was giving everything out. She also took a bunch of pictures of me and also pictures of me with my parents and each bridesmaid. I also gave out my presents to my mom and dad, Kahlan (flower girl) and Britt (my cousin who was our harpist) too.

While we were taking pictures, Britt started practicing with her harp and I starting crying because it was so beautiful. I was really emotional all day!! We started lining up in the downstairs room for the ceremony and my grammie came into the room and looked at me and started crying and then I started crying. I think she was really happy to see that I was all grown up!

My dad was also in the room and I could tell that he was really emotional all day. He kept saying how beautiful everyone looked and how perfect the day was. My dad was so awesome on our wedding day. I was so excited that he was being so great!

Everything started in a timely fashion. Some people didn’t make it to the ceremony because they were stuck in traffic or got lost. Everything went smoothly and my dad and I walked out and all I could do was SMILE!!! I was so happy and then when I saw Jacob I saw that he was teary eyed and then I started crying and had to wipe my tears on my dad’s barong (Filipino shirt)! I was trying to be secretive but people probably noticed. Pastor Charley and Uncle Randy did a great job as our pastors and at one point I was still very anxious and I spoke out loud and made a joke because of nervousness!!! Jacob looked stunning in his Filipino barong too!!

Cindy sang, but there was no microphone so we could barely hear her, my mom and jacob’s mom read Joe’s poem and Laura did a great job with the Unity Sand reading. I was so happy about everything!!! Everything was just perfect!

After we got married we did a group photo and then all the family/wedding photos! The cocktail hour went well and people were saying that the appetizers were delicious! People also commented on how much they liked the music that was on the play list.

OOO Joe surprised me and drew the little icon of the birds and also wrote: “Better Together” underneath them on the way into the reception along with bird feet…it was SOOO cute…I started tearing up again from happiness!!!

People started heading into the reception and we had to gather all the wedding party and eventually everyone got in order and we were announced. Then the first dance happened and Joe and Andy did a great job singing and playing, Better Together by Jack Johnson!!! I was so excited that it worked out so well! Then the Father/Daughter dance and Mother/Son Dance, then Cindy/Mindy/G did a toast. It was quite nice I started tearing up again during Cindy/Mindy’s toast because they were being sentimental about me being adopted and also about Jacob and me helping with Kupenda.

After the toasts and blessing, we were about to eat food, but Jacob and I went to each table to thank all the guests for making it to our wedding and how much we appreciated them coming. It was good to do that because talking to everyone was fun.

After the food was served, we started the Karaoke and just had a blast having everyone sing and dance!!! It was a good way to get guests included in the wedding. Our mom’s sang, Sunrise Sunset just like my mom requested. My sisters sang Total Eclipse of the heart and it was amazing…so many people sang…I sang a whole bunch by accident!!! but it was really fun!

Our cake was not exactly what we wanted but everyone thought it was so us and that it was perfect for us…so that is good. We also had small desserts and those went really quickly! I had a small tiramasu but that was it. Jacob didn’t have any but maybe we can go to the galley hatch and get some and remember how tasty they were!

Our last dance was awesome!! We had everyone get in a circle, hold hands, and my sister sung “You Are My Sunshine” and then everyone joined in and it was so awesome. They started doing the wave too – haha!

After our last dance, we kayaked away from the reception in the harbor. The groomsmen and Linda made decorations for the kayak that said: “Just Married” and then they attached flowers to the back of it like where the cans would go if it were a car. We kayaked around the corner and went to Jacob’s room to change so we could kayak longer with our friends. We went all around the harbor and on the way back to the Dockside we saw the Iltis’ and talked to them for a bit. A ton of our friends and family went kayaking with us and then we joined the after party on the lawn and just hung out there with friends and family for the rest of the night. Around 8:30/9 we went into Alicia’s room and there were friends playing 2 different types of games and I was on the bed with my bridesmaids and friends looking at pictures because I was exhausted from the whole day considering I did wake up at 5:30am.

Jacob and I went to bed around 11ish and when we got to the room it was all prettied up with rose petals, our just married sign from the kayak, candles from the wedding, and our unity sand on the head board. It was really sweet…my aunt, sisters, Linda and bridesmaids made up the room for us! It was so nice.

August 24: First Surf as a Married Couple!
We woke up around 8am and had breakfast with our family and wedding party and then at 10am we went to the beach which was right down the road (short sands, york, ME) to go surfing. The Burkhart family, Kristin, Erica and Ernie, Chris and Jen, Joe Tang, Tara and Morgan, John Polzella all joined us for our First Surf as a Married Couple! It was great!!! We caught some waist high waves and I caught the wave of the day! It was great being out in the water and hanging out with some great friends and family!

Honestly, this was the best and perfect weekend we could ever imagine for our wedding. We were so excited that everything turned out perfectly and everything was just so nice. I am so excited that everything was exactly what we wanted for the most part!

I will post about the Honeymoon in another article but I don’t have time right now. There is so much to be written about our Philippine and Hong Kong adventures!!!

I am so glad that everything was perfect and so much fun!!! Best wedding ever!!!!!