It was the biggest day of his life. After dating for years, Jon Halapio tied the knot with his long-time girlfriend Sierra. Family and friends joined the two for their special day and Halapio ensures me that I was invited to the nuptials; my invitation was just lost in the mail.
After a busy but quick weekend, that included everything from getting a tuxedo, a bachelor party, rehearsals and the wedding itself, Sierra joined Jon in California for two weeks before he left for the NFL Combine.
What was the ceremony like?
“It was cool. The wedding was cool it was just a lot happening as soon as I landed. Friday night I landed, and then pretty much went straight to get my suit and then we went to rehearsal and rehearsal dinner and we had my bachelor party that night. The next day we got married and the day after that we flew back to Cali and Sierra stayed out here for two weeks. It was a really, really short weekend because we were so busy the whole time.”
Which teammates did you have there?
“Just two. It was Jonotthan Harrison and Kyle Koehne. My cousin was my best man and my best friend was in the wedding as well.”
What was the reception like?
“It was a lot of people, there was a lot of people. During the ceremony, I was looking around the church and I didn’t feel like there was a lot of people but as soon as we got back to her house, her backyard is pretty big; there were a lot of people there. We just had a lot of fun. That was probably the best weekend of my life, from the bachelor party to the wedding night and being together.”
What is your best memory from the whole weekend?
“Just walking in as we were getting introduced at the reception. Our favorite song, “Let’s Get it On” by Marvin Gaye was on in the background, everybody was cheering and stuff. That was pretty cool. Her mom and her sister did a great job of planning everything.”
Did anything crazy happen at the reception?
My cousin actually did a Tongan dance for everybody. Just to show her side of the family my culture. Other than that we were pretty much just hanging out, there was a lot of food and it was the first time that a lot of our extended family had the chance to meet. That was good, they meshed pretty well. I was surprised that a lot of my friends from Gainesville came down. It all turned out really good.”
Back to California, Back to the Grind
You had a quick turnaround from wedding day to getting back into training, how was that?
“When I left, I left early Friday morning, I had it in the back of my mind that no matter what I do this weekend I still have to come back and get back to where I was before the weekend.”
“So even though I was drinking and partying and stuff I watched what I ate and how much I drank. It wasn’t that hard to get back into everything, honestly. I just knew and kept telling myself that the combine was two weeks away ad that I didn’t want to do anything to ruin that. I still had fun with I guess you could say the limited amount of alcohol that I had.”
Your agent sent you and Sierra to Disney how did that go?
“It was really fun. I’ve only been to Disney World once, back in Orlando. But it was in high school; my sophomore year and I don’t remember it too much. We didn’t ride any of the rides, obviously because Sierra’s pregnant. So we just walked around, watched the shows and bought souvenirs and stuff. “
How did your search for Mickey go?
“We went to Disneyland, it was cool, and it was a lot of fun. The whole entire time I was there I was trying to take a picture with Mickey but we only saw him twice.”