Wedding Reception

It's becoming a weekly ritual! Kelly's Korner is hosting another blog carnival about weddings, and I'm happy to jump on board again! :-) Here are my posts about my wedding dress and our ceremony.

We held our wedding reception at the Civic Center in my hometown. We considered having the reception at the same site as the wedding, but we were all really concerned about the heat outdoors in July. Not to mention the cost of renting a tent--goodness gracious, I had no idea how expensive they were!

As always, my post has tons of pictures! Consider this fair warning. :-)

When Ben and I arrived, we danced to "Then" by Brad Paisley. I spent basically the whole few months before the wedding tearing up every time I heard the song, but we were so happy and relieved to be at the wedding reception that we tuned it out a bit. :-)

First dance

Then, my dad and I danced to "Daughter" by Loudon Wainwright. Such a sweet song, but also a little bit quirky, which is perfect for me and my dad. :-) We were also afraid we'd both be in tears, but it didn't happen that way!

Daddy and me

Ben and his mom danced to an Elvis song, "Memories". So sweet!

Ben and Deborah

We decorated the tables with 5 vases each of hot pink Gerber daisies; each vase held one or two flowers. I saw a similar table layout in a DIY wedding book pretty early after we got engaged, and I knew that was what I wanted--simple, but pretty. We ordered the flowers online from www.fiftyflowers.com--a great experience! My family is now also proud owners of 100 vases in varying sizes....let us know if you need any! Haha.

Table flowers

You can also see a box of gum balls on the table in the picture above. Those were our favors! We had favor issues, up til almost the last minute. Favors were one of Ben's duties, and we decided we wanted personalized M&Ms. I ordered the clear 2 inch by 2 inch boxes to put them in, but when it was time to order the M&Ms we realized that they were expensive enough as it was, but also that my boxes were HUGE and would hold way more M&Ms then we could afford! :-) We looked and looked online for other favors, and were pretty set on jelly beans when I saw this idea on a website. Ben promptly ordered 33 POUNDS of gum balls (green and pink, of course!), and my bridesmaids helped me box them up the week before the wedding. It worked out perfectly--the boxes I bought held exactly 8 gum balls each.

We put the extra gum balls on the table seen below. It held a frame that had a picture of Ben and I from each year that we dated. It also held the purple scrapbook of our travels and adventures up until we got engaged. There were also 3 small albums of various pictures--our engagement, wedding planning, and showers. I saw people standing around looking at the pictures during the evening, and it just made me so happy!

My photographer's picture of the memory table

We had yummy food, too, and Ben and I made a point to actually eat before we started going around the room to talk to everyone! Well, I ate some, but my dress corset was a little too tight to allow too much eating! I did stay hydrated though. :-)

We also had a great DJ at our reception, and I only wish I could have danced more! My photographer got some great shots of everyone dancing together.

Uncle Larry and me

Like most wedding receptions, Ben and I spent a lot of time talking to all of our guests. This picture cracks me up...because, well, I'm cracking up! :-) And, if you notice, Ben is already messing with his wedding band. I guess it's so weird for him to be wearing a ring that he just cannot leave it alone....still! :-)

Ben, me, Jen, my dad, and Mrs. Crumpler

I'm not sure why people don't get to practice for these things, but our cake cutting showed our lack of expertise! We took a huge chunk out of the bottom layer of the cake! :-)

Cutting the cake

Laughing at our giant mess

No cake smashing for us :-)

Our bouquet toss and garter toss were funny because our younger cousins caught both! Ben's second cousin caught my bouquet, and my first cousin caught the garter. Both of them are in middle school, so I thought it was perfect! :-)

Alex with the bouquet

Eric, getting ready to catch the garter

We didn't have any sort of exit with sparklers or rice or anything. We did fake an exit with the photographer early on in the night--just Ben carrying me out the door! :-) And we did do a last dance. Then we said our goodbyes, left the reception room, and spent at least half an hour finding suitcases, transferring stuff from one car to another, and finding people's keys. Ben got a little bit frustrated, I think! :-) But we got on the road eventually, and I wore my wedding dress all the way to our hotel.

Since this post is already insanely long, I will save a post about our honeymoon for another time. Our honeymoon was in Blowing Rock, NC, and it was way too short, but really sweet! :-) Hope you enjoyed seeing our wedding reception!