In which I finally stop running around like a mad chicken....

Wheeww.....what a couple weeks that was!!!  Or, should I say "what a fortnight that was!"  Hahahaa.  Don't worry, I haven't gone completely British in my speech just yet. Although, I will admit to slipping into the speech patterns and using the new vocabulary as the people around me quite often. It's amazing how words I've used my whole life just don't seem to work anymore. I now call the car trunk a "boot" and the garbage pail a "bin" without even thinking about it. I also say "mince" instead of ground beef. It's just easier, isn't it.

One thing that does still confuse me is when people are talking about eating. To some people, "dinner" means lunch because "tea" refers to your evening meal. And I'm still trying to figure out if someone is offering me food or a drink when they offer me tea. I usually just say yes and take whatever they offer me.  :)

So, the reception is over with....and can I just say Thank god! It was fun and I'm super duper glad we had it, but boy was that a lot of work! I wore my long wedding dress again for most of the party - only changing into my cocktail dress at the end for a bit of dancing. Everyone told me how gorgeous the dress was, so that made me feel great and happy all over again that I chose it. It has so much beading on it that doesn't show up in pictures, so it was nice to have people actually see it in person.

In the reception hall we had a screen showing all of our wedding photos and honeymoon shots. Well, the good ones anyway.  hahaha. The color I chose for the reception was red. So my tableclothes were red and we had red and white lanterns hanging from the ceiling of the hall. I covered the tables with simple flower bunches in small jars as well as electric tealight candles in jars which I'd decorated with patterned vellum paper. Here are some quick pics I snapped with my camera before the night started. (For some reason my camera was set up incorrectly and refused to take pictures when the lights were dimmed, so I don't have a ton to share right now....other people took loads though, so hopefully they pass them on.)

Pete and I chose this song as our first dance song. It was fabulous and romantic, (if just a tad uncomfortable dancing together while tons of people stared at us). Here's a psychedelic photo taken with my possessed camera of us dancing together....

The evening was memorable for a lot of reasons, but the one thing that was a MAJOR hit, and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat, was the candy buffet. All of my guests absolutely, unabashedly LOVED it. Young and old, everyone was up there exclaiming over it and giggling over the different sweets. Since the candy buffet was my wedding favor for the guests to take home, I provided them with little paper cones with string handles (which Pete and I made while we watched a movie one night), and when we opened the candy table up, everyone was over there filling their cones with as much as they could fit in. Some even took three or four cones! It was a mad house! Too funny. We had a mixture of British candy, and American candy that I'd brought over special from Hawaii just for the night. To display the suckers (lollies), I stuck the sticks down into floral foam shapes so they would stand up in a cute little bubble display. And Pete and I had a blast looking for all of the glass candy dishes from a boot sale one Saturday morning, weeks ago.  I got loads of compliments on the sweet table idea (no one had heard of it before...go figure) and everyone was telling me how it was the highlight of the night. I'm glad I managed to take a few pics before the candy crazy crowd devoured it, because I think the display turned out pretty cute. (as always, click on the pics to enlarge them)

 The food on the cold/hot food buffet turned out great also. We went with the British/American theme on there as well. Because some of the food would be unknown to my guests, we made little food signs for every dish, attaching flags to each sign to let people know where the recipe came from.

I made a huge batch of bbq pulled pork. No one had ever tasted it before and it was eaten down to the very last crumbs. I even had a few people asking me for the recipe. Among many other things, I also contributed a taco dip, some ham and cheese wrap roll-ups made with ranch dressing (they don't have that here) and bbq cocktail weenies. I made my own bbq sauce and it turned out super fab. (yay me!)

Overall, the reception was a huge success. And I wasn't nervous at all since the wedding had already happened. It was nothing but just having fun. I think about my friends Danielle and Blake who both have upcoming weddings.... and on one hand I feel jealous of them because they still get to go through their big day, but on the other hand I'm not jealous at all. That's a lot of work, and quite frankly I'm relieved it's over.

Wish you all could have been here to celebrate the night with me!!!