Marisa Has A New Doubles Partner Now

Well that was fast, a lot of the pictures I was expecting to see in the next few weeks are up.

Marisa's wedding was on Saturday, and since I was involved in the bridal shower and bachelorette party as well, it felt like a long time coming. People would ask, whose bridal shower? Whose bachelorette party? Whose wedding? And I never know how to clarify Marisa.

These days I would call her my workout buddy or my cat aunt, but we met in 7th grade, on the first day of middle school and were pretty inseparable thereafter. We had stupid nicknames for each other and would plan ditching classes at the same time to meet up and go on secret missions. When I had to make a sculpture for ceramics, she convinced me to make a button. We used to fax each other letters over the weekends, and we even stole our computer teachers' address from a bill in her desk and mailed her a ransom note over Thanksgiving break. This really happened.

In high school, we wreaked even more havoc around the campus and then raised all hell when we were doubles partners for high school tennis. Our motto used to be "if we hit the girls on the other team, it's our point!" and even won the Ivy League Championship as doubles partners, coming back from 0-5 to win 7-5. We doubled up again for a statistics project senior year, where I don't remember anything about the project, only the pictures we took for the presentation, which included us dressed in camouflage and using binoculars. This also really happened.

Marisa and I never had a falling out or a fight or bad blood between us, but we didn't keep in close touch after I left Riverside. Occasionally I would receive a text message reminiscing on something, and once she mailed me a birthday card of a bodybuilder in a speedo, but I didn't even see her everytime I came home for the holidays or a quick weekend. I think that's part of what makes our friendship so special now, because I didn't really expect to reconnect or be such good friends again, but here we are. And now she's married!

It doesn't look like any pictures from the bachelorette party are ever going to surface, so here is what I do have from our weekend in Palm Springs leading up to her nuptials...

Set up inside our villa suite

The grounds of our villa. Those orange, red and yellow flowers were so pretty!

I was not in charge of pictures, so this is the one thing on my camera from our first night out?? Of course it would be a selfie

On our way to the pool

Marisa had bags for all the attendees that included wraps, hats, sunglasses, sunscreen, our pineapple drink holders and more! I didn't even need to pack, she had everything for me!

Poolside on Saturday

This parrot in the hotel actually talked. Ashlee and I got very distracted by it for awhile

In the pool. I can't remember if that's a raft we bought from the resort or stole from some guys

On our way out

At da club

A compilation Katrina made of (some) of us. Turned out she forgot like 3 or 4 other girls who were there. To be fair, she made it around 2am inside the club.

And then the wedding!

The altar

View from cocktail deck and ballroom

Part of the grounds

Table assignment board... so cute!

The ballroom was technically indoors but had those wide sweeping doors that gave it a breeze and outdoor feel

The wedding party

The rose garden for cake cutting

Sunset was perfect!

View from my seat at dusk

Girls with Marisa's dad!

On da dance floor

I found a phone on the table and took the liberty of instagramming this picture for them

The famed bouquet toss... I had been in the middle of the crowd and everyone backed away! Whatever

Warming up

The ONLY one making a dash.

Hell yeah I earned that bouquet!!

By the end of the night...

I was dancing with my BFF Mel, Marisa's sister in law!

The capstone send-off

Man, even I feel letdown like, "back to reality" after all the fun leading up to the wedding and the wedding itself, so I can only imagine what Marisa's feeling! Well then again, she gets a week in Hawaii. So yeah, I guess I do have it worse. Ha!