Ultimate Wedding Week {The Reception}

Our ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception were all held at my church...the ceremony in the church {obviously}, cocktails in the Mary Garden courtyard outside the old church, and the reception in Parish Hall {the old church}. At first when we were looking at venues, I was very against the idea of having our reception there, but in the end, I am so glad we did. It was so nice to have everything in one place so guests didn't have to drive all over the place, and I think they all appreciated that too.

In the last post, I left you with TJ and I and the bridal party leaving the ceremony to go to downtown Zionsville for pictures. Since I can't skip right to the reception without showing you those, here are a few of my favorites....

I'm thinking, alright, enough of these pictures....let's get this party started!

in the limo heading back to church...

While the wedding party was downtown doing all the pictures, the rest of our guests were enjoying a New Orleans Cocktail Hour. If you've been following the rest of my posts, you may have heard me mention that we had a New Orleans theme to our wedding. I went to Tulane University for undergrad, and ever since then, NOLA has had a special place in my heart. I wanted to incorporate a New Orleans/Mardi Gras twist to things {a little lagniappe as they say}, and that really came into play with the cocktail hour and reception. Since the cocktail hour was actually a little longer than an hour {we couldn't do pictures that fast}, we had a Jazz Band come play while guests sipped on hurricanes {our specialty drink} and ate hors d'oeuvres {mini crab cakes with remoulade, mini BLTs, and gumbo shooters}. In addition to liquor, wine, and the traditional beer, we also had Abita beer which is brewed in Abita Springs, just north of New Orleans. 

plenty of Mardi Gras beads for people to grab before heading into the party

they were awesome and created the perfect atmosphere

my mom and our family friend, Tammy, dragging all my stuff from church

everyone enjoying themselves...

making our entrance...

first stop...I want a hurricane!

It had started to get cloudy and the sky looked somewhat threatening  as we wrapped up the cocktail hour and started the reception around 5:30. I was kind of worried how we were going to get everyone inside in a timely manner, but there were {a few} raindrops right at 5:30, so people went inside in a hurry! The rain stopped shortly afterward and turned into a beautiful evening, but I can still say that we had rain on our wedding day! {a sign of good luck, for sure}

Before dinner could start, we had to make our grand entrance, and the bridal partied danced in to "When the Saints Go Marching In."

For dinner, we had a plated salad {already on the tables} with a buffet following. Our caterer was awesome and got so into our New Orleans theme too, so we had shrimp and jambalaya in addition some more traditional {but very yummy} food. Everything was so good, but I hardly ate anything {just like everyone says} because I wasn't really hungry and we had to make our rounds and talk with everyone. 

I was so excited for our cake {white chocolate raspberry}, and I was not disappointed, but I was sad that I only got 2 or 3 bites before we had to do our first dance, father/daughter and mother/son dances, and toasts. Thankfully, our top tier held up very well and we thoroughly enjoyed it on our first anniversary!

"Sugar, Sugar" played while we cut the cake

No cake smashing for us :)

First dance to Bon Jovi's "Thank You for Loving Me"

Father/daughter dance to "Isn't She Lovely"

Mother/son dance to Backstreet Boys' "The Perfect Fan"

Robyn's Maid of Honor toast...definitely made me cry

Joe's Best Man toast

He definitely had us all cracking up...

Then came my dad's toast, in the form of a letter to me, starting from when I was a baby. I don't think there was a dry eye in the room.

I love you Dad!

Once I finished drying my eyes, it was time for dancing! We all danced the night away and had a blast! It was so hard choosing what pictures I wanted to include...there were so many good ones. Here are a few, along with our bouquet and garter toss photos.

me and some of my high school girls

This may have been Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer"

My grandma {my dad's mom} and my grandpa {my mom's dad}

Bouquet toss to Beyonce's "Single Ladies"

Going for the garter to Rod Stewart's "Hot Legs"

Me and my Chi Omega sisters singing the traditional "Shades"

Oh, and I don't think I mentioned that my hubby can seriously break it down on the dance floor...I'm still so surprised that he actually did this because he can get really shy getting in front of people, but I think everyone was glad that he did. Hilarious.

Cracking up to TJ's dancing

Air guitars!

This picture cracks me up...you think we were meant for each other?

Before I knew it, the night was coming to an end. We had our last dance to Donna Summer's "Last Dance" then made our exit to Eddie Money's "Take Me Home Tonight."

Of course the tears came out again...I was so happy, but just couldn't believe that our wedding was over already!

Good night!

Thanks for sticking with me through that whole post! It has been so fun going through all my pictures again, but it's so hard to choose just a few to share! I'm linking up with Natasha at Hello! Happiness today...I'll be back on Friday to share all the fun little details of our wedding day! Have a good day!

emily