Aquarium Wedding

I’m a huge Friends TV show fan. I own collections of DVD from that show and I even have the book that highlighted their last season. I miss that show so much. I still watch the reruns on TV whenever I catch it.

If you watch that show, you know that each episode was called a name that always started “The One…..”.

The One with all the Thanksgiving

The One with the Male Nanny

The One with Christmas in Tulsa

Recently, we attended a friend’s wedding that was held at the Long Beach Aquarium.

I couldn’t help but think of the wedding in the context of “The One that could have been…..”. It had all the details I wanted IF we had it locally. It’s fun to experience it and see it up close and personal.

However, at the end of the night, having just come home and talking about the fun we had at the wedding, Chris and I agreed that our wedding was the perfect one for us.

This venue was one of the venues we wanted to look at for our own wedding. The first few months of our wedding planning, we had planned on having it locally before we decided to have a destination wedding. The aquarium venue was on our top list of possible venue. I even created an inspiration board for a local wedding and it looked very similar to this wedding.

As soon as I walked into the place, I remember thinking “whoa!, this look like my old inspiration board coming to life”.

The wedding was beautiful and we were in awe of the venue, the food and just all the beautiful details.

We arrived at the venue very early. We had anticipated traffic but there was none on our way there. Guests who arrived early weren’t allowed in the venue yet as they were just closing it from the public.

We walked a few blocks to Mai Tai Bar to start our own pre-wedding party. I was so glad I wore comfortable shoes that night.

We ordered mai tais, enjoyed some appetizers and listened to a local band play live music.

After an hour, we walked back to the aquarium.

The wedding ceremony was held right in front of the large tank. It was a gorgeous background for a wedding.

There were a few funny moments during the ceremony. The couple wrote their own vows and included some funny jokes in between. They also included their 2 puppies in the ceremony too. So cute.

There were plenty of bars set-up all over the aquarium during cocktail hour. It was fun to walk around the aquarium with drinks and music playing, it had a cool party vibe.

Even the animals wanted to party with us.

Wedding guests had access to all the aquarium exhibit. We checked out most of them before it was time to find our table for the reception.

Our wedding look.

The reception was held in the main lobby, under a giant whale.

The tables were named after all different kinds of fish. We sat in the White Sea Bass table along with Chris’s local diver friends and their dates. The name of the table is so fitting for their diving hobbies.

I enjoyed a vegetarian dish. It was delicious, cheesy and doughy inside with plenty of roasted vegetables.

…and of course, saved room for wedding cake and candy bar goodies.

Pictures from the photo booth.

This is the first wedding we have attended after our own wedding.

I had a heightened sense of appreciation to all the details. I know all too well the wedding planning process and I now have a deeper appreciation for all the details involved in a wedding.

Congrats to our friends on their wedding day!