Mike and Kerry's Wedding Recap: Cocktail Hour

Mike and Kerry had their cocktail hour and reception at the Queens County Farm - the last and only remaining farm in Queens. Cocktail Hour was held in the Barn, which Kerry decorated with the perfect amount of personal touches and beautiful candle lighting.

Once inside the barn there was sooo much to take in! For their card box, Kerry bought a plain wooden box at Michaels. Her dad sanded, stained, and varnished it, put a nob on the top and painted their initials and date to the front. He's quite the handy-man!

All of Kerry's signs were from Two Cardinal Day on Etsy (the same place she bought her marriage certificate).

Our place-cards were attached to an envelope which held a card stating that in lieu of gifts, a donation had been made to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. These donation cards held the same theme as their invitations and tied their whole look together!

 

Furthering on with her theme, Kerry opted for a fingerprint tree instead of a guest-book. She had seen so many of these trees online and was very close to purchasing one of the many options on Etsy. Then she remembered how amazingly artististic her bridesmaid Amanda is! She asked her if she could paint a custom fingerprint tree to match the farm. Amanda visited the farm a few times to scope it out, and make some sketches of the surroundings.

 The week before the wedding, Amanda delivered this beautiful painting to Kerry's apartment:

Amanda should be very proud of her work! Kerry and I are trying to convince her to open her own Etsy shop!

Kerry put out green stamp pads on the table, next to a basket of hand wipes for guests to add their fingerprints and clean the ink afterward. Chris and I were quick to add our thumbprints to the painting!

 

After the wedding, the filled tree looked amaaazing. I don't have a picture of the finished product but once I get one, I'll be sure to share it.

Cigars and matches were placed out on the tables during cocktail hour. Many guys took these and held on to them for later during the reception!

Here are Kerry's straws in action again at the bar!

Each cocktail table had different sized hurricanes and candles holders with pictures of Mike and Kerry's engagement shoot. But the best part of this picture is their signature drink: Pumpkin Spice Ale with a Cinnamon Sugar coated rim! I'm not normally a beer drinker - but this was all I drank all night!

During the hour, we were treated to live music by two musicians who performed mellow Dave Matthews Band music. Mike and Kerry are long-time DMB fans, and this was yet another great personalized aspect for them!

It was great to catch up with friends we haven't seen in awhile!
James and Maria:

Rich, Julie, Timmy, Anna, Katie and Michelle:

Anthony, Corinne, Chris, Juan and Meg:

 With some of my fellow bridesmaids!

Next up: We were led out to the tent for the reception to begin!

Wedding Recap: Martini Bar

Our venue has a Martini Bar that descends from the ceiling about 20 minutes into the cocktail hour. I was not particularly fond of this idea when we first heard about it - I was afraid it was tacky and a bit too over-the-top. But Chris eventually convinced me to just let it go...it was a feature of our venue that was offered as an option to us at no extra cost, and it certainly was unique. We decided to do it, and own it, even if there was the potential for it to be slightly "tacky". In the end, I'm glad we had it. Half of our guests were outside or getting food when it happened anyway, and the ones that were there to watch it, definitely liked it - and definitely had their fair share of martinis!

Here is the bar being lowered into its section while a guy makes some freshly shaken martinis on the way down!

I was the first up for a martini!

As I said before in this post, we had two signature martinis:

Wedding Cake Martini
1 1/2 oz. Amaretto
1/2 oz. Vanilla vodka
1 oz. Pineapple Juice

and 

Wagner-Tini
2 ounces vanilla vodka
1 ounce Malibu
1 ounce sweetened lime juice
1/2 lime

 The "Wagner-Tini" was in honor of Wagner College, where Chris and I met.

My Drink signs and DIY Embossed napkins above!

I seem to be enjoying my "Wagner-Tini"!!

Wedding Recap: Our Cocktail Hour

After we took pictures, we hung out for an hour in one of our two Bridal Suites at the venue. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from that hour, but we had a great time with our bridal party getting served drinks and food before we had to head into our "real" cocktail hour with all the masses. When we arrived, it was exactly what I thought it would be: Overwhelming trying to see and greet as many people as possible  but still a lot of fun!

Of course, there was amazing food:

Deja Vu Studios

Deja Vu Studios

Deja Vu Studios

K.Vereb

K. Vereb

Our "love birds" ice sculpture

Deja Vu Studios

There was a pianist on the stage in the front middle of the room. But, the biggest focal point of the room was the large seafood boat in the middle of the space.

Deja Vu Studios

This boat had an amazing selection of seafood:

Deja Vu Studios

Deja Vu Studios

Rachel Towers

And lots of mingling!

Deja Vu Studios

Chris better watch out!
Photo Credit: E. Phillips

We had an outdoor area as well, which was partly covered (which was good because we had a brief shower right as our cocktail hour started). The outdoor bar had a waterfall behind it, and stairs leading down to the garden. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of those elements, so I've added some from their website below:

Rachel Towers

www.sandcastlecaterers.com

www.sandcastlecaterers.com

www.sandcastlecaterers.com

www.sandcastlecaterers.com

www.sandcastlecaterers.com

But there was one more element of our cocktail hour that I was most excited out, and I can't wait to tell you about it tomorrow...our Martini Bar!

Honeymoon Series: Our Signature Drink

For our signature drinks, I couldn't decide between two, so I just had both of them! The first was a Key-Lime Pie Martini, but for our purposes, this was the "Wagner-Tini"

Wagner-Tini
2 ounces vanilla vodka
1 ounce Malibu
1 ounce sweetened lime juice
1/2 lime

The second one was called the Wedding Cake Martini and was from the martini menu found at the restaurant Simply Fondue.

Wedding Cake Martini:

1 1/2 oz. Amaretto
1/2 oz. Vanilla vodka
1 oz. Pineapple Juice

I made a little sign to put out at each bar giving the names and recipes of each drink in Word.Then I printed it onto Green paper and put it in some more black picture frames I had lying around. This is a bad picture but I'll make sure we get a better one at the reception :)

Wednesday's Wedding Poll: Receiving Lines

Source

Receiving Lines: I was so torn on whether or not I wanted to have one. This is what I found on the knot:
          Q.

Is it necessary to have a wedding receiving line? Our wedding is at 7 p.m., immediately followed by a formal wedding dinner. We are stretched for time as it is. Plus, there will be around 350 wedding guests. What is appropriate?

A.

Sorry, but you gotta have one. With that many guests, there's no way you'll ever greet them all personally otherwise! Any time there are more than 50 guests at a wedding, you should have a receiving line. Try not to look at it as an annoying obligation. It's actually a very polite thing to do: Give each of your 350 guests a few seconds to hug you and wish you well before the blur of the reception begins for you and your new spouse. You'll also get to meet guests you may not yet know (maybe relatives from the other side of your new family). Yes, this will take a bit of time, but it's worth it. You won't regret it, and neither will your guests.

Now, I don't particularly agree with the above. I think if the wedding is immediately following your ceremony, especially at the same location, then let the festivities begin!! You'll have extra time to greet people during cocktail hour. But for us, we have 2 1/2 hours in between our ceremony and cocktail hour, so there is plenty of time to do this. Plus, there will still be time for our out of town guests to go back to the hotel and check in before getting picked up by the shuttle.

On one hand, I didn't want our guests to have to line up, wait in a long line, and then awkwardly say "hi" to people they, or we, don't even know (and there will be a lot of "first meetings" like this at our wedding) before leaving the church.

On the other hand...people have been doing receiving lines for centuries. Mainly, if I say "hi" to everyone during the receiving line, I won't feel as pressured to go around to every single person to say "hi" at the cocktail hour and reception, and that to me is a BIG plus and also why we are going to do the receiving line.

Source

But now this leads me to my next question: Do we have our guests throw something at us as we leave the church? I really hadn't planned on doing that...but I don't want to lose out on a great photo opportunity.

Personal: This is my friend Christina - how great are these bubbles?

I researched possibilities and there are a lot of different "items to throw" ideas out there! I also found this interesting:

While tossing rice became most popular in America, many countries have their own traditions. In Morocco, figs, dates, and raisins are thrown to encourage a "fruitful" union. Italians traditionally shower the newlyweds with sweets and sugarcoated nuts. (The word "confetti" may derive from the root for the Italian word for "confectionery.") In Korea, the groom's father tosses red dates at his new daughter-in-law to bring fertility. In France, wheat greets the happy couple. Eggs represent new life in some European countries and are thrown at newlyweds. An old Irish tradition has the couple being pelted with pots and pans (ouch!) in honor of their new domestic life.

Eggs?? pots and pans?? figs and dates? This was very interesting, but not appealing to me in the least. I also read that the rice killing birds thing is an urban legend, and they actually won't die from eating thrown rice. I thought that was true!

As you can see...I'm getting down to actually having to make these little decisions which have been so easy to put off until now. So tell me, "Did/Are you do/doing a receiving line" Also, any ideas on great creative things to throw after the ceremony?