Our Wedding - The Reception

Well, after three months of blogging about our wedding, I finally have the last post for you today – the reception.

In my previous posts you may remember that our wedding ceremony started at 7:30 so the reception started late – around 8:15.  Since it started so late, we had already taken all of our formal pictures, so we were able to get right down to business at the beginning of the reception.

B and I waited until all of our guests were settled in and then we made our entrance… this is actually one of my favorite pictures from the whole reception because – look how joyful we were!  

The First Dance

As soon as we entered the room, the DJ started playing our wedding song – Love Song by 311.  Surrounded by all of our family and friends, we danced our first dance as husband and wife.

Father/Daughter Dance

Once Brian’s and my dance was over, my Daddy came out and took my hand so we could have our father/daughter dance.  We danced to Butterfly Kisses by Bob Carlisle… makes me cry every single time I hear it.

Mother/Son Dance

Brian’s mom joined him on the floor next, and they danced to In My Mother’s Eyes by Willie Nelson.  If you haven’t heard it, you should check it out.  It is so sweet.

A Special Surprise

Unbeknownst to me, my mom and my uncle had planned a special surprise behind my back, and they had coordinated with our DJ and our photographer to arrange it.  Y’all, I am such a planner, so I knew what was going to happen every single second on this day, so for them to pull that off was something serious! 

I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned on the blog or not that my mom is a song writer.  She is incredibly talented and I’m just waiting for the day that someone huge picks up one of her songs!.  My uncle is a singer/songwriter in Nashville, and they often collaborate, my mom writing the lyrics and my uncle writing the music and sometimes singing or playing the guitar.  Well, they put together the most beautiful song to surprise us on our special day, and after our dances my uncle performed it on stage for us.  The song is called If I Can’t Let It Go… there was not a dry eye in the whole house.

The Menu & Other Details

Once the performance was over and I had dried my eyes, it was time to eat.  Since the reception was during dinner time, we wanted to feed people really well.  We didn’t want a big fancy sit-down dinner, though, so we opted for heavy hors d’oeuvres.  Shrimp, finger sandwiches, chicken fingers, pigs in a blanket, meatballs, an assortment of fruits and veggies, a cheese board, and all the beer and wine that you could drink.

The Cutting of the Cake

After a quick bite to eat, it was time to cut the cake.  We wanted to get all of the traditional wedding things out of the way early so we could party for the rest of the night!  B and I had a five-tier wedding cake and it still holds the record for the best cake that I’ve ever tasted in my entire life.  Each layer was a different flavor – the top and bottom layers were traditional vanilla, one layer was chocolate, one strawberry, and one lemon.  And of that huge cake, there was not one bit left at the end of the night… aside from the top for Brian and I to save for our first anniversary, of course.

After cutting the main cake, we cut the groom’s cake – a University of Georgia cake, naturally – it was chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and it was surrounded by homemade chocolate covered strawberries.  After we tasted that cake, we had our champagne toast and then we indulged in a couple of the strawberries.  B and I fed each other daintily because he knows I would have killed him if he had messed up my makeup!  Haha.

The Bouquet & Garter Tosses

After the cake was passed around all of the single ladies were called to the front for the bouquet toss and my friend Adrienne caught it.  The single boys came to the front next, and B removed my garter… guess what kind of garter I had?  Why, a University of Georgia one, of course!  ;o)  My friend (and bridesmaid) April’s boyfriend ended up catching it and they ended up getting married ten months later.  :o)

Candids

Once all of that was out of the way, it was time to par-tay!  Our wedding will go down in the books as one of the biggest throw downs I’ve ever been to!  People talked about it for years after we had it because everyone had so. much. fun.  The beer and wine were flowing (as you can see from some of the pictures) and everyone danced and danced and danced until late in the night.  As I mentioned in my previous wedding posts, we got married in 2007, which also happened to be the year of the Soulja Boy song.  It was all the rage, so yes, we learned the dance just for my wedding, and yes, I Soulja Boy’d in my wedding dress.  We have video of it somewhere.

The End to a Perfect Day

My wedding day is still to this day my very favorite day of my entire life.  I married my very best friend in the whole world and we got to spend it with every single person who we loved.  I am so thankful every single day of this life that B and I have created together and I will never ever take a single second of it for granted. 

Now one day when I have some time I'll have to recap our honeymoon... it just so happened to be the exact opposite of our wedding day... a complete and utter disaster!

Planning & Details
Rehearsal & Rehearsal Dinner 
Before the Ceremony
The Ceremony
Portraits 

*Linking up with Home of Malones for Thoughts for Thursday.