Our Wedding: The Reception

“It is all a blur” or “it goes by so fast.” This is what every single married couple told us about their reception. And they were all correct. From the moment dinner is served to the moment we were getting on the shuttle to head back to the hotel, it all seemed to take thirty minutes. I will do my best to recall many of the moments of the night.all of us

As soon as the ceremony ended, most people made their way to the reception site for some sweet appetizers, drinks, and music. We stayed behind at the ceremony site for some pictures (I know I keep saying this, but the pictures will be their own post at some point).

Once the pictures were done, people were told to get to their seats and that was when we would make our way up to the head table. Joe did a great job of announcing everyone (although, we learned that people could not hear him inside the tent, which kind of sucks). Also, Lindsey and I did not know how long it would take to be introduced and we only had one song, “Ho Hey” by The Lumineers. Oops, it ended up being played twice.

Many weddings nowadays get all of the ceremonial stuff out of the way right after the entrance. You will see the first dance, mother/son & father/daughter dance, and sometimes the cutting of the cake all in the matter of minutes. We wanted to space all of that stuff out, so once we made our entrance, it was time to eat.

Well not really. First we had some speeches to get through. First went Kayla. Again, there was another technical difficulty. Joe did not have a microphone for that area. Kayla just plowed through it though, speaking loud enough so everyone could hear her. While she was speaking, Joe did come down with a speaker and mic, but he just ducked out of the way when he realized she was already midway through it.

Kayla did a fantastic job at her speech. She had me a little choked up when she started talking about how much she looked up to Lindsey and how her going away to college changed their relationship. Whatever, I can be an emotional guy at times.

As she finished up, I knew it was my brother’s turn. He had only been saying for the past two years how nervous he was for this moment. He does not like public speaking. His biggest fear was that he might tense up and look like a deer in the headlights. I kept trying to reassure him, but there is really nothing you can say to a person who hates public speaking. Hell, I was more nervous for him to give this speech than I was to give the speech at his wedding.

He starts going and I realized right away that he was going to be just fine. I am pretty sure the lack of microphone really helped him. I guess one of the other things he was nervous about was the crowd not laughing at his big joke. Well let me just show you his speech.

adams speech When he got to the part where he said talented, athletic, fearless…I knew where the joke was going. This was a great joke on two levels. He struggles to read the words, then starts trying to read them again, but cannot get past the last word. He stops, laughs, looks at me and says “I can’t read your writing bro.” On the first level, people think he is just being sarcastic about me and making fun of the fact that I have horrible hand-writing. But, on the second level and the even more hilarious point of the joke, it is showing that I wrote the speech for him. Even though everyone was cracking up, I know a few people just got the first level (my wife is one of those people). The rest of the speech was great and had me crying like a baby. Thanks Adam!

With the speeches done, Lindsey’s dad gave the blessing and it was time to dig in. The food was so good. I barely ate at breakfast and during the pictures my stomach was growling loud enough for everyone to hear. As we finished our food, Lindsey and I talked about going down to talk to everyone. But there was just not enough time.

After dinner was over, we had to head up to the building in order to cut the pie. We did not want to do a cake, instead we opted to have pie from the winery. This was my first chance to see the amazing cookie set up. Anyways, we cut our special, Chocolate Raspberry Pie and we were very nice about not shoving it in each other’s faces.

People then made their way to the dance floor after they got some pie and it was time for our dance. We chose “I Want All of You” by The Verve Pipe. Lindsey and I probably looked ridiculous dancing, but whatever. I should have told Joe to fade the song out after the first chorus.

The dance ended and now it was Lindsey and Greg’s turn. They danced to “Daughters” by John Mayer. After that it was Mom and me. We went with “Mama’s Song” by Carrie Underwood. Once those were all done, Joe invited everyone out to the dance floor. Lindsey and Greg dancingMe and mom dancingcousinsYou would think this would be the point where we have no more obligations and can just kick back and enjoy ourselves, right? Well mostly, but there was still a few things to do. We tried to make it around to people to say hi, but seriously, we got through one small group and then I had to use the restroom.

After a few more minutes, it was then time for the Bridal Dance. I was at the bar grabbing a drink, I told Thad that I needed to switch to wine because my stomach was so full and the carbonation of the Leinenkugel Summer Shandy was making me feel sick. I had told my guys that I did not want them to do the whole trying to stop me thing, just give a good show, but let me break on through.

Well, none of my guys were around at this point and Jude (one of the bridesmaids husband) decided he was going to stop me all by himself. He would not allow me to pass (I felt like he was Gandalf and I was the Balrog). Now, he has me by about a foot, so his wingspan made it a little hard to get around. And then he did the crazy thing of picking me up over his shoulder and running with me. It was really funny, but the entire time he was running, I kept yelling “Jude, I’m going to pume and addyke, I’m going to puke!” However, he could not hear me. Thad finally caught up to him and told him to put me down, then the next time through, they just did a little pushing and let me in to grab Lindsey.

Quick question: how does your family do the Bridal Dance? My family does it differently, we form two lines (or queues as the Brits would say), the one line dances with the bride and the other with the groom. You pay a dollar (or more if you want to be generous) and get a shot in return. Lindsey had never heard it done this way, she and her family form a circle around the bride and dance a polka. Then as I said, the men block the groom from getting inside the circle.  Both ways are cool.

Once I had Lindsey, someone put out a chair and I took the garter off. I should have practiced or made a show of it. Since we did not have many unmarried guys or ladies, we did not do the garter toss or bouquet toss. Those usually look bad when there are like three people.

At this point, the night was winding down and it was almost time to leave. We ended up getting a few random pictures with family, plus we played around with Aubrey’s sweet selfie-stick. At 10:00 we loaded onto the shuttle and went back to the hotel. Lindsey and I were both pretty hungry and kept joking to the driver about stopping at McDonalds, but he did not take us seriously.

Selfie StickBack at the hotel, most people went to the bar, they had a great Bon Jovi/Journey cover band: Bon Journey. They were pretty great and it was a pretty fun time. We were able to make our way around to most people and thank them. Lindsey and I went to our room a little early and decided to use our hot tub and enjoy the champagne that Kayla & Adam2 got us. I may have fallen asleep in the hot tub.

Like I said, that was our reception. At least from my point of view. I hope everyone had a great time! I know we sure did!

 

Author: Ngewo