Wedding Recaps Part V: The Reception Ends

Well, This is it folks! All good things must come to an end, and the same must be said for wedding pictures.

I love our wedding pictures. I love to look at them, see our friends and family, look for details I had not noticed before.


I hope you've enjoyed the ride. There's still more of the occasional wedding goodness coming your way, and maybe I'll start writing about married life.

So enough of that, we want pictures!

Married for a few hours and already I was pointing a knife at him.

The fight to get to see who gets the rest of that first piece of cake.

Mickey and Minnie came to our cake cutting. It was a total surprise for our guests, the whole room of adults turned into 5-year-olds.

Minnie tried to kiss me or eat my head, I can't decide which.

We got do dance with Mickey and Minnie. This is Mickey showing Michael my wedding ring to win his woman back.

This was quite possible the happiest day of my niece's life to date. She loves Mickey.

Who am I kidding, so do I!

And apparently so does everyone else.

I love these pictures.

My husband holding one of the pages people made for our album using the photobooth.

A conga line broke out, and I didn't start it, I just got pushed to the front.

And we even line danced. All the things people pretend to hate about weddings are the things they love. I should have asked for the chicken dance.

Adorable closing shot of my niece.

Wedding Recaps Part IV: The Reception Begins

I wanted to be surprised when I walked into the reception room. We had given our florist a rather vague idea of what we wanted and told him to use his imagination. What he delivered totally floored me.

I'm a strong believer that when it comes to creative types the best thing you can do is give them the least amount of direction possible and put your faith in them (I know that's the best way to get great work out of me.)

The room before anyone was inside.

Hanging a bunch of lanterns on the chandelier was his idea. I knew I just wanted lanterns like Alice would have sat under during the mad tea party.

Shapes and colors, wow.

Half of the table had these short centerpieces. Each one was unique.

The other half had the tall centerpieces.

Our tables were named after characters and places from Alice in Wonderland.

Each of the tall centerpieces was monochromatic and unique.

So we ended up with splashes of color all over the room.

I didn't really care about favors either way, but it was the only choice I had made that my mom lobbied for. I figured it was such a small request that I made some since I wasn't particularly opposed to them. I still have some of these lying around my desk, I use them to keep paper clips and stuff.

I didn't want to eat this cake. It was too pretty to look at. I asked Michael if we could take it home and keep it on the coffee table. He said no, grrr.

A shot of us as we entered the reception room holding hands.

First Dance.

This is the moment. The moment when the weight of the day hit me and I broke down sobbing. So many emotions to feel at one moment.

I don't think this was during our first dance, but I still like it.

Dancing with my mother.

Mike and his mother.

My niece loves to dance.

Wonderful speech by the best man,

And also from my sister.

It was definitely an emotional day.

Wedding Recaps Part III: Some Portraits and Stuff

This is just a sampling of some of the great portraits taken by Danielle at Skye Blu Photography. I love having such grat pictures of our friends and family and ourselves.

My parents.

His Parents.

Our wedding peeps.

Me and my ladies.

Boob shot . . . . er I mean necklace shot.

Cool floral work.

Another great shot of the girls. They were sitting because they had been on their feet for a while and they were complaining about the walking and their feet hurting. I told them I never said they had to wear heels, so there.

My niece.

Again.

Such a great shot.

Love me some fisheye, lens that is. Not so fond of fish eye when it's inside a fish head staring at you from your plate.

I really wanted a shot of all of our guests.

I painted our ring box to be passed around during the ring warming ceremony.

The inside.

Our program fans were a big hit on a warmish day.

Our Thank You Card Design

Nothing too fancy. I put this together and should be receiving it from Vistaprint soon. I've actually been very eager to get these out. Having our friends and family come together was so special and meaningful to us, and even though I've already told most of them that personally, etiquette demands gratitude come in card form.

Wedding Recaps Part II: The Ceremony

Now we can move on to the wedding ceremony! It was a beautiful ceremony, on a beautiful warm Spring day, with all my beautiful friends and family. So I guess if I had to summarize the ceremony, I'd have to call it beautiful.

The beautiful photos are still from the very talented Danielle at SkyeBlu Photo.

We spent the week before the wedding doing a few last minute projects. Finishing up the program fans was high on my list, since I wanted our guest to have someway to cool off a little. Fortuantely the morning was overcast, so the sun had only been out a little while when the ceremony started at 11:30.

Mike really wanted a piano at the ceremony. It was a great addition.

My adorable niece.

This is my buddy who came in all the way from the Caribbean for the wedding. Well, she went to another wedding the day before ours, but I don't think that one counts.

Mike has four brothers, this is #3.

My best friend.

Mike's bro #4.

I've got one sister, she's #1.

Mike's best friend served as Best Man and oversized ringbearer.

Just about ready to go down the aisle.

And we're off. See the tears forming already?

Made it to the front after what seemed like a very long walk.

I love this shot of the girls lined up.

Where did our heads go?

Do I have to put a caption under every one of these?

The view from behind.

There were a few laughs, always a good sign in a wedding I think.

The ring shot.

We presented our mothers with roses during the ceremony to thank them for all the love and support they have given us throughout the years. They totally weren't expecting it.

"Did I ever tell you you're My Hero" is playing on the piano during the rose ceremony. Many tears are shed by those in attendance.

We passed our rings around and had a ring warming ceremony. We asked our friends and family to bless them with their good thoughts and well wishes.

We don't really know this many people. We hired a few extras to sit in at the ceremony.

My favorite shot of "the kiss."

These two have been married for 25 years. One of her kidneys now lives in her husband. After all this time they are still goofy and cute and lovey sometimes. Sometimes not so much. I hope to be that lucky, that's why we asked them to do the closing reading.

The piano starts playing "When I'm 64" by the Beatles and we make our way out.