The Mahoney Wedding – Reception (2of 2)

Finally I have arrived at my last re-cap post for my wedding. It’s only been a few days over 3 months, that’s not bad, right? 

When I last left you I finished telling you about the ceremony. 

Our reception was after the ceremony (as soon as people could make the about 20 minute drive) at Thomas’ parents’ home. They have a very nice house with a pretty decent back yard (and by that I’m referring to Los Angeles, not in comparison to some of the backyards I’ve seen on other blogs). Since they knew we were trying to save money on the wedding so that we could buy a home they very graciously allowed us to use their home for free. 

In order to have the reception here we had to rent chairs, tables, linens, and tents. Although we got married in spring we live in an area that does not tend to have cool weather. While a lot of the country was under snow we were having 85+ days. That said - it actually rained the day before the wedding for an hour or two. 

My sister, brother-in-law, and (mostly) my MOH set up the tables early on Saturday morning and made them look gorgeous. I made the center pieces myself and my supervisor’s son made the table numbers – all items were from the Dollar Tree! I didn’t want any flowers on the table because one of the things that bother me at big parties like these is that there are so many decorations on the table you don’t have space for anything else. However my mother-in-law got some flowers donated and those were placed on the tables (I didn’t find out until the reception time).

As I mentioned in the previous post Thomas and I took some time to get to the reception site because the ceremony was shorter than we expected. When we arrived we had the bridal party come out to the front lawn of the house so that we could be organized to be announced into the party. 

While people were clapping for Thomas and I and we were doing a little dance when we walked in someone told us to re-do the cake topper, so we had to oblige! 

As you can imagine the night was a long of mingling and a lot of drinking. For me. The one regret I have from the wedding is that I drank way too much. The cucumber mint martini that I requested we have was SOO good that I couldn’t get enough of it! (My mouth is watering at the thought of it now!). 

The best pictures of the entire day were from the reception. I had a lot of fun and couldn’t stop smiling the entire time. 

My dad was too shy to do a whole speech but my brother-in-law went ahead and did it for him. The night before my nieces decided they wanted to give speeches as well so we let them. Thomas’ dad and best man (his cousin) both gave speeches along with my MOH. 

My brother-in-law (since I was 9).

My youngest niece, Camila.

After the speeches Thomas’ Uncle Greg gave a blessing and we said the Lord’s Prayer.

Thomas' Uncle Greg.

Then it was time for dinner! We chose to have it catered by Stone Fire Grill. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a chain restaurant that is simply delicious and very affordable. We ended up paying about $13 per person! We also had tons of left overs. 

The cake was ordered from a high school friend and she did an amazing job. Not only was it delicious (chocolate, lemon chiffon, and carrot cake) but it looked beautiful! I will be ordering from her again soon! We also ended up having left overs of the chocolate portion of the cake. I think we forgot to tell the caterers that the cakes different flavors so they only passed out the top two layers. Oh well.  

I set up 3 different things for our guests to do during the reception. 

• Jenga Guestbook

I saw this on Pinterest and since Thomas and I like to play games I thought it would be pretty perfect. Instead of a regular guestbook I set out Sharpies and our guests signed on Jenga pieces. Since our guest list was under 70 we had more than enough pieces for everyone. 

• Plate

    I saw this plate on clearance at Jo-Ann’s and thought it would be cut to put up in our home. Of course not I haven’t done it, but it was a cute idea, right?

• Thumb Prints 

I also saw this at Michael's. Everyone left their thumbprints as leaves of a tree.

• The Shoe Game

I’m sure you’ve seen this either in a movie, at a wedding, or floating online. The idea is that guests write down questions that have either a GROOM or BRIDE answer and then the bride and groom have to answer the questions by sitting back to back and lifting up either the bride’s shoe or the grooms. I was nervous to do this because I didn’t want the attention on me, but it ended up being SO much fun! 

There was plenty of dancing, including my dance with my dad to Bob Carlisle’s Butterfly Kisses and my first dance with Thomas to I Still by the Backstreet Boys (yes, of course BSB was played at my wedding!). Thomas had his first dance with his mom as well. I did a lot more dancing than I ever would have though since I hate to dance. 

I imagine I am sitting on his lap here because he is over a foot taller than me!

We did do a Money/Cash dance. It was fun, but also a bit disappointing. We didn't get many people to come out and participate. I think part of this is because people tend to think we are much better off than the rest of the family and also because since it was held in the home people were wandering around the house and not just in the backyard. 

I had to do a lot of this pulling up. I mentioned previously that I forgot to put my bra/underskirt on under my wedding dress!

Because I did end up getting pretty drunk I don’t remember much of what happened in the evening. I remember my MOH taking my dress off of me before she left (she had an early flight back home). I remember throwing up on Thomas’ parents’ bathroom (in the toilet) and that I cried because I felt bad that I had ruined it. Thomas assured me that I hadn’t ruined it and that everyone had fun. 

We also took a lot of pictures with friends and family.

My brother, David.

My MOH.

My Mommy.

And of course I threw the bouquet and he threw the garter!

We finally left at some time around 8pm. My brother-in-law drove us to the hotel we were staying at and he picked us up the next morning. 

The Mahoney Wedding – April 26, 2014 (Part 2)

I understand people hate reading blogs in a million different posts, but I couldn’t really cut out just parts of my wedding days, and the posts were getting really long, so I figured this was the best way to go about it. Thank you to those who have been sticking around for it!

I was surprised that I wasn’t nervous to walk down the aisle. Well, until a minute before when I remembered I didn’t have my shoes on! We were standing in a room to the side of the chapel when I realized I was barefoot! I hadn’t put my heels on because they were way too painful for me to have on when I didn’t need to. My MOH rushed to put them on before they motioned for her to walk down the aisle. 

I stood there with my daddy, waiting for our turn. It was nice to have a moment alone with him. I felt so grateful that he was there. 

I had no worries at that moment. I thought I would be nervous. That I would be freaking out because there were so many people with their eyes on me. But I didn’t. I was calm and excited to walk down the aisle. I looked around at all the people around me as we reached the end of the aisle where the pastor asked my dad if he gave my hand in marriage to Thomas. We had practiced it differently, but my dad caught on and agreed. I think he told Thomas to treat me well and shook his hand before I took Thomas’ arm and walked up to the pastor. 

Although we had a rehearsal the night before, we hadn’t met with the pastor so it was all new and fresh at that moment. We didn’t know how long it would last or what he would say. We knew it would be religious in part, but what the vows would be? Not a clue. Actually I don’t even remember what they were. This part is really just a blur. 

What I remember clearly is that at one point the pastor stopped and so Thomas thought that was the time to give me our first kissed as a married couple. Everyone laughed at that. We had to take the candles our mom’s had lit before the ceremony and light the unity candle. I asked the pastor “do I turn the candle off, now?”, which caused quite the uproar from the guests. That was probably the most embarrassing moment of the ceremony. 

After the ceremony ended, Thomas and I walked out followed by our bridal party. The pastor, Thomas, I, and his best man along with my MOH went to the office so we could sign the marriage certificate. We posed for some pictures there and then returned to the chapel to take more pictures. 

We spent quite a while taking pictures in the chapel. Unfortunately they aren’t the best photos. Although we paid over $1k for pictures for the day, the photographer was not as professional as I would have hoped and it seemed as though she kept the camera on automatic. I could have paid someone a lot less to do the same. You live and learn. Luckily I had friends and family who took some nice shots. 

Trying to get the photos was interesting. Thomas has a huge family.

Initially the photographer told my family to get on my side and his on his, I told her that it wouldn’t work – his family couldn’t fit on just his side as you can see. My entire family numbered 13, including myself! 

After everyone left (and man, everyone was in a hurry to be done with pictures and leave) we took some more individual shots. Since the service took less time than we thought, Thomas, the photographer, and I waited around for the limo to arrive. We took some extra pictures during this time. 

The limo was very nice and included alcohol – unfortunately neither of us liked the alcohol they had. We enjoyed some time alone as husband and wife and took some silly pictures. 

When we arrived at Thomas’ parents’ home for the reception we had to pull to the side and wait because our entire bridal party and family weren’t there for us to make the entrance into the party. After a few minutes they finally arrived and we were able to come in. 

This is our immediate family - siblings, parents, and grandparents.

Here is our ENTIRE family - both sides. Okay. Not really, this is just HIS entire family and my immediate family.  

This is my entire immediate family - except for my sister who was in the hospital at this point.

The pastor had us take this picture. I thought it was amazing! The best picture ever! 

Thomas with our fathers.

Me with our moms.

Our siblings - my sister missing.

Next time I’ll talk about the reception. There will probably be a lot of pictures in the post and not a lot of words – I think. 

Reception & Ceremony Locations!

Thank you all for your lovely comments and e-mails last week! This week’s post is also a bit long, but there is a surprise at the end!

Before I was able to send out the invitations or even the STDs Thomas and I had to be sure of the location of our ceremony and/or reception. As I mentioned last week we had looked into having the wedding at a restaurant but the huge price tag that came with it would not work for me, so we had to look at alternatives. What I quickly realized was that weddings are super expensive! Especially venues to hold receptions. Every place I look at was either really expensive or required A LOT of decorating on my part. I’ve mentioned before that I am not crafty, so this was a big problem for me. I had to find a location that did not need me to provide decorations beyond maybe a couple here or there.

This led to the conclusion that the best thing for me would be to have the reception at a restaurant. Thomas had suggested using his parents backyard at some point but I did not want to do this. I didn’t think it formal and I desperately want a formal evening.  Also, while the backyard is a decent size it isn’t as large as I would want because it will not allow a lot of moving room with 75 people or so attending. I looked into a few different restaurants but we couldn’t really pick one. At some point I realized that our best option, since we were really trying to keep the cost down, would be to have the reception in their backyard. Thomas promised me that there would be enough space and calculating seats by the tables that his mom had used for his sisters’ wedding last summer, we figured out that although it will be tight there will be enough room for all of us.

I knew early on that the reception would be catered by Stone Fire Grill. They have amazing food! (No, they are not giving me anything to say this, but if they want to I wouldn’t be opposed!). SFG is also very inexpensive. My per person cost is $11 with my total bill probably running at $1000. They also have great service; I went to a birthday party they catered a few years ago and they did a good an amazing job at serving the food (via buffet line) and then boxing up and cleaning up after the event. There was no question in my mind that they would do my catering. This seemed to ruffle feathers because some people thought that if I wanted a formal evening that I shouldn’t have such informal catering. I basically did not really give that much mind because the food is delicious and both Thomas and I love it (I should mention he and I work a few blocks away the SFG is within walking distance!).

When Thomas and I came to the conclusion that our ceremony and reception would be held in different locations, I started to look for places to hold the ceremony. I am not one to call different locations (that gives me anxiety) so I relied on locations that had decent websites with e-mail contacts. There were a few different chapels that already had prices on their websites which was very helpful. I went through 3-4 different locations on Yelp (yes, on Yelp). I believe that 2-3 of them weren’t actual churches but instead the type of chapels you see in Las Vegas. While they looked nice on the internet and a co-worker got married at one and she liked it, it just wasn’t for me. I didn’t like the fake grass outside or the look of the outside of the place (one of them was in a strip mall). I was given other recommendations of actual churches and chapels all of which I didn’t like the look of or required pre-marriage counseling (which Thomas was against). One that was recommended to me by a few people was call The Little Brown Church. As the name suggests, the church is brown on the outside. I just couldn’t see myself in pictures with a brown background. Not my favorite color.

Finally I found The Little White Chapel, a Disciples of Christ church. It’s about 15-20 minutes from our reception which is not a problem for me (after all our guests will head there before we do to allow us time for pictures, so it works out perfectly in my mind). This was a problem for others around me, however. They argued that if they were already going to be driving 30 minutes to get to the chapel they would not want to drive again for another 20 minutes to get to the reception. My response to this was: don’t come. It was hurtful to me since I know that my sister (and family) and maid of honor are traveling hundreds of miles to be here for our wedding and they have to problem making a trip to get to the reception.

Neither Thomas nor I are very religious. Thomas considers himself atheist while I do consider myself Christian. He allowed me to have the ceremony conducted by a minister with religious wording for the vows. I went to visit the Chapel with my parents (Thomas didn’t feel like he needed to go) a few days before Christmas. I loved the rustic feel of it. It’s wooden on the inside and has a classic chapel feel with a bell tower an all outside. The carpet is red which will make my dress stand out (I’m not having a runner, but I will lay petals on the aisle – no flower girl). The chapel is small which will make the wedding nice and cozy. My guest list ended up being 75, and while I still haven’t gotten all the RSVPs back, I expect that I will have around 65-70 people in attendance. The chapel seats 75 people maximum.

The ceremony will be done by someone that many of you probably know! Rev. Bill Thomas played Vanessa Huxtable’s fiancée on The Cosby Show! Recognize him?

Next week I’ll talk about my other vendors!