Marc & Edita's Wedding {Austin, TX}

We flew into Austin for a quick weekend getaway to celebrate Marc & Edita's wedding. Airfare was way cheaper flying out of LAX so we gave it a try. We left bright and early on Valentine's day at 5 am and got to LAX around 7:45 am {LAX traffic sucks}. Our flight wasn't until 8:41 so we had plenty of time, but any additional traffic would have probably been no bueno. Next time, we will definitely consider spending a night at a friend's place beforehand. Anyways, a short 3 hour flight later and we were in one of our favorite city!

We kept the weekend events to a minimum since we knew the wedding day would be a full day in itself and didn't want to be tired out.  The wedding reception was held at the Bob Bullock's Texas State Museum, so a majority of us stayed at The AT&T Conference Center on Campus. Our room had a view of the beautiful UT Tower. Looking at the Tower always brings back such great memories of college and makes me super proud to be a Longhorn!

With it being Valentine's Day, Gerald and I decided to check out a local cafe for a low key meal. We  typically don't go out on Vday; I prefer to cook a nice meal instead but since we were away from home, we had no other choice. We went to Epicerie Cafe & Grocery, which was just like being at home. Epicerie is like a cafe/grocery store where you can buy your own meat, cheeses, wine and other food items to enjoy in the cafe or take home. They also have a cafe menu you can order from. We opted to do a charcuterie platter with a bottle of white wine and enjoyed it out on the patio. After the bottle of wine, Mr. Pena got hungry and decided to order an oyster poboy from their cafe menu which was pretty yummy. After our low key meal, we headed out to the Domain to try and do some shopping, with no luck. It was fun to browse anyhow. The retail shops are dead on Valentine's day; guess everyone is out on their hot date for the night =P This was our 10th Valentine's day together and it just gets better every year!

Now, on to the pre-wedding festivities....The wedding party was having their rehearsal dinner at Z Tejas on 6th Street, so after all the wedding rehearsal stuff was done, we headed over to meet up with the group for some pre-drinks before the pre-wedding party at J. Blacks on 6th Street. We ended the night at 3 am with a trip to the Halal Boys on Guadalupe for a late night snack! How old are we?? It's always nice being around friends and when that happens, we think we're back in college again! 

We slept off Friday night's fun well into Saturday afternoon in order to prepare for the actual Wedding Day festivities. The ceremony was held St. Theresa's in NW Austin. It's been a while since I've really appreciated a good wedding ceremony homily and this was one of them. The priest kept things very real and it made for an interesting and funny ceremony; it kind of reminded us of our wedding day when Father Roy goes..."Well, if you aren't going to kiss her than I will..haha." The bride and groom even handed out communion to everybody at the ceremony; that's a first! If you knew Marc and Edita, you would know that this is a huge thing for Marc, so we had a little laugh out of it but at the same time really respected what they did to make their wedding day special. 

Now, on to the party! First off, Gerald and I had to stop by Lick for a pick me up and TX sunshine =) I had a grapefruit ice cream with champagne marshmallows! So refreshing!

Like I mentioned earlier, the wedding reception was held at the Bob Bullock Texas State Museum.  I didn't even know you could have receptions here and I loved it. Loved how it was so open and conveniently for us, the bride and groom sat our table, Dirty 6th, right by the bar! They had a photo flip book booth set up and our friends had way too much fun with that. I can't even show you what they did. Lots of drinking, dancing, and laughter was had by all! Here's a photo recap of the night... {I realized I really need to invest in a nice point and shoot since most photos are taken with my iPhone these days and I'm tired of carrying around the SLR}.

We ended the weekend with a meal at Coco's, an old stomping ground, and then walked around campus for a bit. Oh the memories that were shared! Another great weekend in ATX that just went by way too quickly... 

Hook 'Em!