Wedding recap: the reception

After we were announced husband and wife, we walked back down the aisle and did a sort of receiving line. We had intended to just visit tables at the reception (which was also did), but I'm glad the impromptu receiving line happened because it was nice to say hello to everyone in the immediate after-glow of the ceremony. Then we signed our marriage license.

We took pictures with the bridal party and our families while the guests enjoyed a cocktail hour and simple appetizers.

Some of my favorite pictures from the whole wedding during the cocktail hour.




Once pictures were done, it was finally time to go into the reception. On the left side of this picture, you can see our amazing wedding coordinator, Erin. I honestly don't know how the day would have gone without her. The thought in my head in this moment was, "oh my gosh, it's my wedding!"

We decided to go straight into our first dance to get it out of the way. We danced to an acoustic recording of Stellar by Incubus. We discovered that first dances are awkward. It's really weird to have everyone watch you. We were pretty much over the whole thing in about a minute. We even looked at the DJ at one point to wrap it up. Despite having gotten engaged while dancing, we are not good dancers and don't like the spotlight, and I honestly think the first dance was the most uncomfortable part of the day for me.

After our first dance, we invited everyone to join in on the buffet. Instead of a traditional head table or a sweetheart table, we elected to sit with our siblings and their significant others. So we were at the table with Megan and Daniel and David and Alex. The rest of the bridal party sat amongst the other guests. This way, we didn't have a huge head table, didn't split up couples (ick), and weren't on show at a sweetheart table. Win-win-win.

After we visited the tables and said hello to everyone again, my dad and I did our father-daughter dance. We danced to Elvis Presley's Love Me Tender. When I was little, my dad bought me a music box with a daddy and baby panda that played that song, and I always think of my dad when I hear it. I cried some while we were dancing, and thanked him for the wonderful father he's been and for giving me a beautiful wedding. My mom said she looked around the room and many people were crying.

Dan and his mom danced to It's a Wonderful World.

After dancing and mingling with our guests for what felt like 10 minutes (but was actually an hour and a half), it was time to cut the cake. Dan knew I'd ordered a groom's cake, but didn't know anything about it. His family loves to play Yahtzee. Like, all the time. And he usually wins, because he's awesome. So the cake was a Yahtzee box with 5 dice each showing a 5 (5x5=someone's 25th birthday!).

Our cake was 3 tiers of amazingness. We cut into the cookies and cream tier, but we also had a lemon tier and a chocolate mocha tier. We were nice and didn't shove cake in each other's faces.

Of course there were toasts and our moms presented us with a homemade photo display of pictures of each of us through the years. We had an amazing time and enjoyed hanging out with our guests and having some drinks. When it was all over, we went upstairs for our first moments alone together all day. I gave him his birthday gift and we had a couple of chocolate strawberries the hotel had brought up. We changed into comfy clothes and went to our favorite place, Dave & Buster's to party our little booties off.

All in all, our day was perfect. I wouldn't have changed a single thing about any of it. I truly married the man of my dreams, and I can't believe it's almost been a year. Cheers to many many more happy anniversaries!