tw + ac: 10.17.08.15: Late Night Snacks

We served gyros, french fries, and milkshakes as late night snacks about an hour or so into dancing. I know that late-night snacks are so Martha 1998, but they were still new to our guests, who, by the way, thought that we were the whip for servin' up these treats. I ran into one of my preteen cousins who was out on the patio. She rubbed her stomach and said dramatically, "Uh! DO NOT let them bring any more of those gyros outside. [Our cousin] has eaten seven of them!" Even my picky dad ate them!

I am letting it go, but you have to admit that monogram stickers and colored fry cones would have made the photo below AWESOME!

When the milkshakes came out, our photographer told me to grab two and meet Andy on the dance floor. But Chaka Khan came on and I got distracted on the way to meet him.

I eventually made my way over to Andy...

But then I got distracted from the gyros and fries when one of my friends started a conga line to "Come on, Eileen."* (Have I mentioned that I have ADD?)

Images: Sarah Alair Photography

I have a comical amount of photos of myself holding food that evening. I guess that's the one problem with not having a designated food time.


* The photos above just made me realize that I was dancing with my dad and husband to a song that normally reminds me of dancing with gay men in college. (Kev, think "Juan" and "Kazoos.")  Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm...surely there is something Freudian about that. Ha. Ha.

New Chicago Bride-to-Be, Sorta

Kash (rhymes with Posh) is planning a lofty Chicago wedding from her current post in Africa. So cool. You can read about her cooler-life-than-yours African adventures here.

tw + ac: 10.17.08.14: The First Dance

We sort of ended up with two first dances. We danced our planned first dance...

Together by The Raconteurs

Then, we danced with our parents:

Fly Me to the Moon by Frank Sinatra

Then, the DJ played one of my all-time favorite songs:

More by Bobby Darin

No one would come out to the dance floor with me, so Andy came back out. His mom has a really, really funny video of me singing the entire song to him on her digital camera. Every. Single. Word.

Images: Sarah Alair Photography

I wish that I would have left my birdcage veil on for the first dance photos. I was worried about it falling off since we sawed the clip off and just had it laying on my head. I loved wearing that thing. And notice the lack of people watching us. LOVE IT. I seriously wanted to bag the first dance or make it an "all dance" because I was so nervous about it. But everyone was so busy eating and drinking that they didn't know we were dancing.

tw + ac: 10.17.08.13: Our Fabulous Cake

The pictures speak for themselves. The Sugar Syndicate kicked a*s. Quite a few guests e-mailed us and left Facebook messages about our cake in the few days after the wedding. It was so delicious.

We cut our cake to the chorus of Lips Like Sugar by Echo & The Bunnymen.

A perk of the cocktail format is that everyone's too distracted to watch you during all of the big moments, so there is absolutely no pressure. As you can see in the photo below, maybe three of our guests are watching us cut the cake. I loved it! Too many eyes make me nervous. I would probably make awkward jokes if we had a traditional, all-eyes-on-the-bride-and-groom cake cutting.

Images: Sara Alair Photography

Since this bite was the only wedding cake we had for the night, we ordered a mini cake from The Sugar Syndicate for our one month anniversary. Wasn't it cute?

tw + ac: 10.17.08.12: Toasts

Now that the wedding's over, I can safely say that not hiring a videographer is my biggest regret of the day. At the very least, I wish that I would have found a friend with a video camera to record the ceremony and the speeches. I found out afterwards that my cousin had a video camera with him and didn't use it! I kind of remember the speeches, but not in their entirety. Apparently, they were funny.

We had all of the usual toasts:

Greeting from Andy and I

I regret having Andy do the greeting because I found out later that he was nervous about it all day. I also would have been nervous, but I was busy enough to be distracted from my nerves and the adrenaline probably would have calmed me down a bit. (Oh, and I would have NOT been nervous enough to turn away the plates of food that the caterer made for us to eat before hitting the party. Grrrrrrrrrrr!) I feel bad that he felt unecessary stress.

Our Dads

Funny story about my dad's speech - my mother wrote a speech for him that morning and he ended up leaving it at the hotel. A few minutes before we began the processional, he asked the DOC for a pen and then told my mom to hurry up and rewrite it before we walked. My brother and Katie were able to convince him that she could do it after the ceremony. My poor mom.

Our Best Man and Maid-of-Honor

My maid-of-honor sister and I are polar opposites when it comes to being the center of attention. I have been a maid-of-honor twice and, both times, I did everything that I could to avoid speeches. Freshman year, I ran out of my Com 101 presentation because I had a panic attack in the middle of a speech. Not even kidding - I cried and left the room. My sister, on the other hand, looked at me like I had ten heads when I offered her a free pass.

Images: Sarah Alair Photography

tw + ac: 10.17.08.11: The Cocktail Party

When Andy and I left the Apartment to join the party, he exclaimed, "Look! This is exactly what we wanted! One big party." Our photographer took this photo at that moment.

Our cocktail format was so well-received. All of my worrying and sleepless nights were for naught. God, do I wish that I would had known that a year ago. It was all so wonderful. None of our guests had ever been to a cocktail-style wedding reception before and thought that we were the whip sh*t for conceiving it. I really regret not posting a menu or making menus for the tables. My mother literally tried four or five things. She didn't even know about over half of the items served.

The party was so, so fun! I have so many incredible memories. Here are a few fun ones:

My friend, Brenna, and I showed up in matching dresses. (To my credit, I had picked mine out months before. Ha. Ha.)

Tara and her husband came. Yeah! Tara was like a celebrity. A couple of my girlfriends had asked if "that girl who always comments on [my] blog" was there so that I could point her out.

My Purdue friends and their spouses ruled the roost that night. Our photographer easily got a dozen photos of them and their antics. Unfortunately, I never saw a photo of the lipstick mural that they made on the bathroom mirror in the shape of our monogram. Starting clockwise at the top left:

Singing the Purdue fight songs; Making a "T&A" sign;

highlighting our napkins, coasters, and drink stirrers; the spouses singing along to the fight song.

Images: Sarah Alair Photography

tw + ac: 10.17.08.10: Ceremony Cocktails

I forgot to mention the mini martinis and sparking water offered to guests as they were seated for the ceremony. So fun, if I say so myself!