A heat wave and a wedding

My cousin, Daniel, got married to his sweetheart, Amanda, on October 9 – which happened to coincide perfectly with my spontaneous trip home. I have a BIG family. My mom has 5 siblings, which means a whole lotta cousins. And Daniel is the first of us to get married!

The venue was in Oak Glen, a hilly area in San Bernardino county, about a 3 hour drive from home. Here’s the part that sucked: the wedding date also coincided with one of the worst heatwaves everrrr.

Spot my cute parents!

From L -> R: the sis, Nikki, Kylie, and mwah

Me + the man

It was in the mid 90s (that’s about 35 Celsius for my European friends) and the ceremony area had NO shade. They gave us these Mary Poppins-esque parasols to hold while we were waiting, but they had to come down once the ceremony started. People were mega hot and cranky.

Big brother, Wayde, and Grandma Gisi. (AKA, in which I can’t whip my phone out in time to get an actually decent shot. #wah)

*Edit to add this awesome pic my mom just sent me —

Proud mama and papa of the groom.

Little sis, Catherine, as a lovely bridesmaid.

Other than the scorching temps, the ceremony was really lovely.

My parents and their honorary children.

Mark and my parents’ actual children.

We popped open some bubbly while we waited for people to find their seats.

There were a few issues with people not having the right name tags at their tables and what not, so the reception didn’t get rolling for a while.

(These are the happy faces of hunger and heat stroke.)

Don’t tell, but we ended up raiding the candy bar out of desperation.

So many goodies!

Eventually food came…

Wine was had…

And silly dancing ensued.

Then, this sunset happened. Ooh la la.

Big congrats to Daniel and Amanda. Wishing you the happiest future together.

xo