zhie | Wedding Reception Recap

Hall was very easy to find. Very nice place; disappointing that it rained, as there is a private garden otherwise that looked really nice from the pictures.

Sat at the bar for about an hour until more people started to arrive. DJ was a little loud for the size of the venue, but was very professional and did a good job with all of the 'extras' of the reception (bouquet tossing, garter grabbing, etc.)

Was a very happy reception -- you see, the groom, at this time last year, had emergency heart surgery for something hereditary that his father died of & then developed sepsis. He nearly ended up on the heart transplant list. As it is, his heart only operates at something like 22%.

And, the bride tore her calf muscle about five weeks ago. So even the walking down the aisle was incredible for them.

Highlights...

The bride's 99 year old grandmother dancing to 'YMCA' and 'Tonight's Gonna Be a Good Night'. And I'm not just talking shifting from one foot to the other. I mean, she was putting people 1/4 her age to shame!

The bride grabbing the microphone and hauling the single men to the center for the garter tossing, including a guy I decided could have passed for an elf, who attempted to hide by the wedding cake until she DRAGGED him over, announcing his full name to everyone :D

The bride's son caught the garter. When the woman who caught the bouquet came up, she sat on his lap and everyone was laughing quite a lot -- except the DJ. When he dared ask her name, all she said was "I'm his aunt". Which would have made the song that they played next for them to dance to even funnier ("Secret Lovers"). Instead, the DJ kindly allowed her to choose someone else for her nephew to dance with (she picked the nephew's girlfriend, which was really sweet, while she danced with their two year old daughter).

The speech by the best man. He brought out a small piece of paper first on the research he had done on what to do for the speech, and then said he learned the speech was to be between five and ten minutes. So he pulls out a SCROLL and lets it drop down and roll off the table. Priceless. And soooooo finding its way into a fanfic.

Only real oddity on the reception was the seat yourself part. Made for a little confusion, and also ended up that we sat with people we completely didn't know (that Mark later compared to Stepford Wives). Actually, when they left to dance, he leaned over and said to me 'what the fuck, are we on Wisteria Lane?' By the time we moved to the reception, though, people had moved themselves to different areas and we were sitting by people I somewhat knew. Plus, when you're never really going to see these people again, it's not so bad. Just weird.