Weddingbee Blog

So last Friday, in the morning, I headed up to the Catskills–destination: the Full Moon Mountain Resort, where Liz (formerly the little girl I used to babysit) was to wed Matt in organic, environmentally friendly style. As the antithesis of all that is green, crunchy or ecofriendly, I was a little nervous I might be ousted from the wedding as an imposter, but happily this wasn’t the case. What did ensue was a wonderful weekend and one full of great ideas for anyone seeking to have an outdoorsy and perfectly gorgeous wedding.

The Welcome Dinner

After driving all day (and stopping at the Palisades Center Mall en route to buy flat shoes for the wedding lest my heels stick in the grass), I checked into my hotel–slightly down the road from Full Moon–the Alpine Inn:

Mr. Daisy stands before the majestic Alpine lodgings

Then I changed and headed off to the welcome bbq, which was no joke. Just a casual dinner thrown together for a couple of over 150 friends. The wine flowed like water and the food flowed like, well, water too. Or something. There was a LOT of it. And it ruled. Somewhat to the bride’s chagrin, the weather was being a bit uncooperative so the bbq had to be held indoors. I had no complaints, though, since the tent was done up to perfectly evoke a casual bbq atmosphere:

Love the gingham cloths!

And the bbq food was not to be stepped to:

The sweet corn with either ginger or lime (there’s a debate on this one) butter was outrageously good. Mr. Daisy tried to coopt mine to no avail.

The centerpieces set a casual country tone:

There was great bluegrass music (think along the lines of the Soggy Bottom Boys/O Brother, Where Art Thou? except, sadly, without George Clooney):

And then, when you thought it was time for it to end, they announced an after party (open bar! woo hoo!), which likely lasted until the wee hours of the night. They even provided flashlights for the (short but superdark) walk to the afterparty:

The flashlights were inscribed with something charming/romantic, but I can’t seem to locate one now to quote it here.

Despite the open bar, Mr. Daisy and I made a brief appearance at the afterparty and then called it in early since we are old and tire out pretty easily. (Read: we are lame). My sister and brother (and even my parents) made it out later than us, but we were the ones up early the next morning at the breakfast (also included as part of the wedding festivities) and powering up on hearty fare. So who’s lame now? (Ok, it’s still us. but we were lame while eating French Toast and sausages. Somehow that takes the edge off the lameitude).

Also, unrelated to the wedding, here’s a tip that the bride’s mom told me as we were leaving the afterparty: “If it’s brown, lie down; if it’s black, fight back.” This tip refers to what you ought to do if you come across a bear. Apparently, we were in bear country. This tip makes sense on paper. But I sometimes have a hard time figuring out which pair of my own tights or socks is black or brown. I have a feeling that when you factor in the terror of seeing a bear within my sightline, I might not be able to determine what color its fur was. My tunnel vision would probably fixate on its teeth. And claws. Honestly, unless the bear is on a unicycle, I really don’t want anything to do with it. Seriously.

More on the actual wedding to come…