Wedding Weekend : Reception

Immediately after the ceremony, our guests descended the stairs to the reception, where hors d’oeuvres were passed (I thought that was too fancy but the catering mgr insisted and didn’t charge us for them) and the bar was opened :

 

And after a few quick photos outside, we joined the party.

 

 

As soon as we got downstairs and my muscles stopped burning from my bouquet workout, I immediately realized we had a bit of a situation on our hands :

THE BAR LINE WAS AT LEAST 50 PEOPLE DEEP.

At first I laughed,

“hehehe, all our drunk crazy friends beelined straight for the booze… silly friends…”

… and after about 20 minutes and no reprieve to the wait, I marched up to the front to see what THA HELL was going on.

Homeboy and his bottle-poppin’ teammate were moving at snail paces, and didn’t even seem aware of the army of vapid, beer-hungry monsters in front of them.

“Oh, heyyyyyy! I was hopin I was gonna meet the bride! Whatchu want, girl? A beer?  How about a tequila sunrise? That’s my SPECIALTY. I make the best tequila sunr…”

Being a friendly & talkative bartender is fine – great actually.  AS LONG as you can work WHILE you conversate with the guests.  Dude could not. 

Plus, they turned around our “Suggested Drinks” sign (thanks, Jaym!) so they could use it as a “cheat sheet”.  Well guess what?  You don’t need to cheat if nobody can see the damn thing to order them!

Plus, do you really need assistance mixing 4 very standard cocktails?  You’re a shitbrain bartender, if you do.  (later proved when they asked “what bourbon is”.   FDIOAOISJWEKJPH!!!)

Double-fisting made avoiding lines (and invalids) easier.

 

(TRUTH : 99% of my drinks were brought to me, so I didn’t really have to deal with it, but thought it worth mentioning. Because I like bitching.)

Food came out, and I continued blabbering on trying to talk to everyone, until L finally shoved me into a chair with a plate in front of me.  So yes, all you smart asses can say ‘I told you so!’ – but I’d like it to be known that I didn’t forget to eat, I simply lost track of time.

 

(minor food-related dilemma mentioned in the ‘Bridezilla Attacks’ post will not be re-mentioned here, for sake of my blood pressure and me trying to forget about it.)

This actually worked out well since it was just about time for Best Man & Maid of Honor speeches.

(Those are glaringly accurate summarizations, btw.)

We had Pop Rocks Cleveland, a pop cover band, as our entertainment rather than a deejay.  Does that sound weird?  A rock band covering pop music?  Imagine guitar-wielding, long-haired, bar band dudes playing Britney Spears, NKOTB, Patrick Swayze, and Journey – with a rock edge.  Seriously, awesome.  I don’t care how weird you think it sounds.  They kicked ass.

After our first dance (read about that here) the band kicked it up and the party was officially underway. 

Uhhh…

People, let me give you one piece of wedding guest advice, straight from the horse’s bride’s mouth  :  

I don’t care how how much you hate dancing, how stupid you look doing it, how “not drunk enough” you are, or how bad your feet hurt – throw back a shot, take off your heels, and GET YOUR ASS ON THE DANCE FLOOR.

I refused to sit down – not because I was having such a blast swaying side to side in my super un-flexible dress and too-high heels, getting my eardrums blasted out and not being able to talk to anybody – No, it was because I thought the party would be O-V-E-R if the floor was empty for a second.

“Nobody is having fun!  Make people get out here so it looks like they are!  Come on!  Grandma!  Come dance!!!

Seriously, there’s nothing more stressful to a bride (or maybe just me) than thinking people aren’t having a good time.  So do your civic duty and shake your ass like a good wedding patron, even if you have to fake it.  For the bride’s sake.

Once the lights finally went down (that huge skylight came back to bite me) and everyone was good and liquored up, they finally made their way out and jammed like the fools we knew they were.

The band played one more slow song, and (to our utter dismay) everybody formed an embarrassing circle around us and watched us dance 8th-grade-style like the awkward white folk we are.  Luckily I had Bud to keep me company…

And, as you can tell from the above photo, my train is un-bustled.  Yeah… revisit L’s Bridezilla post if you need refreshed on the (hilarious) wreckage that Journey + her boyfriend equals out to.

The band finished with one of our all-time favorites – ‘Boys of Summer’ – which we jumped/yelled/hugged like idiots to.  Instant nostalgia to house parties & carefree summer shenanigans with L, SheaShea, and the Corntown boys. 

sigh…

The Summer of ’05 reminiscing eventually ended and we stumbled across the street for the After Party at Corner Alley.  More on that later :)

Sarah OUaL