Our wedding reception was held at the Houston Racquet Club. It was really convenient because it was only about 10 minutes from the church and everything was included from hor' douerves, salad, entree, coffee bar, etc. Plus, it was really convenient for a lot of last minute things like table numbers, stands for frames, things you don't even think about until the week before the wedding!
The reception started with a cocktail hour and hor' douerves. Jonathan and I didn't get to partake in this part since we were busy taking pictures but we heard good things about it. The rest of the reception was upstairs in the ballroom. The room looked beautiful. Everyone table had a blue hydrangea center piece. I didn't really care about the flowers except that they were blue but they came out amazing! The ceiling was lit blue and all of the chairs had a blue sash on them. If you know me I love blue so of course I loved it, but I thought it was so elegant and simple. We had our own sweetheart table which was great because we actually got to eat dinner and cake and drink our champagne. We were so paranoid about that from other people's horror stories about how the bride and groom never gets to eat because they're too busy. All the food was amazing but I'll get to that in a second.
To start off the party, each member of the wedding party was introduced before introducing Jonathan and I as husband and wife for the first time! Everyone gave us a standing ovation which was not expected and really sweet. Once we sat down it was time for my dad's speech to welcome everyone. He told a really cute story about when I was around 4 years old and my parents were talking about how I was going to get married some day and he's probably older than me so you know what that means, he's out there! It was a cute story and it made everyone laugh. He also passed on some advice that was the same advice that my Great Grandfather said to my Grandfather when grandparents were getting married which was "Be good to her." So my father's advice to us was to be good to eachother which I think is really sweet and kind of sums up what a successful marriage is. Then Fr. Mike blessed the food and it was on to dinner! We started with a salad and freshly made rolls. Apparently, some members of the wedding party were really obsessed with the rolls and kept ordering more haha. Everything was delicious! The main course was chicken provencal. It was a pretty hearty dish: saffron risotto, a huge chicken breast, with a tomato and olive sauce. I only got through about half of mine but it was so good. I was a little anxious to finish dinner because after that we got to go from table to table and chat with everyone and take pictures with each table. We decided to do this instead of a receiving line to make things go a lot faster and to make sure that we got a picture with everyone. It was so great actually getting to talk to all of our guests and seeing how happy and excited they were for us.
Next it was onto the toasts! Rachel started and gave a funny little summary of how awesome our friendship is even though no one will ever really know except for us! We have our own secret sign language! It was a really sweet toast. Michael was next and, funny story, Jonathan didn't give Michael a head's up that he was going to give a toast! I guess Jonathan had told him that he could give a toast if he liked or not. Nevermind sharing that information with me or the wedding planner lol! Michael gave an amazing toast nonetheless and almost made me cry! He said that I was the best thing that ever happened to Jonathan and that you can tell that Jonathan's so much happier since I came along. How sweet! And then he continued to talk about boy things and their college days and video games...lol. It was a great toast though.
After that, Jonathan and I got to have our first dance as husband and wife. We danced to 'At Last' by Etta James. We picked this song really early on in our engagement. It was actually Jonathan's idea. We didn't really have 1 song to make our first dance. We've had a lot of songs that we've like over the years but none seemed first dance material. We both thought that At Last was the perfect choice because it such a beautiful song and it was kind of funnily true in our case. (Yes funnily is a word. I just made it up!) On the day that we got married, we had been together for 5 and a half years. You can imagine that pretty much everyone we knew was like, What is the problem? Why aren't you married yet??? So we got a few chuckles when the song started. Sadly, a few months before our wedding Etta James passed away, but we thought that the song would still be nice as a tribute to her. Jonathan sang pretty much the entire song to me as we danced. It was really cute. I thought I'd be all nervous with everyone watching us and be embarrassed but I really didn't pay any attention except for the two of us dancing. It was a really nice moment.
Next was the father daughter dance. My dad wanted to explain the song beforehand which I had no idea what he was going to talk about. He picked "Once, Twice, Three Times a Lady" because it was the song that my mom and dad danced to on their first date, which, coincidentally, was exactly 7 years before I was born to the day. That part got a big "awwww." It was a very cute story.
And of course the mother son dance! Jonathan helped his mom pick out the song. She was having a hard time picking a song because she was trying to think of all the traditional mother son dance songs but couldn't find one that she liked. Jonathan suggested she picked a song from a Venezuelan group that she has always liked. He said that when him and his brothers were young, one of those songs would come on the radio and she'd want to dance with them. Of course they didn't want to dance so she would chase them around the kitchen and finally catch them and be able to dance for the last bit of the song. Jonathan told his mom, I can't run away from you this time so why don't you pick one of those songs? She was really touched that he thought of that so that's what they danced to. Of course all of the Venezuelans started clapping and screaming/singing along with the song. It was really fun and that got everyone else to clap along.
Then it was time for everyone to join in. Let me tell you, I was afraid that the dance floor would be empty at our wedding. Jonathan and I don't really dance so I didn't know how much our friends would dance. Everyone was on the dance floor though! We had so many people dancing that the floor actually started bouncing. I found out the next day that we even made our cake topper topple off and smash into the ground. People were a little afraid to tell me because they thought I'd be upset, but I just thought it was hilarious and impressive that we danced so much. (The cake topper was inexpensive and easily replaceable.) What a great story to tell our kids! Jonathan and I have never danced as much as we did at our wedding haha.
Of course we had cake too! Jonathan made me promise not to get any cake in his face.... Party pooper!
And the traditional bouquet and garter toss!
We also had board games available in case people didn't want to dance. I think everyone was too busy to notice though haha!
We also had 3 different guest books: one normal guest book, a puzzle of one of our engagement photos that everyone signed, and quilt squares that everyone signed. My mom quilts and is currently making us a quilt with all of the squares! I can't wait!!!
For our last dance we danced to "Hey There Delilah" by the Plain White T's. It's kind of a weird song to dance to but it's been a special song during our relationship. It related to us a lot when we were long distance for three years and Jonathan would sing it to me over the phone when we missed each other. We thought it was the perfect song for our last dance.
Then it was time to our big exit! All of our guests got bubbles for our grand exit. Everyone had a blast and made sure there were tons of bubbles for our big exit!
I did it! An entire recap of our wedding! Tomorrow we'll be spending Thanksgiving with my parents and then we're heading off to New Orleans for the weekend! It's our first trip since the honeymoon. I'll be sure to post about our trip when we get back! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!
-Chelsey
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