The Yagona Bowl!

Didi and Andre's wedding reception was great fun ...

 Didi and Jamie get funky!

... and everything looked so very beautiful ...

Kudos to Julia 

who put so much thought into all this!

... however since this blog tries to be all about stories, the most interesting part of the evening was The Saga of The Yagona Bowl!

You know about yagona, don't you?  If you don't, read here. Or for what an important role it plays in Fiji, try here.

What happened was that, during the planning, Tom kept saying "This is a Fiji wedding. We need to have yagona!" and Julia was all "No. We're not having some ugly old wooden bowl in among all the silver. No yagona, and that's that!" ...

... but she didn't count on Joe, did she!, because look what we have here!

 Yayyy, Joe!

Tom's long time good friend, Joe was seen, just before the reception, sneaking around the back entrance with all the yaya, and hiding the bowl on the back veranda where Julia wouldn't see it.

And it was a huge success too.  Everyone from Fiji was forever sneaking out of the formal dinner to gather around the bowl, laughing and swopping stories in the usual Fiji yagona-bowl-style, and all those who weren't from Fiji were also out there, sampling away, and, particularly with the South African contingent, discussing the strange taste. Yup, yagona became a great topic of conversation as well as being its usual conversation-encourager.

And look who also snuck off for a talanoa and a bilo:

 Careful your mum 

doesn't see, honey!

So, vinaka vaka levu for your wisdom and foresight, Joe!  This was a very great success!

But let's not tell Julia, kila ga!