Our Milestone Celebration Dinner...

We hosted a delicious dinner to celebrate our family’s milestones: Melissa’s 50th, Veronica’s 16th, Ashlynn’s 13th and Jimmy & Melissa’s 20th anniversary.

Max and Ashlynn

Turns out that many of our passengers had milestones to celebrate that summer: Darlene & Mike’s 35th, Jan & Bob’s 30th and Holly’s 50th. In addition, we had three birthdays to celebrate during the cruise: Frank’s 55th that very evening, Andrew’s 14th and Olivia’s 18th.

Jimmy and I ate at DiVino last summer and were pleased that the food and service was still just as good.

Wine Tasting...

Grace, Olivia and Frank

There were lots of smiles as folks enjoyed trying a few different Croatian wines.

Holly

Tony

Old San Diego Friends Dan and Bill

Mike

Happy Hour...

Our White Girls’ Milestone Celebration Dinner and Party was the only off-shore event attended by all 31 passengers. We started with a Happy Hour at the restaurant with some tapas and Croatian wines. Jimmy brought a few extra Hawaiian shirts to loan to the fellows that forgot to bring their own.

What a Beautiful Setting...

It was a bit hard to see in the previous photos where we were standing when we renewed our vows, so here’s a shot of the platform.

And here are two shots of DiVino Wine Studio where we held our celebration dinner. The location was fantastic as it was right at the port, but as it was on the 2nd floor, the views weren’t blocked by passing tourists like most of the restaurants at street level in Hvar.

Our Family Vows...

I hereby bind you together as the Family White. May you be happy together in the White House.

May your hash trails never grow shorter. May your glasses always overflow with joy.

You may now have a family hug!

And, finally, a kiss. Afterwards, Jimmy threatened to take the plunge, but luckily he was only joking. He then announced it was time to eat, drink and be merry! Bill wanted to know if everyone there is invited to the next one in 20 years. Sounds like a great idea to me! Thankfully Sally managed to video the entire ceremony, so you can see it here for yourself (please note that the sound is only rough at the very beginning).

I Do...

As to be expected, our vows weren’t exactly traditional: Jimmy, will you take this woman knowing she isn’t obedient and loves the Internet more than you?

Melissa, will you take this man knowing that he occasionally goes walkabout and he’s a shadow of his former self and no longer a helicopter pilot?

Jimmy and Melissa, will you promise to look after these girls and to nourish them knowing they like to watch chick flicks, they might want piercings and a tattoo, and they’ll bring hairy, smelly guys home?

Our vows were more traditional when this photo was taken twenty years ago. There’s no way that we would ever have predicted the path our lives would take.

 



Renewing Our Vows...

Rather than head straight to the restaurant, we took everyone on a small detour to a platform by the water where we held a surprise ceremony to renew our vows in honor of our 20th Wedding Anniversary.

Jimmy recruited John to perform the service. He took his job very seriously as he introduced himself as Father John. Jimmy gave him a few suggestions on what to say, but he didn’t need much help as he did a fantastic job of improvising.

He invited up everyone who had been at our wedding in San Diego all those years ago, so we were joined by Dan, Nancy, Leigh and Vivynne.

Then he invited our lovely daughters to join us. In keeping with my original wedding dress, the three of us wore lace dresses that we enjoyed shopping for at the market in St. Tropez in April.