James and Maria's Wedding Part 3: The Reception

Catch up here on James and Maria's Ceremony,

as well as their Cocktail Hour and Personalized Elements. 

Now, it's finally time for the reception, which was a blast and a half for 4 hours straight! The bridal party members were introduced, followed by the newly married couple as they walked onto the dance floor and shared their first dance to Jason Mraz, "I Won't Give Up."

After that, we sat down to listen to Joanna and Chris give their speeches to the couple. Despite some pre-speech nerves, they both delivered touching and heartfelt speeches, and did a great job.

As we were eating dinner, their friend Jon serenaded the guests to Tom Petty's "American Girl." I was super impressed!!

Here's a snippet of his performance

After dinner, the dance floor got moving and groovin' for awhile:

Then it was time for the happy couple to cut the cake:

 

James really likes cake, but I think he likes his wife even better!

The cake was delicious!! They had white cake with chocolate pudding and cannoli cream filling! If you ask me, you can't go wrong with those two flavors individually and especially put together.

Maria danced to "My Wish" by Rascal Flatts with her father.

James danced to "Because You Loved Me" by Celine Dion with his mother.

And then there was a special surprise dance later in the evening that James had arranged with the DJ. He called his sister to the dance floor to dance to "I'll Be There" by Faith Hill. She was so surprised and cried throughout the entire dance...which made me, and practically every other female around me, cry during the entire thing as well. It was very sweet, and you could really tell how close these two siblings are.

After the tears were wiped away and makeup refreshed, we danced some more!

 With my in-laws!

Near the end of the night, Maria and James tried their hand at playing the drums, and some serious rocking and dancing ensued!

Then, out of nowhere, James's dad (who used to play in a band) came out and totally rocked the house with his drumming!

 

Check it out here

Jame's sister, Vanessa, came up and took a crack at the drums as well!

At the end of the night, these cuties were playing "Mr. and Mrs." at the sweetheart table. It was so. precious!! Perhaps we have a future Mr. and Mrs. on our hands...

Congratulations to James and Maria!! All I can say is, my legs were sore for two days after their wedding because I danced so much. We saw them last weekend all tan and refreshed after they returned from their honeymoon in Antigua. (Jealouuusss) We couldn't be happier for you both, and look forward to a lifetime of memories to come! 

Anniversary Dance and Bridal Hair Clip Giveaway!

One element that didn't go as planned for me was our Anniversary Dance. I decided pretty early on in the planning process to do an Anniversary Dance at the wedding. However, I don't think many people really understood what was happening and just kept dancing. The "Winners" of our dance - for being married 50 years - actually weren't married at all! They just kept dancing and weren't listening to the instructions from the band! They were family friends from Chris' side so I didn't know who they were, so I ran over to them to give them a bridesmaid bouquet thinking " They look so young to be married 50 years!"

Until I was informed that they actually weren't even married...At first, I was pissed, but what could I do about it? Then I started to laugh, cause it actually was kind of funny. Oh well...sorry to whoever SHOULD have won!

Speaking of winning things you shouldn't have won in the first place, I won this gorgeous hair clip from the blog A Reccessionist Ties the Knot last December.

I was so excited to wear it in my hair on my wedding day. However, once I picked out my hairstyle and elements for the day, like Mrs. Recessionista, it didn't really work with my hairstyle or overall look. And so, once again, it went completely un-used.

Recessionista described this by saying the following:
"The hair pin is an ivory (with tulle accents) silk rose hair pin (see similar style here), made of gorgeous dupioni silk."
 
This has NEVER BEEN WORN. It is in brand new condition and just waiting to be used for your gorgeous wedding! I really hope the next person that has this can get some use out of it!

To Enter:

1. Leave me a comment below of why you think this will be the perfect addition to your wedding day look.

Extra Entries if you:

1. Tweet the following: "I just entered @lwoodsny bridal hair clip giveaway!
Check it out here!" And leave me a comment saying you tweeted.
2. Blog about this entry and leave me a comment with the link
3. Follow this blog, and leave me a comment saying you do.

Giveaway ends next Wednesday December 7, 2011 at 11:59pm EST.

Wedding Recap: Brides are in High Demand

One of the perks of being a bride is you may be in high demand out on the dance floor! Everyone wants a chance to dance with the bride, and I tried my hardest to dance with as many people as possible.

I LOVED dancing with Adrian, my friend Christina's NAVY husband. He is by far, the best dancer I've ever danced with (sorry Chris). He dipped, twirled, and spun me around to Brown Eyed Girl!

Then I danced with my Father-in-Law

My friend, Dave, from High School made it out for the party (and had an early rehearsal in Manhattan the next morning!)

I danced with my dad, of course:

But I of course had to also dance with my Mother:

Chris's parent's friend, Kevin was also a fabulous dancer! He spun me around to Frank Sinatra and made me feel like a dancer!

ElizabethP.

My Brother in Law, Michael:

My friend Benjamin!! FYI: ever since Mandy and Billy's wedding, I always dance with ties, as seen below:

Even Kerry couldn't resist stealing me away for a little air guitar dancing

But naturally, my favorite dance partner of the night was this fellow:

Yep...being a bride is fun, live it up if you can!! :)

Wedding Recap: At Last

Firstly: Happy 6 month anniversary to my Hubby! I can't believe it's been 6 months already!!

When Chris and I first saw our band, Arcadia, perform their showcase back in 2010 they performed an amazing version of At Last by Etta James. I just about lost it when the saxophone came in for the solo, and their singer did the song unbelievably well. It was one of the songs that totally sold me on going with them in the end. Though we had chosen a Dave Matthews Band song for our first dance, I really wanted to make sure that Chris and I also got to dance to At Last at some point in the night.

I asked the band to play it near the end of the night and to make sure that Chris and I were up close to them when they did it. When the time came and they called us up to the dance floor, Chris was nowhere to be found!! While people ran off to look for him, I waited and....danced with myself.

Finally, the Groom comes running out to the dance floor!

I hadn't intended this dance to be just us, but for the first half that's kind of what it was...luckily people slowly started to trickle onto the dance floor and join us.

 

Though it's hard to tell what this picture is, it's actually taken in the mirror above the dance floor, so it's kind of an aerial shot of us dancing!

 Just listen to how amazing the singer is! Also note how I pretty much sing along for most of the song:

I was glad that I requested this, because though we were together a lot that night, it was easy to get pulled in 20 different directions and not be "in the moment". This forced us to calm down for a bit, and just be together for few minutes before we were pulled in different directions again. I highly recommend talking to your DJ or band about doing something like this for your reception.

Did/Will you have a "second" first dance near the end of your reception?

Wedding Recap: Viennese Hour

Ask anyone: I am a sweets person. I would rather forgo any appetizer so I can have dessert. I LOVE dessert. So Viennese Hour was something I was extremely excited about. With one hour left to go of our reception, carts filled with a variety of desserts were rolled out onto the dance floor.

When all the different dessert stations were lined up on the dance floor, this is how it looked!

Chris and I walked around the selection taking it all in.

 

Chris went crazy for the baklava they provided. I even found out what bakery they got it from and ordered some for Chris' birthday as a surprise back in August!

But my favorite by far, was the chocolate fountain - where we could dip a variety of things such as strawberries, marshmallows, pineapple, banana, and rice crispy treats into the chocolate!

 

Here are our friends enjoying their selections!

This was my friend Kate's dessert plate that she posted to facebook:

KateV

Are you as obsessed with dessert as I am?