Saturday, June 18, 2011

Celebration

The reception started when Carole and David got back to the farm. Carole changed her shoes and, to Niles' "I am proud to introduce Mr and Mrs David Buckwalter", they came out of the house and under the arch. I wasn't thinking or I'd have gone to get my own photos. The photographer did just fine.

You can see the clear sky was now speckled with white puffy clouds. Rain had been predicted all week, sporadic showers. We'd had a lovely rain while we were inside the church rehearsing. These weren't, however, rain clouds. The temperature hovered around 80 and there was a gentle breeze. It couldn't have been a better afternoon to celebrate a marriage.

Once Carole and David arrived, we could eat. As it's been almost a month, I'm sure I'll forget something or think there was something they had that they didn't have. This company, whose name escapes me, was chosen because of their meatballs. Indeed, Phil loaded his plate with meatballs. We we had chicken and beef and mashed potatoes and green beans (?), and raw veggies. There was plenty for everyone. Friends of Kitty and David own a winery and their wine, in red and white varieties, was served. It was very good wine.

We had a minor scramble once the kids arrived. In placing the cake table, the angle of the sun wasn't factored into the location. By the time we got to the reception portion of the festivities, the cake had started to list, away from me in this photo. We scrambled to get a dish of ice to solidify the icing but we had to tell the kids to cut the cake, "NOW!", before they sat down to eat.


Once that was accomplished, the caterer did a fantastic job of preserving the top layer. If I have any readers in the Washington DC area, I can heartily recommend this company, if I can only remember their name. 

After dinner came dancing. The first dance song was "At Last" by Etta James. You can see the photographer honing in for those special close-up shots. Carole was 95% dressed when he started taking photos. If you've looked through the link in the post below you'll see some of the preparation photos. Carole quipped, "When you're a bride, you have no personal space."

Her reception shoes. All the bridesmaids changed to either flip-flops or to more comfortable clothes for the reception. I stayed in my outfit although I did jettison the jacket towards the end of the afternoon.

After the first dance was the parents' dance. Kitty danced with David and Carole danced with her dad. I don't know the name of that song. It was something Kitty requested, a "country" tune and I don't listen to that genre.

When that was done, it was time for everyone to dance. I have to hand it to the guys who built the dance floor. It was sturdy and worked just perfectly for the reception. Plus, I believe it was constructed to be reused. I thought I heard "cabinets" in the ongoing renovation of the house.

There were line dances, slow dances, fast dances. I was dragged up onto the dance floor by Michelle and Anita, bridesmaids. Carole and David had picked all the music, set up a laptop with a folder containing everything in the order they wanted, and it played all day. No DJ really was needed for this. Niles would, occasionally look at how the computer was doing and they would, occasionally skip a song, but I think they had in the neighborhood of 5 hours of music picked. Most I knew but some I did not.

At 8:00 p.m., with the sun beginning to set in the west, the party started to break up. That's when the big oops came. I don't remember the name of the last song. David and Carole slowly danced around the floor and stopped. We clapped and they walked over to their table. David accidentally bumped the table and his partially filled wine glass tipped over, spilling red wine down the front of Carole's dress. There were gasps and then, about 5 of us, over the age of 50, started yelling, "Get it off! Get it off!" We raced Carole into the house, peeled the dress off her and then I held the dress in the shower while Kitty gently squeezed the wine out.

Our quick thinking prevented the wine from staining the satin under the lace. Kitty was able to get about 90% of the wine out of the lace overlay. The dress was hung up in the shower to dry and we felt a good cleaner would get the rest of the wine out. It sounds worse than it really looked.

We cleaned everything up, put everything away so the only things left were the dance floor, the tent and the tables and chairs.

Perfect day. Perfect wedding. It was time now for a good night's sleep.

Beverage:  7UP

Deb

1 comment:

  1. The song you're trying to think of is Rascal Flatts, "My Wish" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz32I_GbpeU

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