Lil sis went dress
shopping with me and one of my bridesmaids and had the time of her life. Kiddo
on the other hand hates shopping within an inch of his life. He had very
specific input on what the cake should taste like and what shade of blue the
photo booth actually should be. MacLeod's children, living in Tennessee with
their mother, couldn't be a part of things, but did get to talk about some of
our plans when they visited for the holidays.
So to give a good
understanding of the mechanics of the reception, sort of like how the script
and all worked for the game in the ceremony, you have to know some of the
background work that went into the reception. To begin with we had an amazing
wedding coordinator, one of the only ways were able to juggle the mess really
into place. But again, I am jumping ahead, let me start at the beginning.
So, about six months ago
I contact a friend of mine from my old neighborhood up north who's husband is
the lead singer of an awesome rock cover band called Say Something. I asked if
she thought they might play our wedding, but had a special request. I actually
was trying to play two songs in the wedding myself. I knew it sounded like a
total Bridezilla request, but was hoping they would entertain the thought. So
we started chatting via email and eventually I got together with them for band
practice. Thing was I was actually LEARNING to play the guitar at the same
time. WHAAAA?! Yeah. Me? Crazy? Yes. So there it was, I was taking guitar
lessons, voice lessons (to be on the safe side... who wants a singer's voice to
crack at the wedding!?) and doing band practices all under the nose of my
unsuspecting groom. Oh and then I was planning the rest of the wedding too.
If you remember from the
previous post, when we first decided to get married we knew that the first
thing that we wanted to have at our wedding was a photo booth and that that
photo booth would be a TARDIS from Doctor Who. So MacLeod decided that he would
construct the photo booth himself and had started to look at numerous tutorials
online and created blue prints. He had plans on top of plans for this thing, it
was impressive.
I was way over my head
with the number of things that I was trying to do. No one would call me back
for food for the wedding. I had a photographer but she repeatedly canceled our
appointments so we really didn't have a photographer. The kids had what seemed
to be five million things going on at school. My hair was standing on end.
To make matters worse
MacLeod was slacking on actually starting the TARDIS. I was freaking out. I mean I was about to get
Matt Smith on the phone and see if he could pull some strings for me. When I
mean things were getting to the wire, I mean that paint was going on that
sucker on February 22...we were married on the 23rd people.
So the TARDIS wasn't
exactly being built to MY timeline, I was doing a million and one things, I
couldn't get a caterer to commit to food for the wedding to save my life. We
did have a venue and alcohol, so we thought worst case scenario we all come
together grab some chips and drink? That was it, I called in the big guns(Becca Bee Events of Fredericksburg, Va). I
found a great wedding coordinator to work with who led me to some great people
and the best possible thing she could have done was take the entire load of the
day of planning off of my shoulders. I am not sure if she grasped the concept
at the time of what that would entail given the complexity of our wedding, but
she did an amazing job.
So with my coordinator in
my corner I was breathing again and back to work. I had a caterer, a wonderful
local BBQ company AND an ice cream sundae bar! We discussed at length the need
to make the foods gluten-free and he did clear with me that he in fact used not
one marinade that contained gluten. I would NOT spend the days after my wedding
in bed.
One of my best friends
had secured a wonderful bartender for us, so that was done and the band was
set, live music with a DJ on the side! We had a projector to play slides of all
our silly photos that we have taken over the last few years (we have some very,
very silly photos) for the entertainment of our guests.
Because of the gluten
issues, I didn't want to mess around with the cake, I ran a bakery for years
and I know, I know... "make your own wedding cake?!" Yes, I did.
Again, I didn't want to sit in bed for days after my wedding. So I decided to
make my own wedding cake, plus, kiddo had some specifics about flavor, as did
MacLeod. So there, I made the wedding cake. Judge if you will, it was
delicious. You may wonder..."what the heck is it?" Well friends, you have figured out by this point, we are nerds. So we decided that our friend G1(Generation 1) Devestator would be attacking our wedding cake. I made Devestator out for white chocolate over about a week and a half, a labor of... umm, love (you could call it that.) Notice the background for the cake is the original poster for Transformers animated movie (you know you just sang the title in your head... I know you did) released in 1986.
So there it was the day
of the wedding. Much to my oober stressful dismay, the TARDIS was NOT complete
and MacLeod was still working on it whence I arrived back home from running
errands with my mom on Friday afternoon (when said TARDIS was supposed to be AT
the reception location). So, instead of
simply delivering the wedding cake the morning of the wedding.... we were
delivering the TARDIS, all its photo booth components AND the wedding cake.
HOLY MOSES.
Then there was the issue
of getting my guitar secretly to the reception site or with the wedding
coordinator in time to give it to the band without MacLeod seeing.
I could have killed him.
Alas the TARDIS was
indeed assembled and worked perfectly. Wow, did it ever work perfectly. There was a sign inside the blue box to help guests
know how to use the iPad's app which airprinted to the Welcome Table. We had
put a bin inside with costume wears for all the guests to be able to use,
including a Hannibal Lector mask... who knew people would use that one the most?
Huh, lol. At the Welcome Table was the Guest Book, each guest was to leave one
strip for the book (one per page) and sign the page as their entry. The
finished product was absolutely perfect!
So while we were getting
the photos done at the church after the reception, all the guests arrived at
the reception and used the photo booth and got to snack on little boxes of popcorn
(for the crazy movie theme) tour the A. Smith Bowman Distillery and enjoy the
cocktail hour.
When we arrived everyone
seemed to be having a pretty good time, which made us feel like we did really
pull it off. The reception then went on and the "wedding stuff" went
under way, speeches and dances. We went over the ceremony game and awarded the
prizes to the guests, first second and third places. Then I was called up by
the band to give my groom my "wedding gift." All the months of
preparation and sneaking around and the time was up. I sang and played
"Head Over Feet" by Alanis Morrisette first, a love song, something I
thought maybe people might expect from me... though honestly I don't think
anyone expected me to perform. Then we went into "Kiss Off" by the
Violent Femmes, so much fun, I loved it. I think MacLeod was surprised, he
certainly had no idea that I was going to be doing that for him. I told him
that he trusts me entirely too much, well with all the "appointments"
I had around town for the last few months.
The rest of the night I
could finally breathed easy and we danced and enjoyed our family and friends. It
was the happiest day that either of us have had in a long time.
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