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The Sunday after our wedding, a mere 5 hours after we had fallen asleep, our friends and family gathered together for brunch before heading their separate ways. We said our goodbyes as people kept filing into our originally small gathering. We had planned for 60 people at brunch and ended up with over 100! I guess more people had decided to crash than originally expected, which was fantastic! It was so beautiful to see our friends and family making friends with each other.
After brunch, we went back to our room, gathered our belongings and headed home. I wanted to stay an extra evening in the city, or up in Boston before the honeymoon so that magic of our wedding wouldn’t fade, but budget constrictions sent us back to the luxury of our own home. We weren’t due to leave for Mexico until early Monday morning. It was a wise decision to wait a day before traveling, otherwise everything would have felt rushed.
We stood in our living room, piled with wedding paraphernalia, cards, and a few oddly shaped presents. I convinced Zeb to open our gifts before he settled into a nap. Our wonderful, beautiful, fantastic friends had gifted us a 6 pack of Smirnoff, individually wrapped, of course. We got iced. We got iced real bad. So friends, if you are reading, please be reminded of what a female dog revenge can be…sweet, sweet, revenge.
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The main focus of our reception was the dancing! I couldn’t wait to bust some serious moves out on the dance floor. We had purposely chosen dinner music that would set the mood of an upcoming party. The energy in the room was electric and I was so happy that everyone came prepared to party. It also didn’t hurt that we had hired a DJ who I believe to be the best in the area. Seriously, I don’t think many people left our reception until it finished at 12AM. I credit Brendan Lafferty with the excellent party because the music was absolutely impeccable.
I got to share a pajama’d dance with my Godson before he and his brother left the wedding for a cousin sleepover. This allowed my Spiffy to gift our guests with her worm. Yes, oh yes, the worm happened at our wedding.
Photo booths! All the rage! I don’t care if they are a passing fad, I’ll take a strip of goofy photos any day. Our photo booth luckily tripled as guest entertainment, favors, and a guest book which we felt was worth the added expense. My only regret is that I forgot about the booth and was only able to get one picture with Zeb right before we were introduced. Our guests clearly had a blast in it.
We really loved the classic look of our photo booth, with its red background curtain. It’s like being in the mall circa 1989 with a neon scrunchy in your hair. At the end of the night we were given our guestbook to enjoy immediately. Our guests loved looking at it during our post-wedding brunch the following day. We also received a CD of all the images as well. They are some of our favorite pictures of our wedding guests.
Picture courtesy of Sara Zarrella Photography
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All too often, we engaged folk find ourselves engaged in a bitter conversation about whether or not we’re inviting children. I want to let you know that through my experience, I am completely and totally supportive of either type of wedding; child-full or child-less. The reason, I believe, that parents become so frustrated with non-children weddings is because it is a statement on their parenting; their ability to control their children in social functions. Also, finding a babysitter can be a real bitch. If I were to travel in my time-machine we would have been more selective of the adults we had invited, rather than the children. We still would have invited children to our wedding.
The facts:
At the risk of sounding completely self-involved, our wedding cost us quite a bit of money.
We totally subjected our guests to the utter embarrassment of the bouquet and garter toss. Joking! Jokes! Our friends were lubed up and ready to catch them some bounty. We didn’t force anyone on the dance floor and I hope our guests were courteous enough to the people who may have felt uncomfortable to not harass them into participating. It may be a regional thing, but very rarely have I attended a wedding in our area that has forgone the tradition.
Immediately before the tosses our DJ, Brendan Lafferty, asked me how to handle any situation that would involve a child catching either the bouquet or garter. I told him that if a child caught anything, we would not proceed with the winner of the garter placing it on the leg of the winner of the bouquet. AWKWARD! Luckily, no children participated in the actual catching of anything.
We started it off with the sweet, sweet sound of Jimi Hendrix. I dare you not to make fox ears a la Garth Algar.
Video via YouTube / Song Performed by Jimi Hendrix
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Another wonderful part of the wedding day for the newlyweds is the speeches. I’ve taken a new liking to listening to speeches at weddings since having heard what our loved ones had to say about us.
After asking my best friend of 15 years to be MOH, I asked her how we could find a way to record her speech or hide her in another room with the microphone. You see, Brittany is incredibly shy when it comes to public speaking. Instead of running scared, she told me there was no need, as she’d be able to do it. For two best friends who were originally put into the remedial reading class in second grade together (we read too fast, they said), she did beautifully.
She started out with some heartfelt sentiments and then told everyone in the crowd that I used to force her to come with me to the high school baseball games so that I could see Zeb’s “ass in those grey tight baseball pants.” It IS a fantastic ass and those pants were wicked small.
It’s difficult planning a wedding in uncertain economic times. Vendors are going out of business and deposits are unfortunately being lost. This past fall, my brother was married at one of Southern Massachusetts’ most popular venues, The Hawthorne Country Club. I can’t tell you how many weddings I’ve attended there. We actually first met our fabulous DJ at a Hawthorne wedding. It’s a beautiful venue and has some of the most reasonable prices in the area. It’s by far the absolute best bang for your buck.
Image via Hawthorne Country Club website
Unfortunately, a little while after my brother’s wedding, the Hawthorne announced it was closing its doors after 40 years. Unless they could find another buyer for the property, they would have to be forced into foreclosure. Everyone locally was mourning the loss of such a great venue. They literally had brides booking two years in advance, how could they go out of business?
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Video via YouTube / Song performed by Bob Marley
I know I said previously that I’m not a lyrics girl. However, I thought Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds had a beautiful message. I have a rotten tendency to be a bit of a worrier. Zeb’s a go with the flow everything will be all right guy. What a better mantra for our marriage?
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After our first dance, we were whisked away to our sweetheart table and presented with this gorgeous salad.
First things first however—our Priest Friend blessed our meal and our marriage.
Video via YouTube / Song performed by Lifehouse
From our entrance, we immediately went into our first dance. Zeb and I are both the youngest children and despite never shying away from the spotlight, this was kind of awkward. We chose to do the 6th grade sway which I’m happy about. We didn’t want to worry about remembering the steps of a choreographed routine even though we’ve seen some amazing choreographed first dances.
Everything (or Beautiful) by Lifehouse has been our song for as long as we can remember. It’s also six minutes long in its entirety. Luckily, our DJ, who can you tell I was extremely happy with(?), was able to cut it down to four minutes seamlessly. Still, four minutes of 6th grade sway, while 250 people stand there wondering if anyone will notice if they make a break for the bar, is a long time.
It was quite surreal at that moment to stand there, at our wedding, dancing our first dance. It was a dream I’d had for nine years and we were finally there.
It was finally time to party! I always love when the couples enter their reception. The songs they chose, the smiles, the energy—oh it gets me giddy inside just thinking about the wonderful that is the couple’s first introduction. We lined up behind the big ballroom doors while butterflies quickly fluttered in our stomachs. Zeb and I had just enough time to jump into the photo booth for a quick picture before it was our turn to enter. Lucky we did too, otherwise we would have never stepped foot into the photo booth we were so excited to have. Our guests fully enjoyed it but we were just too caught up to remember.
Speaking of remembrance…remember when I told you we had to bribe my nephews to walk down the church aisle? Well well well, now you know what we bribed them with. It’s top secret information so don’t tell anyone—Spiderman and Batman are actually my nephews.
The kids entered into the reception to Katy Perry’s Firework. I always get so teary eyes listening to that song.
The top floor of The Biltmore is dedicated to the ballroom and banquet space. Our guests were able to enjoy cocktail hour while listening to our fantastic DJ, Brendan Lafferty, tickle the ivories. The bride and groom are able to enjoy cocktail hour from a sort of additional floor/balcony above the banquet space. While enjoying the passed hors d’oeuvres, beer, and wine, our guests were able to mingle with old friends and relatives.
It was during this time that Sara Zarrella and her assistant Lauren were able to capture some beautiful images of the then undisturbed ball room. I so badly wanted to see the room prior to the guests but didn’t want to risk being stopped on the way. There would be plenty of time to reminisce later on. For a few glorious minutes at our wedding, Zeb and I were completely alone listening to the happy chatter and wonderful music of cocktail hour just below.
Well, there isn’t much to say about this post. It’s PICTURES! OF US! You’re excited, I know it.
We sent our bridal party back to The Biltmore via the limo so that they could enjoy cocktail hour a little bit. We took a little stroll through the beautiful and vibrant streets of Providence.
The pashmina was not a planned accessory of the day. It was just so cold I couldn’t bear to take it off. I have to admit, I don’t hate the look.
After nearly freezing during the group photos, Zeb and I wanted to thank our bridal party for being the best ever. We directed our friends right into Trinity Brew House, a Providence staple. It was there we were able to settle down for just a minute and share a quiet drink with some of our favorite friends and family members. Well, as quiet as 17 people can be.
To toast to finally being husband and wife.
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