Rather than a limo, we decided to let everyone be responsible for their own transportation from church to reception. This worked out pretty well, except that everyone arrived at different times which did make the pictures hard at first. No biggie though, especially since Joe and I were among the last of the important people to arrive anyway. ;-) We drove our own car, complete with a handmade "Just Married" sign that brought us much honking and waving, and in the giddiness of being literal newlyweds drove pretty much the longest route possible, including missing our Thruway exit and having to backtrack from the next one! I am so glad we decided to do this instead of having a limo or even a driver though... it was the first chance we had to be alone together all day, and it was fun to have that half hour to bask in everything that was going on.
Once we arrived at the reception, we rounded up parents, siblings, and bridal party members for the standard posed shots...
The bride and groom with both sets of parents.
The bride and groom with the bride's family.
The bride and groom with the groom's family.
The bride and groom with the bride's father's sisters... Seriously, this was the first time my Gram and all four of her children were together since Grandpa died, so, we collected them for a picture too. :-)
The groom with the groomsmen. Tim, Sean, Joe, John. And don't they all look handsome?!
The groom with the best man. (Joe and John don't look anything alike, do they? Haha.) Joe tells me that this picture was taken right after he kissed his brother. "The photographer loosened right up after that."
The bride with the bridesmaids. Angela, Molly, me (duh), Kristie. And don't we all look gorgeous?!
The bride with the maid of honor. Honestly, I don't think my sister and I look much alike at all, but perhaps I am a poor judge. Also I am amused by how pasty-white I am compared to her fantastic tan. ;-)
Here I am with my wonderful beautiful Mahyee friend. You can't tell from her pretty smile that she feels like crap, but unfortunately she was sick (caught a stomach bug from her girls) and left right after the pictures, and missed all the fun stuff. :-(
Last but by no means least, Angela and I. She's so darn photogenic!
And... the bride and groom with the whole bridal party. ;-)
Joe making a goofy face while we get a picture with Jason, Ray, and Locke. These guys did most of the behind-the-scenes stuff, setting up photos, vases, cookie trays and candy bars at the reception (we have pictures of a candy bar fort and candy bar Stonehenge surrounding the cookie trays), folded programs, ran errands, and I don't even know what else. We also found out later that they snuck wine into our alcohol-free reception. Figures. ;-)
And then of course I had to pose with Locke, my adopted brother!
Portrait of me. I look all wistful and innocent or something.
Portrait of Joe, looking all happy and adorable. :-D
How cute are we? (I know, you're getting sick of this. Too bad, it's my blog. :-D)
You can almost see my pretty blue sneakers in this shot. I need to scan in a better pic of them. ;-)
Here's a cute one of my sister with her true love. Hamilton proposed to her two days later in Niagara Falls!
And now, on to the party! While we were getting our pictures taken, Joe's friend Pat set up speakers and hooked up Joe's laptop to get the music going. We decided to pick our own music instead of hiring a DJ. That way we could guarantee that all the songs were ones we liked, plus throw in some extra stuff that a DJ just wouldn't have. For the first hour (during photos) it was a Disney mix (which may have been my doing). ;-) Then we called everyone in for dinner. John gave a toast, in which he said he was happy to have me joining his family, but he felt sorry for my family because now they're stuck being related to Joe. Brothers. ;-) The blessing was given by Pastor Betty from my parents' church, which was very nice. Then as Joe and I stood up to lead the way to the buffet, Pat turned on our dinner playlist, which was a random mix of instrumentals. Amusingly, the first one to come on was the Imperial March from Star Wars, although he quickly changed it. :-)
We didn't do placecards or seating arrangements, just made sure there were enough chairs and everybody sat where they wanted. For the most part that worked out great. Joe's parents (being wonderful hosts) sat at the table that only had 4 people who didn't know each other, which I thought was great of them and hopefully helped people feel more comfortable. We had planned to sit with both our immediate families at a big table, but only my parents, sister, and Joe's brother sat there. If I'd known that was going to happen I'd have invited Ange and Wyl up to our table too. But still, it worked out. The food was delicious and Joe and I took the time to actually eat and enjoy it before getting up to make the rounds. Then we visited every table for a few minutes to say hello and thank everyone for coming.
While we were visiting, the wait staff started bringing out our cakes. We had ordered one for each table with the original intention of using them as centerpieces, but since we were outside and it was a warm day they'd decided to keep them in the cooler until dessert time. (I hadn't even noticed at first, because each table had a vase with a rosebud as a centerpiece instead, and the reception space looked lovely!) We noticed people were starting to serve themselves cake, so we decided to run back to our table and cut our cake, and then go back to visiting. The knife that we used, by the way, is the one my parents used to cut the cake at their wedding 30 years ago. Their names and date are engraved on one side, and ours are on the other. :-)
Our cakes came from Butterwood. "Our" cake that we cut was Turtle, but all we had of it was this little bite, so we'll have to try it again later. ;-) The other 3 flavors we had were Belgian Chocolate Mousse, Raspberry Truffle, and Strawberries and Cream (for the non-chocoholics). We hoped that everyone would mingle and mix to try the different flavors, and that's exactly what happened. By the end of the night, everything was picked clean. Joe's mom snagged us one last (whole) Raspberry Truffle cake that was still in the kitchen, which is now in our freezer.
Our wedding day was also a big day for Tim and Cathy's little boy Ken, who turned one year old. Everyone sang "Happy Birthday" and we had a little present for him.
My friend Sarah caught me for a picture while we were making the rounds. We've known each other since 3rd grade Brownies, which was a long time ago!
Our first dance was to "Grow Old With You" by Adam Sandler (from the movie The Wedding Singer). :-) We tried doing the box-step (only step we know) and it didn't really work, but we had fun!
Daddy and I danced to "Butterfly Kisses" by Bob Carlisle... super cheesy but it's been "our song" since it came out. :-)
Joe and his mom danced to "Prayer for Home" by Fernando Ortega. Originally they weren't going to dance but Molly said they had to. ;-) I'm glad they did, it looked like they had fun and it forced them both to slow down and spend a few minutes together. ;-)
After that, I surprised my parents by calling them up and announcing to everyone that it was their 30th anniversary in two days. Then we played "The Wedding Song" by Paul Stookey, which was played at their wedding. They danced and sang the words to each other. When it ended, my dad mouthed "Thank you" to me. It was the only time I cried the whole day. :-)
Then it was time to go play with the different activities the reception site had to offer! First, putt-putt. :-D
Then, Joe attempted to teach my how to throw horseshoes. I sucked at it. ;-)
We had originally considered choreographing something very silly as sort of an alternative first dance. While we opted not to do that in front of the whole crowd... we did perform it later for a small audience (consisting of my family and a few friends).
Ange and her fiance Mike (more comfortable in regular clothes!) looked on with amusement.
This is an awesome picture of Kristie and Hamilton.
Um... Joe and I also had to go play on the playground. :-D
Finally, as the day was winding down, I got a picture with Wyl and his Mustang! The only downside to this pic is that he had changed out of the suit. Can't have everything I guess. ;-)
This is about when our photographer left, and most of our guests were leaving too. We wandered back into the big reception room, where my parents and Kristie and Hamilton were dancing. I stood around and chatted with whoever was still there. At some point I said something about my garter. We hadn't really planned a bouquet/garter toss -- hard to do with everyone being outside playing, and besides we didn't care really. But I thought it should be passed on, and it did have that awesome Sabres pin on it that no one would get to see. Jana and Charlie were planning their wedding for February, in spite of not "officially" being engaged yet, and Jana happened to be standing right there. "Hey," I said, "you're getting married next, you should get it!" I took the garter off to hand her, but then thought we really should do it "right", so I ran over and got my bouquet instead, and tossed it to her from about 3 feet away. ;-) Then I gave the garter to Joe and made him throw it at Charlie, who made a big show of not touching it. But eventually he picked it up and pulled it over the leg of Jana's jeans with his teeth. ;-) (Note to self: upload pic.)
At some point after that, my dad managed to find me a whole piece of cake (the Belgian chocolate), so I did get to eat a whole piece of cake at my wedding. :-)
While we were milling around, "Wind Beneath My Wings" came on. This had been added to the playlist specifically because of Jason and Locke (the "wind beneath our wings" because they helped us out so much). So I made them both dance with me. (When I went to get Jason, he thought I was going to make him dance with Locke. Which would have been funny, but I didn't.) ;-) My mom got a couple of good pics of that, which I naturally don't have. (Note to self: get them.)
Everything was pretty much over by then. We stayed till the bitter end (no big "send-off" or anything). My luggage got transferred from my parents' car to ours, and our pile of gifts and cards got loaded into someone else's car. The remaining cake and candy were divvied up, we said our good-nights, gave final hugs, and were on our way.
Except that I realized my purse was still in my parents' car, so we had to make a quick stop at the motel to pick it up (still in our wedding finery no less). Surprised the heck out of my parents when we showed up at their room. ;-) But it worked out well because Molly was there, feeling better thank goodness, so I got to give her another hug. My mom had also brought cake back for her and Grant so they wouldn't miss out. :-)
And then, for real, it was off to our honeymoon and two weeks of road-tripping, sightseeing, relaxing, and enjoying each other!
