Previous wedding story posts: the week before and the morning of and the ceremony.
As we came out of the church it was drizzling ever so slightly, but it didn’t dampen the mood at all (ba-boom cha! haha) and stopped after about 5 minutes. We just kind of stood in a daze with people taking pictures and congratulating us, till I remembered that probably should get all the ‘set’ pictures out of the way, and I tell you what, Laura is ACE at organising people, even balanced precariously on top of a tombstone and having to compete with someone’s child running around with her hand in a bag of wotsits, and various people who wouldn’t stop talking to other people…
We had hired cauldrons and had hot mulled cider and wine for people to warm up with, and whilst we were all outside mingling and snapping pictures the catering team were busily turning the church from a church into a reception venue, and literally, about 20 minutes later they were done, but we were off to the seafront for some alone time and some couple-only shots, which I will share at a later date. A couple of people described the place as similar to the great hall in harry potter, which wasn’t what I was aiming for but I was happy with the comparison!
When we got back to the Church everyone was in high spirits and enjoying playing with the fun bits I had put in bowls(painstakingly made of melted/shaped records which made our smell of burnt plastic for days!) on the table to keep them occupied with, stick on moustaches and little aeroplanes flying about, those rubbery popping things shooting around and people getting their fortunes read with the little flapping fish you normally get in crackers. There were also bread and carrot sticks with various dips on the table for people to munch on. I had designed fridge magnets as our favours in two different designs, so these were on each place setting with a hand written name tag attached to the started plate with a little heart sticker. My amazing uncle had also brewed some beer (he runs a brewery so it was proper ale!) for us and these had been put at every place setting too, and he had printed the labels from my wedding invite, and I had absolutely NO IDEA he was doing it, and apparently when I clocked the bottle on our table my face was a picture! Sam and I shared a sweetheart table of our own, with three long tables leading down from it, so we could see most things going on!      I had made a CD of some of our favourite 50’s and 60’s songs that played on a loop throughout dinner in the background, as the jukebox was a bit too loud!
 

 

I thought it would be a good idea to get the speeches out of the way first, so we cracked on. Obviously the content of our speeches is fairly personal, but needless to point out I definitely had something to say, and gifts to give so I did, and then we ate! After food and copious amount of drink being consumed we started to do the rounds, in a vain attempt to try and talk to everyone. I tell you this now, on your wedding day you will talk to everyone but say nothing of any great importance. As in, you’ll do the usual, “thanks for coming” “you look wonderful” “what an amazing ceremony” but nothing of any great consequence will be said and you will forget talking to people as many of the conversations will be the same, but DONT WORRY people understand and don’t hold against you the fact that you dash off as soon as the conversation hints at getting interesting and onto the next person, who has been hovering behind you looking eager and holding their camera.
After we’d eaten the top tables were moved to the sides to create a dance floor, with chairs round the outside for weary legs, along with the dessert table, which later became a cheese and biscuits and pic n mix table, which I forgot to visit! We cut the cake and did our first dance in fairly quick succession, and then I changed into a shorter dress (and Sam into a more casual black shirt) for more dancing! Sam chose our song ‘Feeling Good’ and I chose the artist, Muse… and we decided this the Wednesday before the wedding, stuck it on a CD and went with it!

[Sams mum is on the left, and my Mum is on the right, the ladies certainly enjoyed themselves!]


Still to come are our portrait shots, what I wore & details (decor/bouquet/jukebox etc!)
And as of writing this it is our 2 month-iversary, we were planning on going out for a nice dinner but I’m still fluey and wouldn’t enjoy it much, so we’re going next week instead!
[all photos were taken by the fabulous Laura McCluskey Photography ]

8 thoughts on “The Reception

  1. Ok, it looks like you did your reception in the Great Hall of Hogwards. It looks amazing and magic 🙂 I love the beer bottles and the cake as well. Sounds like your guests had an awesome time 😀
    x

  2. I love the labels on the beer bottles, they are so lovely. You did so well to organise it all. Can’t wait to hear the details on the dress. 🙂 x

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