Wedding recap- Saturday part 2

After the ceremony, we spent an hour taking pictures with our family and the bridal party. It was off and on raining, so we will have umbrellas in some of our pictures, and in others they will be absent. Despite the fact it was in the 50s and rainy, my bridesmaids toughed it out and agreed to do outside pictures. By the end of the pictures, I was getting a bit cold…so I was happy to hear that CP and I had about 20 minutes to go into our cottage, eat some appetizers and relax before being introduced into the reception. During the introductions the DJ messed up my sister’s last name (she is not married so it was the same as mine before that day and it’s not hard to pronounce), but she took it in stride.

We elected to do our first dance right after our walk into the reception and because it was so rainy, the bottom of my dress was basically like a mop to the floor. LOL. CP and I also couldn’t stop talking through the song. We chose Etta James “At Last” even though lots of other people use it. We figured that it’s a classic for a reason. It was during our first dance that we made our two fathers cry. Score!

The three toasts went well. J was trying hard not to cry and CP’s best man went off his script a bit because as he was practicing it that afternoon, three bears came out of the woods and scared him. CP and I had a sweetheart table because we heard from married friends that it was the best way to get a few bites of food- and we did! We successfully ate the red pepper bisque, had to skip over the salad, but then ate our dinners (me- swordfish, CP- duck with cherry sauce). Between courses we were rushing around trying to greet people at all of the tables and I’m sorry to say that we didn’t get to everyone while they were sitting down.

Next up was the cutting of the cake. The DJ put on “Pour Some Sugar on Me” by Def Leppard and although I had warned CP that I didn’t want cake on my face, he did it anyway so I did it right back to him! We have some funny pictures of that moment, but needless to say before the father/daughter, mother/son dance we had to run inside to the Inn to wash up.

We had “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong play for the dance with our parents because we couldn’t think of anything better. After that, we had an anniversary dance- it’s where the DJ has all of the married couples slow dance and once the DJ calls out a year range all couples that have been married at some point in between that range leave the dance floor. CP’s great uncle and aunt have been married for 72 YEARS so we gave them some flowers when we were the last two couples on the floor.

From there, the DJ employed a great trick. He had all of the guests get together on the dance floor for a huge group picture. After the picture was taken, he then said, while you are on the dance floor….and played a song that old and young people would dance to. Good trick buddy!
The dance floor was pretty busy all night long. CP’s grandmother had some great moves, although her knees hurt her the next day because of it. CP and I were on and off the floor, talking to people, getting drinks, etc. Luckily, we handed off our new video camera to CP’s brother-in-law to tape the ceremony. Not only did he get the ceremony, but he got the reception entrances, the toasts AND then put the camera down and pointed it at the dance floor for a good 40 minutes. NICE. We definitely have blackmail video of some of our friends and family- hilarious!

At one point during the dancing, CP and I ran inside to get drinks. We just happened to come in on my aunt challenging my dad to a chugging contest. I totally jumped on this idea and ran to the bar to get the drinks. It was closer than I thought, but my dad pulled it out. Then CP’s dad decided to challenge my dad and it wasn’t even close (my dad was the chugging champion of 6 colleges). CP and I basically tied during our chug-off in our wedding attire. So klassy. :-)

But the night wasn’t over for us just yet…..