Mahina met Pam at her new job and immediately they bonded over wedding planning. Pam was getting married on July 4th, so both were in the final stages of planning their wedding. As the weddings got closer, we both invited each other to our weddings. Having just got back from our honeymoon, Mahina and I were looking forward to being on the "other side" of a wedding and seeing things from a guest's perspective.
In our anxiousness to be good guests, we arrived at the wedding one hour early. Something had seemed strange when we had pulled up and found that there weren't many guests, or any at all really, in sight. As we wandered around the hotel we stumbled upon one of the wedding coordinators and realized our mistake.
Soon enough though guests began to arrive and we got to mingle with a couple of Mahina and Pam's other co-workers before the ceremony began. The ceremony site was beautiful and as Mahina and I made our way to our seats the ceremony began.
This was only the second wedding Mahina had ever attended and the first Jewish wedding either of us have attended, all of which made the ceremony and the reception that followed really exciting and fun for us. The courtyard where they got married was beautifully decorated and made for a great setting. Mahina's favorite parts of the ceremony were the Jewish custom of the bride's ring being put on her index finger instead of her ring finger and their "ketubah," the Jewish marriage contract they wrote together. My favorite part of course was when Tony broke the glass and we all cheered, "Mazel Tov!" Once Pam and Tony were husband and wife, we all made our way inside for the cocktail hour and reception.
After sampling some amazing appetizers and meeting more of Mahina and Pam's co-workers, we made our way inside to Pam and Tony's reception. Dinner began with a traditional Jewish custom where Pam's grand-father prayed over and cut a loaf of bread, called the "blessing of the challah."
Everyone danced the night away and enjoyed the remainder of the evening with great music and entertainment. Going to Pam and Tony's wedding was a really special evening for us and we were really honored to share in their wedding.
We started looking at houses for rent right after the honeymoon. Lucas started the search, prowling the web extensively to look for anything and everything in West LA. To tell you that we went to a few “grungy” homes, and we're putting that lightly, would be an understatement; some of those homes should have honestly been condemned. The ironic thing about our house-hunt was that this was the first house we went to see together and it ended up being the house we decided on moving to. It was perfect for us because it was only five miles away from where we worked in Santa Monica.
