Our Wedding: The Party

Continued....and it only took me 3 months (today!) to get the entire wedding story posted.
I have to back up and tell the kazoo story. A week after we got engaged, we had plans to visit friends in Pittsburgh. It was the first time that two of my girls had met The Pilot and with the engagement news, it was a very exciting visit. Well one of my friends’ husbands randomly suggested that we use kazoos instead of bubbles or bird seed when we left the church. The Pilot and I loved the idea! One of the first wedding related packages we received in the mail was a box full of kazoos. It was going to be quirky, just like us!

My brother holding the church door and going to town with his kazoo!

My niece in deep concentration!

Once my dress was bustled and I had changed my shoes, we headed back to the sanctuary. As we turned towards the doors, my godfather rang the tower bells and we saw all of our friends and family standing outside, humming into their kazoos. It was hysterical. Normally you hear cheering and whistling when a bride and groom leave the church. Instead, we heard this dull humming noise and it was perfect! But not as perfect as our getaway transportation…
We walked past our loved ones to the end of the sidewalk, where we found a pedicab waiting. I think this was The Pilot's idea. We went to a Muse concert last fall and after the show, there were a bunch of pedicabs offering rides out to the arena parking lot. I know we commented on how hard it must for the driver to haul people around. I have enough trouble getting myself going on a bike! Anyways, it was a bright yellow pedicab with a “Just Married” sign on the back (which I made). The Pilot helped me in (I’m so glad we bustled the dress prior to this!) and we took a minute to take some pictures before the driver drove off into the sunset… or just drove us around the parking lot and pulled up to the back entrance of the church. It was so much fun and fit our personalities perfectly!

Our guests headed to the reception, which was just a couple miles from the church. I had one photo that I wanted to get before heading to the reception though. Everyone knows that I spend more time with my Team in Training family than I do with my own family sometimes. And they really are a family. I asked the TNT coaches, trainers and staff to bring their running shoes to the ceremony and hang around at the church for a few minutes after the ceremony. Once we finished with the pedicab pictures, I did a couple of group shots with my team. We were all dressed up…with our running shoes on! I love that my TNT family all humored me and changed into their running shoes for me.
My friends picked on me because I was overly organized with all things wedding. But when an event planner gets to planner her wedding, watch out! This girl ran a tight ship! So much so that we ended up getting to the reception about 20 minutes early! The reception venue wasn’t quite ready for us yet. We wanted to make a grand entrance but they needed to plate the salads first so the bridal party stalled outside in the shade. Soon enough, the coordinator came out and let us know once they were ready and we entered from the side of the building and came inside from a deck that overlooks a pond. When The Pilot and I first started dating, I kept hearing the song, Sweet Disposition by The Temper Trap. Every time I heard the song, I would think of him and I guess you could sort of call it “our song.” It’s not really something you can dance to though so we used that music to make our entrance.

We made our way to the head table and my MOH, The Pilot’s matron of awesome and my dad all gave wonderful toasts. Julie kept it clean and didn’t tell any stories from our college days but she did tell everyone how she knew I had met “the one.” I had told her I met someone and that I thought he was pretty cool but she knew it was serious when I told her he was moving in with me…and bringing his worms. She figured if I would let someone bring worms to do composting in the house, then I must really love the guy. Oh so true! The Pilot's Matron of Awesome also gave a great speech and it was a great kick off to the party.
We opted for a vegetarian menu for multiple reasons. The obvious is that The Pilot is a veggisauraus and I would say that 99% of the meals we share together, I also eat vegetarian. Another bonus was that it kept the cost down and we didn't have the logistics of multiple entree choices. We didn't want something that was obviously missing meat (no tofu or fake meat) so we went with cheese tortellini in an herb sauce with squash and zucchini. It was so yummy and I don't think people even realized it was vegetarian.

My favorite part of the meal though was, hands down, the cake. The Pilot's cousin works at a bakery and offered to bake the cake for us....and drive it from Ft. Wayne, Indiana to Columbus. :) Our moms were both concerned about the cake traveling that far but I figured even if the cake fell out of the car, it wouldn't be the end of the world. I sent her some pictures of a cake we liked and told her what flavors we liked and this is what she delivered
Isn't it beautiful?! And it was probably the best cake I've ever had. I had two slices it was so good and would have had more if there would have been some extra space in that dress! Even three months later, people still mention that cake and how good it was! I will say that we were very civil with the cake cutting. We cut small pieces and fed each other with forks....no shoving it up each others noses. The funniest part of the cake cutting was my 3-year old nephew. Just as The Pilot and I were finishing feeding each other, I hear "Aunt Amber, can I have a slice??" I looked behind me and there was my brother, holding little G so he could see all of the action. Super cute! If the wedding coordinator hadn't been ushering us to the dance floor for the first dance, we would have given little G the first slice. :)

We both were nervous about the first dance to Van Morrison's Someone Like You. Neither of us can dance and we had only danced together once before in public. (It was actually at the matron of awesome's wedding back in April!) We had practiced at home a few times but we both ended up laughing at each other. We just couldn't seem to take it seriously. We figured we'd try to actually dance but if it all fell apart, we could always just pretend we were in the 7th grade and would sway back and forth together. We also had an escape plan....we were supposed to nod to the DJ when to cut out the song. We picked a 4+ minute long song and were afraid that would feel like an eternity on the dance floor. About 2 minutes in, we started looking at the DJ but he wouldn't look up from his computer! We kept spinning around, trying to make eye contact but no such luck! We made it through the entire song and we were laughing through most of it as we tried to make eye contact with the DJ!
We made it through our first dance and then my dad and I were up. We danced to the Beach Boys' God Only Knows. While my dad and I don't take much seriously (as you can see from the first picture), it was a bittersweet moment for both of us.
The Pilot and his mom danced to Dean Martin's Always. Aren't they super cute?!
The rest of the night was a little bit of a blur. I just remember how happy everyone seemed. Everyone seemed to be having such a good time. That was one of the things I noticed from
the wedding video, everyone was smiling and laughing and having a great time and ultimately, that is what The Pilot and I wanted.

Some of the standout moments from the night included the Cha Cha Slide (a personal favorite) and one of The Pilot's grandmas dancing right along side us!

She's so awesome!My nephew is a dancing machine and we all got a kick out of watching his sweet moves. I have a feeling he's going to be a wild one once he gets older...

"Blowin' it up"

What are you doing, G? "I'm shakin' my tail!"

Practicing his lifts with his dad

We also had a photo booth at the reception and it was a big hit! Instead of signing a guest book, we had everyone put their pictures in a scrapbook. The Pilot and I has a blast looking through the pictures the next morning. That photo booth initiated a lot of kissing that night! I won't get too mean and post the really embarrassing photos but here are a few of my favorites.

My brother and his lovely wife. This is totally normal.

I told you G is going to be wild when her gets older. A three years-old, he already looks like a drunken frat boy. All of these photos were unprompted. My brother just told him his picture was being taken and this is what happened.

How many Team in Training coaches, trainers and staff can fit into one photo booth?
A lot apparently.

My only regret? Not getting into the photo booth with The Pilot more often. There is only one picture of us in there!

So that's the wedding story! I can't believe it's been 3 months already! I love him more and more each day....even when he leaves his pot holder out.