Mikey and Solee Tie The Knot
-a wedding story
Once upon a time there was a fair young princess who was in love with a handsome prince...okay, so I am not going to be THAT hokey. But this will be pretty sappy, so some of you may want to avert your eyes.

The real wedding events started on Saturday. Mom, Louise (family friend), Grandma, Amy (cousin), Shanta (sister) Sue (sister-in-law) and Verena (mother-in-law) gathered together at about 11 and started cooking. By the time I got there at about noon-thirty, after doing our final packing and house cleaning, they had a potato salad, an italian pasta salad, a coleslaw and two cheesecakes made. They had also prepared a marinade for the meats. They were amazing! We sampled the potato salad (like I always do!) and it was, of course, perfect. Verena stuffed her fridge to the gills and even sent the cheesecakes to stay in a friend's fridge! We ate tri-tip sandwiches (Verena smoked the meat in her smoker that morning...isn't she AMAZING?!) for lunch before rushing off to have manicures and pedicures. While the girls were doing that, Mikey drove down to San D to pick up photographer and childhood buddy, Brian. They also picked up Round Table Pizza for dinner. After dinner, Brian came up to stay with us in Temecula. I wish we could have stayed up late talking with him...but we were all too tired.

Sunday morning started early. We again gathered at Mike's folks' place. After a nice little chat and some breakfast I dragged my family and photographer to Lake Poway for...you guessed it, pictures. We took about a trillion photos and everyone was very nice about it. I can't wait to see them! We returned to the Hommels' and chatted some more with newly arriving guests. Mikey and I opened our gifts and were completely overwhelmed by the generosity of our family and friends. We have more kitchen gadgets than you can shake a stick at! We finished just in time to dash over to Peking House for our pre-wedding luncheon. I was a little worried about how everyone would react to the quaint little Chinese place we like so much. It was a BIG hit!! The food was fabulous, there were balloons and streamers up and a funny little man was playing a keyboard for entertainment. Mai totally outdid herself. She even gave me a gift of a purse and some "lucky money" to put in it. I am SO glad that we decided to go there. Everyone seemed to have a good time talking and eating. After we had stuffed ourselves to the gills I gave a house tour to those in the family who hadn't seen it yet. They all oohed and ahhed and generally made me very proud of our little home. Then it was back down to San D to check into our hotel room, have a very nice walk with Dad and fall into bed. I was exhausted!

I was hoping to sleep in Monday morning, but I was up around 6:30. Mikey and I hung out in the room for awhile having some alone time (not easy to come by with so much family around!) and then went down to talk with Grandma and have breakfast. Pretty soon Amy and Mom and the kiddos were up and we started doing our final preperations. Amy did a fabu job making adorable flower arrangements out of Gerbera Daisies. She made four sets for the tables and then a bouquet for me to carry. We also pulled the petals off the remaining flowers for Alexa (niece and flowergirl) to carry in her basket. We decided to let Devon (nephew) walk with Alexa and carry a little teddy bear. He REALLY wanted a job! Mikey, Kathy (step-mother and officiant) and I went to CostCo to get drinks and bread and other last minute things. Mom and Thom (father) went to the grocery store to pick up the meat, chicken and fish along with some other last minute things. I showed up late to the park to meet the Party Rental people, but they were really nice about it. They dropped off all the tables and chairs and dinner stuff. We all got lectured by an overdiligent park ranger who was upset with us for driving on the lawn! Kathy, Mikey and I did a quick run through of how the ceremony was going to go. As things were set up and arranged, I went back to the hotel and soaked in the hot tub for about 15 minutes by myself. I then showered, got a lovely back massage from Amy and got dressed. By 4 we were up on the hill finalizing set-up, greeting guests and taking a few pics. At 5 Kathy invited everyone to sit down and the ceremony started.

I walked myself up the aisle with Alexa and Devon leading the way. They did a great job tossing petals and being cute and distracting me from all the people looking at me. Mikey took my arm and we went to stand in front of Kathy. She gave a wonderful little blessing and read 1st Corinthians 13. Sue (Mikey's sister) read a passage from a Dean Koontz book that I came across one time and really felt was appropriate - all about love being strong but fragile and how it is sometimes heavy, but worth it all in the end. We invited the parents to come up and give a blessing or hugs or whatever they felt appropriate. Then Mikey and I exchanged our vows and our rings. Kathy gave short prayer and we shared a moment of silence. We were then introduced as Mike and Solee Hommel!!! By the end, I had been smiling so long and so hard that my cheeks hurt and Mikey was in tears. He told me, "This is the best thing I have ever done." As we got hugs and wonderful words from our guests Mom and Verena and Louise started the dinner grilling. We set out all the salads and the bread. As dinner cooked we all talked and mingled. Then we stuffed ourselves like pigs for the second day in a row! Dessert was cheesecake with berries on top and two delicious berry pies. Everyone raved! As dark fell, Brian took some really great pictures of us. By 8:30 we were finished with dinner. Everyone helped clean up and after the rental guy came to pick things up we all soaked in the hot tub. It was a perfect day! I can't think of a single thing that I would change. Everything was so meaningful and wonderful and... well... just plain perfect.

Tuesday morning we got up, packed, said our last goodbyes and headed to the airport. Our flight left San D at 9:30 and went very well. Calm and uneventful, which is just how I like my flights. We waited in the Honalulu airport for about an hour and had another easy flight to Kauai. And so began our Honeymoon. But that is another story...