Mrs Donna Mc Millen, Just Married In Fiji
Nowadays a lot of folks would rather take their sweetheart and fly to a tropical paradise to get married than deal with all the commercialism in today's weddings.
Well that is exactly what my honey and I chose to do. We packed our bathing suits, grabbed our sun glasses and headed to Fiji to get hitched. We didn't tell our family members where we were headed, we just drove to the Los Angeles Airport, parked in the long term area, dashed onto our plane at 11:00 PM, sat down and enjoyed a glass of champagne, ate a meal and went to sleep.
We woke up just as the sun was peeping over the horizon, lighting up extraordinary tropical islands ringed with coconut palms and surrounded in aquamarine seas. The visuals were so exciting we could hardly wait to land.
The customs were simple and friendly taking only five minutes. Our travel agent at Travelwizard.com had a driver waiting for us who greeted us with a huge smile and drove us over to the office where we paid $12 for our marriage license which took only ten minutes. The lady who gave us our license hugged us and sang a Fijian love song. Then we drove down to the Denaru Marina and boarded a catamaran and headed out to the Mamanuca Islands.
Our agent suggested Malolo Lailia Island because it had a marina with boats and a small resort with thatched huts, (Called bures in Fiji) where we checked in. I asked the desk clerk if it would be possible to get married on the beach in a couple days? He nodded yes and asked if we needed a pastor? We told him that we were Baptists and would like a Christian minister if possible. He smiled and said he knew one on another island only an hour away and would try to get him for us.
We spent all day snorkeling around the lagoon, basking in the sun, sleeping under the coconut palms in total solitude.
A couple days later Donna reminded me that we were supposed to get married and asked me to check with the resort manager to see if he had contacted the minister. We got in our bathing suits and opened the door and were surprised to see about 30 Fijians patiently waiting for us, all decked out out in beautiful flowers. They had decorated a golf cart like a Rose Parade float and invited us to sit in it while they drove us to a palm shaded cove on the lagoon where they had constructed a magnificent arch in a rainbow of flowers for us to stand under as we got married.
There must have been over a hundred natives singing Fijian wedding songs and tossing flowers on us as the minister read our vows to us. It was a heart warming experience we'll never forget. Then they carried us over to a dugout canoe with a sail and we sailed off into the sunset with champagne and Fijian love songs.
When we returned a couple hours later there was a band, and a massive table of food including a large pig they had cooked in the ground. We ate; we sang Fijian songs; we played into the we hours until we were exhausted, they retired to our bure.
A week later when we checked out the manager handed us an album of pictures with a huge grin that he had taken during our wedding.
The bill for the whole wedding including the minister, the food, the flowers, the band and everything was only $350. We slipped him an envelope with our thanks and appreciation.
When we returned we were happy, tanned, relaxed and really thrilled that we decided to get married in paradise.
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