[Marilyn]

Thank you for you very nice comments. These pictures do not do justice to how things and people actaully looked. I'm hoping that some of the other pictures will capture it much better.

Gina, I don't know if there is any special significants of the beads other than that they are Hawaiian, and were ordered from Hawaii, as were many of the flowers used in the wedding. The shirts and beads were the groom's or his family's idea. Melissa told them they could pick what they wore. She was not expecting Hawaiian wedding shirts and beads. It took her quite a while to adjust to the idea. For a while she said she would not walk down the isle if they were not wearing some kind of jacket, but she eventually gave in. She said at least they were comfortable. Since they did this, she elected to go barefoot. Her dress covered her feet, and there isn't a great height difference between them, so it helped her to be shorter than the groom.

The beads are actually polished kukui nuts. The kukui nut tree is the state tree of Hawaii. The nuts are polished, drilled and threaded on a ribbon. Actually, it all came together very well. I can't imagine them wearing anything else. The shirts and beads went very well with the overall tropical theme of the wedding.