rehearsal dinner

two days before our wedding we had our rehearsal dinner on camp pendleton in southern california. i don't have many pictures of the dinner, but it was very casual and kenneth's sisters set it up all cute. we had subs from jersey mikes and lots of other delicious treats. they even made candy leis for everyone to have which i thought was so cute and thoughtful.

getting there was a pretty chaotic ordeal. since it's on a military base, there wasn't an exact address to lead us there. shows how pathetic we are these days that if our gps on our phone doesn't take us directly there, then we are screwed.

also, my brother and his family were flying in to LA straight from ecuador and stuck in LA traffic trying to drive down towards san diego is not ideal. oh i do not miss LA traffic. and then on top of it all, my sister's flight got canceled and then rescheduled the following day to arrive about an hour before our dinner started. about an hour before we were supposed to be at the rehearsal dinner i just came to the conclusion that none of my family would be there. but since it took us an extra 30 minutes to find the place because of poor directions, by the time we arrived, there was a huge line of about 5 cars behind us and one by one all my family and friends caught up to us and we all arrived together.

i don't know about other brides, but i was stressed. i don't handle stress well either. i literally didn't eat the 3 days before our wedding haha. i had no appetite. which is such a shame because we had all these fun events with good food and i didn't eat any of it haha. right after we got married the first thing kenneth and i did was eat lunch. i felt like i could finally relax. i definitely made up for it all on our honeymoon (all inclusive) that's what i'm talking about.

the picture below is with my aunt bianca. i don't know if aunt is the right term… she's my dad's cousin. but she is an aunt to me. her and her family live in LA and she last minute drove my sister down. i feel so blessed to have family all over the place but i'm really lucky to have them. earlier that week we had dinner at their home in LA and it was definitely one of the highlights of the week. they remind me so much of my dad. i love being around them because i feel like he's there. so grateful i have them in my life.

so i gave my camera to my friends and wound up with about 400 photos that were incredibly entertaining to go through haha. i love them so much. having them there definitely helped keep me less stressed.

hayden is my go to person when i just want to relax and have fun. seriously is it normal that a 6 year old is my best friend? he was stoked to see the ocean! whoops, i totally let him go in too far and he got wet. didn't really matter because by the end of the night all my nephews were head to toe swimming in the ocean in their clothes. they were a little excited to be at the beach.

nichel is such a sweetheart, it was birthday and she spent it away from her family and celebrating me at our rehearsal dinner instead. seriously she was so kind and selfless and refused to let the spotlight be on her. i was at the store getting ready to buy a cake to bring to the rehearsal dinner and i called alexis asking what kind i should get and she told me that if i brought that to the rehearsal dinner, nichel would kill me. she hate's having the spotlight on her. alexis is that way too. it makes birthdays a little difficult when your friends are so modest. gosh i miss them all. jordan flew in all the way from hawaii to come to our wedding! seriously how did i luck out so much in the friend department? happy [late] birthday neesh!

those these boys. they were such a big help at our wedding with setting things up and making things go smoothly. not to mention i just love them a lot.

just enjoying a little girl chat with my nieces. most everyone was playing volleyball for awhile and being in a dress wasn't exactly the best outfit for that. i didn't mind though because i got to spend a lot of time with my nieces and nephews and that is something i'm beyond grateful for. you'd be surprised how much you can learn from these kids. they just made everything better.