Wednesday, January 12, 2011

All My Love, All My Life: Celebrations!

Once our guests had noshed and drank, chatted and took shelter from the rain, we gave the go-ahead to our DOC to start the party!  

We opted not to introduce our bridal party but our (hands-down-best-wedding-decision-ever) band introduced us to much cheering and clapping, as evidenced by our insanely happy and mildly embarrassed faces.


Notice how I'm holding my dress up in the photo above? That's because my seamstress never put the hook-and-eye bustle in like she said she would.  I didn't discover this until it was too late but thank goodness I included safety pins in my bathroom baskets! 

We chose Sonny and Cher's "I Got You, Babe" as our first dance and it was perfect.  We immediately started singing along because it's one of the best songs ever to belt out, especially when you call each other "babe" on a constant basis.  It felt like the song was written for us.





We had arranged with The Characters beforehand to invite everyone to join us on the dance floor for the second half of the song and it was one of my favorite moments of the night.  Everyone was singing and smiling and we were literally surrounded by love.







Since neither of us are particularly notable dancers and we're both pretty shy about dancing in public (unless we've consumed copious amounts of alcohol.  But it was too early in the reception to be that drunk, ha), taking about a minute to do the middle-school-shuffle and then having all our guests join us was the perfect compromise.

After the song ended, I danced with my dad while Mr Trail Mix danced with his mom.  After about a minute, my mom and FIL joined us and we ended up in a (spontaneous) group hug.  Another amazing moment.

We danced to John Lennon's "Beautiful Boy" (although the band replaced "boy" with "child," to make it gender specific.)










And finally, we danced the Hora! I love this dance at weddings and in spite of our troubles finding an acceptable version of Hava Nagila (we ended up downloading EIGHT different versions, none of which were perfect.  Thanks, iTunes) the Hora was a total blast.



Mr Trail Mix seemed to have zero fear being hoisted in the air on a rickety wooden chair by his (mostly) not-sober fraternity brothers.



I, on the other hand, experienced a large amount of fear, as evidenced by my face in the photo below.



It's funny because I remember at the time thinking how high up I was and that if I fell, I might actually die.  But then I looked at photos and saw that I was really only about 5-6' in the air. Huh.



MIL Trail Mix also loved the chair.



Mom Trail Mix did not (like mother, like daughter!)



Brother Trail Mix got in on the fun too!



I don't think our band had performed at a Jewish wedding before ours because witnessing our maniacal, crazy Hora dance left them momentarily silent after the song ended, before the main singer yelled out "OK, you guys are crazy!"

I swear, I have it on video tape and it is awesome. 

And then, The Characters launched into a rockin', riotous version of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Have You Ever Seen The Rain?" and the crowd went nuts.  We danced, shouting the lyrics and pumping our firsts, and finally embraced the weather as part of the experience.  







The band hit a few more classics after this song ended, including a Beatles' medley (best. thing. ever.), Build Me Up, Buttercup and Shout. It was glorious.


The band finished up their first set in about an hour and it was finally time to eat!

Follow along, if ya want!

All My Love, All My Life: Cocktail Hour and Reception Details






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