Day 2 Part 3 - Welcome Dinner at Ohana
Okay, so we’re on our way to the Poly and we’re perfectly on time, yet I receive a phone call from Christie. She’s already there with her parents and grandmother because they’re overly early to everything. I tell them to hold their horses and we’ll be there shortly. We pull up to the Poly and Chuck lets me out at the curb with our boxes of goodies and then he drives off to find parking. While I’m waiting for him, I can’t go in because everything is too heavy for me to carry by myself. Now while we arrived with 5 minutes to spare, we ended up being just a few minutes late by the time we made it in. I went to the podium and checked us in and notice that there was another large party waiting as well and they had pretty much filled the waiting area. So we stood outside and waited just a bit. Everyone was there when we finally made it in with the exception of Jenna and Beth. I called them and they were there and just finding their way to the restaurant. They stopped to take pictures along the way.
And if you look really closely in this next one at the top left corner, you’ll see where our party was waiting outside of Ohana. The girl in the yellow dress is my SIL, Christie.
When we finally got seated it was a whirlwind of activity. The host was checking for allergies, which was a good thing because I didn’t realize that one of my life-long friends of over 15 years was allergic to PINEAPPLE! And there was a server taking drink orders and I wanted to get the welcome bags out and welcome everyone.
Passing out welcome bags...
Welcome bags everywhere...
Being seated...
Server taking drink orders...
At this point, my now MIL couldn’t contain herself any longer. Nevermind that we had just gotten there, just gotten settled in and were taking a million and one pictures...
A million and one pictures...
So she just absolutely had to pass out the stupid Jordan Almonds, oh excuse me, Confetti. She couldn’t container herself. But she didn’t just pass them out. She had to tell a story about what they were. And what you’re supposed to do with them. And to tell her story she had to YELL at everyone. It was loud in the restaurant and the people at the end of the table couldn’t hear her, so they didn’t even know she was talking. So she starts getting feisty and YELLING at them to “LISTEN TO HER!” Ugh. It was annoying. I don’t think she realizes how rude she comes across. I genuinely think it’s a language barrier issue. Perhaps she never fully learned the innuendo of the English language in the past 40 years that she’s been here in the states. Or perhaps she just thinks that... I don’t even know what. She’s just very abrasive sometimes. She went on to talk about how you’re supposed to make a wish for the bride and groom while sucking on one of the candied nuts. But you have to be careful, because if you make a bad wish it will come back on you. Now, let me ask you, who at my super-small wedding would be making a wish against me, that this warning was necessary?!???!!
Someone was kind enough to immortalize the JA’s in wedding history forever.
I would like to also take this opportunity to point out that after the cat was let out of the bag about being “surprised” by the MIL with JAs at my wedding that I ended up taking on this project as well. I had to buy the netting or tulle because my SIL had purchased large square amounts apparently b/c they were oblivious that you can just buy a package of rounds at any craft store. I printed the little tags and then inked the edges to match the different color ribbons that I had cut to tie the bows. I really wanted the tags to have some sort of thank you message and something about the welcome dinner and Chuck’s parents hosting, but I got shot down on that (don’t think that I didn’t print out several alternatives for the tags.) They were pretty peeved that I didn’t let them also do the red ribbon and little fake red roses, but I was able to at least make the case that this wasn’t something being passed out at the wedding or on the wedding day, therefore it should be in bright colors to compliment the Poly/Ohana theme. The whole thing in my opinion was a disaster and still to this day bothers me. Note to future MILs, MOBs or just about anyone who thinks this is a good idea for a “SURPRISE,” guess what, it’s NOT. You would think that once she said her piece that it would have been the end of the JA’s, but as anyone who has read Bobbie’s TR or earlier comments knows, that is not the case. I’ll get there, promise.
After that, I seemed to relax for the most part. The food kept coming out in waves. We started with the bread and salad. They brought out the shrimp and wings, both of which were really good and messy to eat! Okay, I lied, I don’t really know the order of the food. But all of it was really good. I ate, but I didn’t overeat. I enjoyed everything a lot. I know that we had to get more of the potatoes and shrimp. And as always, the meat was hit or miss. I had a great piece of steak, but Chuck’s would suck. So it all depends. Overall the meal was very good. My mom kept commenting about how salty the potatoes were, but she still enjoyed them.
while my dh was having his bridezilla moment at all the problems we have been having between ohanas and 1900 park fare.
I guess despite it being the happiest place on earth, they still have their problems!!!!
I'm very unhappy with the whole situation and feel like it's kinda lame to be having this party 6 months after the wedding. I'm trying to keep it casual with more of a BBQ/Open House feel and the MIL keeps trying to turn it into an actual reception/5-yr-old Birthday Party. UGH. I won't even bring up the Jordan Almonds for the party. That would just be the icing on the cake, so to speak. She knew she wanted to have a party, why couldn't she have just saved the stupid JAs for that. Why did it have to be this big drama before my wedding??? Where she was going to surprise me???? 
[Whew, guess I'm not over that yet, huh?]
