Hold onto your hats, here we go:
- the reception was at Cortland Mansion in Hagerstown, which is lovely, but is intentionally a blank slate:
- Sara (bride), Matt (groom), Carol (mother of the bride), Shannon (bridesmaid), Bella (matchmaker and bridesmaid), Christian (groomsmen), Avi (adorable baby) and Niki (me) decorated the room and mantle in cream, brown and burgundy/wine/red and created centerpieces of glass, cranberries, oranges, coffee beans, pine cones and candles:
- Sara, Tiffany (sister-in-law and bridesmaid) and Daphne (maid of honor) worked on flower arranging in several sessions over different days with flowers ordered off of the internet; everything turned out incredible:
- Niki, Bella and Sara made tulle and ribbon birdseed packets that were eventually put in beribboned baskets with adorable cows that Sara collects:
- paper-wise there were table cards to be made and candle favor tags to be made, plus everybody -and i do mean everybody- worked on the programs at one point or another; first they had to be finish, then printed, then reprinted, then math problems, then an entire third page that i personally screwed up, then more reprints, then we ran out of ribbon, then more reprints; thank God, that Daphne and Tiffany finally figured out a way to get everything right:
you know, a collage will be faster...
- MEANWHILE, Earl (father of the bride) and Andrew (brother and groomsman), along with people i didn't see cause i was otherwise occupied cleaned out the huge garage, shoveled and leveled wet gravel (it had been raining forever) and prepared for the pig roast:
from this to this
(shoveling gravel is yucky, but shoveling wet gravel is even worse)
- we managed to fit in Thanksgiving dinner,
with Carol cooking amidst the chaos. plenty to be thankful about
-Matt and Sara had baked the 8 cake layers earlier in the week and put them in the freezer, so most of Thursday there were thawing cakes everywhere:
- sometime well after midnight we got to making seven batches of butter cream, leveling, filling, coating and frosting:
Matt demonstrates that smoothing butter cream involves paper towels - who knew? - Sara decided that we needed more cupcakes, at 3am
- Daphne still needed to finish the veil, but Sara's modeling really captures how tired we all are at this point
- finished cakes were strewn about the mud room,
cause there was no room in the fridge
-the pig roast piggie arrived along with equipment and guys to watch over the roasting around 3am, though i didn't go outside to take pics right then cause 1) it was dark and 2) i was starting to lose all sense of reality and finally crashed around 3:45:
- after the ladies' brunch and the guys' skeet shooting, everything was loaded to go to the church or Cortland with Niki, Linnea and Wade (sister & brother in law, bridesmaid & groomsman), Chris (brother and groomsman), and Chris (groomsman - yes, 3 of the groomsmen were named some variation of Chris) all taking loads along with Matt and Sara and her parents:
that's a lot of stuff
-there was some rehearsing:
- then back to the farm for delicious, cooked forever pork, plus lots of sides and salads made by Pat (stepmother of the groom) and Nan (grandmother of the groom) and pies made by Iris (aunt of the bride)
-smores were made with marshmallows the size of my fist, on super long sticks to keep us a safe distance from the flames
- i spent some time communing with cows
-there was a lot of love and laughter around wood spool tables and hay bale benches:
-three of Sara's friends surprised us with a Steel Magnolia's groom's cake
-there was a beautiful, meaningful wedding with all of the ceremony, homilies, music and communion done by friends and family; i have no pictures of it cause i was a bit busy but you can see them in the photographer's book here, where you will also find pictures of a lovely and fun reception, which i have almost no pictures off because i was quite a bit busy,
but i do know that there was posing,
dancing, kissing,
and cake cutting
- Christian and Brian (groomsman) got Sara's truck ready, birdseed was thrown, balloons were released and Mr and Mrs drove off to the surprise wedding night location
The End
...phew
oh, wait - in my haste i forgot my 3 favorite pictures from the whole shebang:
-Matt was soooo sick and exhausted the whole week leading up to the wedding that one night while i was driving us back to the farm -in an ice storm, no less- he fell asleep in the most uncomfortable position i've ever seen:
poor guy -but after the pig roast he went to the hotel, took a bunch of cold medicine and slept for more than three hours in a row so when i took him to church the morning of the wedding, he looked like the boy i know and love:
hey, i'm getting married
-somehow there are no pictures of me with the Mr and Mrs on the wedding day (did i mention that i was busy?), but this one taken at the pig roast makes me smile because you can see that the work is all done and we are finally relaxed:
3 comments:
Phew! I'M tired.
Love the colors. The centerpieces were so cool!
Was there no fondant on the cake? If not, GREAT job on getting that smooth buttercream, all!
Were you speechifying at the wedding or singing?
ahh I'm tired too! What a great psot-congratualtions!!!!!!! EVERYthing looks spectacular-I'm off to look at the book now!
It was tiring, but fun.
There is no fondant on the cakes; all of those layers are butter cream-a-licious. There was a LOT of rubbing and smoothing.
At the wedding itself i delivered the first homily, on marriage and community. I think it went pretty well as i made everyone both laugh and cry. (if you look in the wedding pics there is a fabulous one of Sara crying andd facing the audience with her dad while all of the attendants are laughing; that was during my homily)
Post a Comment