Wedding Recaps: Eating, Drinking, and a Moderate Level of Merriment

After the ceremony, Nathan and I wanted to take the time to greet each of our guests. We wanted our bridal party to be the first to get in line for the food and not have to stand out in the sun in a receiving line greeting people they'd never met before. Our hope was that we would walk into the reception without any big announcement and find most of our guests already eating.

Well, I don't know if the food wasn't ready yet or if someone decided that we couldn't just sneak in, but we ended up being announced at the reception.  It was unexpected but not the end of the world.

Instead of enjoying the food, our guests were all staring at us, waiting for us to do something.

 And we had no idea what to do.

Nathan said that we just wanted everyone to eat, but it was suggested that we have a prayer first. This was fine, just not something we had planned on doing. Thankfully, the best man was fine with leading a prayer, and then we were all able to eat.

I've heard that some brides don't even get to eat at their own wedding, but Nathan was adamant that I get to eat at our wedding. It's pretty difficult for me to skip meals, so since all I had to eat before the wedding was a bowl of cereal, I don't know how I could have made it through the day without eating at the reception. (Nathan and I did get some Bob Evans at about 9:30 that night too.)

Since we had cupcakes instead of cake, Nathan and I just kind of ripped apart a cupcake.

Of course Nathan ended up with the bigger piece and tried to shove it all into my mouth.

I got some icing on the tip of my nose, so I whispered to Nathan to lick it off. And he did, but no one got a picture. We got plenty of laughs though, and a laughing "Ewww!" from my mom.

Then we enjoyed some sparkling grape juice.

I hope our guests enjoyed the reception even though it ended up being very different from how we planned it. We had a tent set up outside for additional seating, but since it was so hot, everyone crammed inside in the air conditioning. A lot of people left really early, probably because it was a little uncomfortable in there. We had also planned on having dancing under the tent, but since we couldn't get the sound system we'd rented to work, that didn't happen either. Fortunately, my bridesmaids, brother, and cousins were able to find entertainment though since some people had left up a bounce house nearby (I don't have the photos of that, sadly, but they're hilarious).

Our reception at least had one redeeming factor: the FOOD!

Nathan's brother and sister-in-law planned out and prepared (with a little help from various people) all the food for our reception. I was amazed when I saw the results before the wedding. I couldn't believe that was the food for our wedding!

Fruit assortment with dip

Veggies with ranch dip, dill dip, and red pepper hummus

Bacon and cheddar cheesecake

Herb cheesecake

Not pictured: spicy garlic meatballs and sweet barbecue meatballs

I ended up baking all the cupcakes myself and freezing them. Including the trial runs, I probably baked close to 200 cupcakes total. Sister-in-law Betsy came up with the decorating technique. She made all the petals and sugar pecans and shipped them to me before the wedding, and she and our videographer did all the icing and decorating.

If nothing else, our reception was certainly an excellent culinary experience!