A Wedding Weekend in Kiawah Island

By Crivenica

First of all, I would like to say kudos to my sister who has been writing up a storm this past month to keep this blog up on her own while I was traveling. I must applause her passion for writing and her dedication in ensuring there is always something interesting for our readers to read each week! But now, I am back in writing mode and ready to share back half of the blogging responsibility after an over-a-month hiatus and man, don’t I have a lot to write about!

After a month long trip, here I am now in Chicago visiting Lu. And after spending last Thursday afternoon and evening in Newark Airport because my flight was delayed six hours due to a thunderstorm, I must say sitting here in Lu’s apartment, writing this post, is a pleasant change.  I am so relieved to be away from an airport for at least another week or so. At this point, the sight of an airport makes me nauseous. I have gone through 10 airports in the past month alone and some of them I had to go through more than once. David has it even worse because he had to go back to Kathmandu for two days, to just turn around again to London and then back to NY, then to DC for work. My poor husband doesn’t even know what time zone his body is in right now!

David and I left Kathmandu for the US in the beginning of May for our annual “home-leave”.  I would not necessarily call this a relaxing vacation because our time is usually filled with visiting family and friends, living out of our suitcases and moving from one guest room to another. It can get exhausting especially when you try to see as many people as possible in two weeks. But this time was a little different. We had a month and we managed to see most of our family and friends, attend two weddings and see some other parts of United States while doing that.

The first main stop of our trip was for a wedding of David’s good friend from college, Nathan. I had been looking forward to seeing Nathan again and meeting his fiancee - now his wife - Kimberly. I was also excited because it would be my first time to travel to the Southern part of the East coast. After a 30-something-hour trip from Kathmandu, a short overnight in New York and seven airport stops, you can’t imagine how excited I was to touch down at Atlanta’s humongous Hartsfield-Jackson international airport. That airport is so big, we had to hop on an air train to reach the baggage claim five stops away. But I didn’t complain. I just wanted to grab our luggage, get into our rental car, and start the fun part of the trip.

It was about a five-hour drive from Atlanta to Kiawah Island, South Carolina where the wedding would take place. We could have flown to Charleston, which is only an hour away from the island, but we wanted to meet up with a couple of friends in Atlanta and had a little road trip. We didn’t actually arrive in the island until midday the next day. But when we came near it, as we drove through a beautiful oak-tree lined road toward Kiawah, I finally felt the relaxed “I’m on vacation” vibe.

Kiawah Island is not like any islands in Indonesia that I’m used to. This small island is actually one of the few barrier islands on the coast of South Carolina that are merely separated by rivers and marsh land. They are connected to the mainland through bridges, so there is no need for a boat or a small plane to get there. And as we drove through, I found out that the whole of Kiawah island is actually an upscale private gated real-estate as well as a world class golf resort. I didn't know this. I thought the resort was located in the island, while the rest is a regular island with a little town or something. But, no. Unless you’re a property owner, a guest or an employee at the resort, you pretty much can’t come in. We had to have a special pass displayed on our windshield throughout the wedding weekend.

My first impression when we entered the Kiawah resort was everything looked so perfect - the well maintained landscape, the roads, the houses, and, of course, the golf courses. Kiawah is a golf resort with five award-winning championship South Carolina golf courses; one of them is the home of the 2007 Senior PGA and 2012 PGA championships. I immediately thought my dad would love this place. If he owned a house there, he would wake up so early to get a 5 am tee time every morning. But after that thought, I asked David, “Where’s the beach?” I was on an island, but I had not gotten a glimpse of a beach or the ocean because it was all blocked off by the waterfront properties.

The beach at Kiawah

Eventually, I got to the beach with our group of friends who all came to attend the wedding. There were boardwalks from the residential area leading to the expansive waterfront with big tall sand dunes. Though the beach is open to all residents and guests, I felt robbed of a real island feeling because I couldn’t just see or hear the ocean without having to go through blocks of houses and a patch of golf green. However, I suppose people could tell me to go to a different island if I want a more pristine island because obviously Kiawah was designed for a specific market.

David posing with the bike at a Green

Though I had my reservation about the island, I thought the house we shared with Nathan and David’s other closest friends, Gray, Chris and Kristina was lovely. David and I also had a chance to explore the island a bit on bicycles. The resort did a wonderful job of putting in 30 miles of paved bike trails all through the island. On the bikes, we saw more of the island’s beauty as we rode along the marshland. Kiawah actually has quite an amazing and diverse wildlife that the resort reports any special wildlife sighting. I got excited when a White Egret just stroll along our street and when I saw a Pelican flying nearby or when we spotted an alligator sunbathing.

The highlights of the weekend, though, was not the alligator sighting. Nathan, Kimberly and their parents had planned such a lovely wedding weekend and we had enjoyed it immensely. We were so happy to be a part of this joyous moment in their lives. Apart from the wedding itself, Nathan’s parents hosted an oyster roast on the eve of the wedding. I was very looking forward to this event. First of all, I love oysters and second of all, I was really curious to find out what an oyster roast was really about.

The roasting oysters

I was not disappointed. Held at Mingo Point, a beautiful private open venue by the marsh, it was quite an experience. As we arrived, we were greeted by servers with mugs of John Daly - a mixed drink consisting of lemonade, iced tea and vodka (or in this case, they used lemonade and Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka). There were a few large round standing tables with a big hole in the middle along a circular cement platform of the Point. Plates, forks, lemons, cocktail sauce, crackers and plastic gloves were set at one side of each table. On the other side of the platform, two men in overalls were working over a big wood fire grill, shoveling heaps of roasted oysters directly from the grill and dumped them onto each table top.

I looked at the steaming oysters in front of me and wondered what the hell was I supposed to do with them. These were whole unshucked hot oysters and I was like, “somebody, please, teach me how to shuck an oyster, because I can’t wait to eat these bad boys!” After a couple of demonstrations from a more experienced guest and a few trial and error efforts, I managed to shuck my own oysters without cutting my fingers! And let me tell you, slurping those yummy freshly roasted oysters that I shucked myself was very satisfying. You can tell from my picture below how happy I was. At that point, I didn’t even know where David went. My focus was on the oysters.

I had thought that the roasted oysters were all there was to dinner, but I was wrong. As the sun was setting, we realized that people were heading to a roofed picnic area on the other side of the Point. It turned out that the oysters were just an appetizer, the real dinner spread was waiting there. A buffet line filled with a delicious southern spread of salad, sausage jambalaya, barbecue chicken, baked beans, coleslaw, corn bread, and the main event of a whole pig roast. If you’re a vegetarian or vegan, you may want to skip the picture - but David and I were definitely excited when we saw it.

I definitely loved the dinner. And it was really fun listening to friends and family of the wedding couple who came up to the stage and gave their little speeches. They gave me a lot of great insights on Nathan and Kimberly. And after spending more time with them two weeks later at another friend’s wedding in Santa Barbara, which I will write about eventually, I can see how great they are together.

The delicious pig roast

The wedding was held at Cassique, a private golf community that is located where Kiawah river meets the Atlantic ocean. The ceremony took place on the lawn of the big handsome clubhouse with the golf course as a backdrop. The setting was beautiful, the groom and groomsmen - David was one of them - were dressed impeccably in khaki colored dress pants, white shirts, blue blazers and Vineyard Vines ties, while the bridesmaids looked breezy in rose pink dresses. The flower girls made the guests go “aww”, while the ring bearer made everybody giggle as he dragged the rings that were attached to a small fishing rod. Nathan is an avid fly fisherman, thus the fishing rod and the men in the wedding party all donned corsages fashioned from fishing flies.

Kimberly and Nathan

But there was nothing fishy when Kimberly walked down the aisle. She looked gorgeous in a simple but stunning white lace wedding gown with a plunging back. I love lace wedding gowns - mine was all lace covered too, though not with the daring back, but if I had Kimberly’s toned back, I would totally bare it, too!

Well, the ceremony was pleasant, the cocktail and hors d'oeuvre were delicious, the dinner of salad, fish, roasted brisket and whipped potatoes were tasty. And I had fun dancing to the songs performed by the great band they hired. Overall, it was a great weekend in Kiawah and an even more wonderful wedding! And even though I had toasted them at their wedding, I will toast Nathan and Kimberly again here and wish them a happy, happy, happy life together!