I'm Yours

We last left you here at the end of the Ceremony...and on we go.  Warning this post has lots and lots of pictures and may crash your computer :) 

Reception

We arrived at the reception right on time!  I was pretty impressed with how well I had planned out travel times and what not (even if it meant not enough time for all the pictures I wanted).  Our DJ, Colby Logan, came out to welcome and congratulate us and asked if we were ready to make our way in.  At this point, I was informed that our second photographer (who had been sent ahead to get pictures of the reception set up before everyone got there), my mom, brother, and sister in law had all gotten lost.  We couldn’t start without them!  So we waited a little longer and Colby did some entertaining until everyone was able to get there.  And then the fun began.

Our bridal party was introduced and danced into the room to “Stereo Hearts.”  

We soon joined behind them and got ready for our dance.

Our dance started out like any other first dance…swaying.  But a few lines in and we started the choreography.  I was so impressed by Jason and myself.  We remembered each of the steps and got lots of claps and cheers.  In the middle of the song, we were sure to insert a little segment for us to just hold each other and take in the moment.  I am so glad we did this.  There’s so much that happens on your wedding day that these moments are truly invaluable.  Then we went right back to breaking it down.  And then the big lift!  It was so much fun.  I don’t think I’ve ever smiled that big in all of my life! These pictures are out of order but you get the idea.  Also, here's our song to go along with the pictures.  

  

Now it was time to eat.  My Aunt Carol was gracious enough to say the prayer before the meal.  She had only been asked to do this one day prior.  Originally, Jason's grandfather was going to be doing this for us, but was ill just before our wedding and was not able to make it.  Aunt Carol's prayer was so heartfelt and beautiful!

I remember very little about eating.  From what I hear, the salmon was excellent.  I know we had time to eat, as the Hilton brought us our plates and gave us a sweetheart table.  But, we also had a good number of people come to talk with us as we eat.  I’m not complaining, it ensured that I didn’t miss saying hello to them!  After getting down what we could Jason and I began to greet our guests and thank them for coming.  We made the mistake of starting with our family…don’t get me wrong, I love our family, but I think this resulted in us not saying hello and thank you to some people and that makes me sad because I appreciate so much everyone who was there!  I'm going to take this moment to share some pictures of our decorations.

When we were about half way done with greeting everyone, we were informed it was time to “cut” the cake!  Oh man I was so excited for this! Our baker was amazing.  Instead of cutting a cake, as we had cupcakes, we jointly ate a cupcake from each of our cakes.  Good decision.  It was a lot of fun, and delicious!  Everyone was very impressed by the cupcakes.  *sidenote* Our cupcakes also helped to fuel/feed Jason’s cousin who was gearing up for the Marathon Olympic trials in a few days.  I think he had leftover cupcakes for breakfast for the next week J

We moved on to the toasts.  But first, Colby had a little game in mind. We were seated back to back and asked a number of questions.  If our answer to the questions was “Rebecca” we would hold up a Gig’em and if it was “Jason” we would hold up a Hook’em.  Colby asked us lots of questions about who would do the cooking/cleaning; who took care of finances; who was more athletic; who was more competitive; who had the crazier family….and lots of other fun questions.  We got some pretty great pictures out of this! Although from the pictures it would seem that we disagreed on a lot of the questions J

And then it was Paul’s turn to give his toast.  Paul and Jason have been best friends since forever and I can’t imagine anyone better to have given this toast.  He was so sincere and wonderful!  Now it was my sister’s turn.  I knew that she had been working on this toast for awhile, but man I was not expecting the epic-ness of her toast.  She wrote out a 2 page poem for us and there was lots of laughter and some tears!  I love my sister so much!  She gave me a copy of the toast to keep in our keepsake book. 

Next, my dad and I had our Father Daughter dance.  I wanted to be a little unique and choose something a little different than the typical father daughter dance.  We danced to Sweet Child of Mine by Taken by Trees.  It was very nice, and Colby did a nice job of cutting the song off (as The Taken by Trees version is no shorter than the Guns n Roses version). 

  And then it was time to PARTY!  We set off the dance floor and everyone started to get down…(here are some of our favorite pictures)

And of course there was a very special dance with my Papa Joe, some Aggie War Hymning, Longhorn Fight Songing, flower and garter tossing, and a very sweet mother son dance...

  

  

As the night went on, I had to keep reminding myself that all of this was real.  I remember an intense feeling of gratitude for everyone who had been able to make it.  I had friends who had traveled from different states, Jason’s whole family had come from Houston and Michigan, Paul had used his precious time off just to make sure he would be at our wedding, and everyone was there that we loved. 

  

Our hotel coordinator and Colby started to ask us about timing and when we wanted to start winding down.  It was at this point I started to think about my overnight bag and tip money that was in my purse.  As I started to ask around, I realized all of this was in my car…that was still at the church.  My sister and brother in law reassured me not to worry.  I went back to the dance floor for one final dance with all of our family and friends.  My uncle was rallying the crowd to rush in around Jason and I and give us giant group hugs. I was holding tightly to my new husband radiating with pure joy.  And then one of Jason’s family members (Christina) prompted the crowd to lift me up.  Okay, I was a little hesitant about this…but there was no time to protest.  Before I knew it I had been hoisted into the air. 

  And then the song was over and the guests were asked to leave the reception room and gather out in the hallway.

Jason and I were left alone for one last dance.  We danced to “Save the Best for Last.” We smiled and teared up; we held each other tighter than ever before; we laughed that we had really pulled it all off; and we basked in our new life together.  It was perfect.

And then we ran through the hallway of streamers (which I had made) that led us to our elevator to go up to our honeymoon suite.  We decided not to do an exit to our car (and good thing because my car was still at the church) because we were staying at the same hotel.  So instead we kept our “exit” in doors and went straight to the elevator.  Of course the elevator we ended up getting on was the wrong one…which is a shame because then we got pictures of us in the slightly less nice looking elevator.  

  

 

 

 

So we awkwardly rode up and down and back up another elevator with our photographer in tow.  We arrived at our room where a flower had been placed on the door.  We took a few final pictures and then retreated for the evening. 

After Party

Okay, not really.  Actually, we waited around until the sister and brother in law got back to the hotel with our overnight bags and car.  While we were waiting a Hilton staff member brought us chocolate covered strawberries and champagne.  We did a quick change and then headed down stairs to see some of Jason’s Michigan family before they headed off the next day.  Then we went outside to find our car decorated and all fun and headed to Love and War in Texas.  Here we were met by some of our closest friends.  We stayed for a couple of hours, thanked everyone one more time, and then drove back to the hotel.  

We said goodbye to Paul, who would have to return to North Carolina in the morning.  There was a moment where I thought Paul would be staying the night with us in our suite, because Jason was pretty sad to say goodbye, but after some hugs he headed back downstairs to hang out with Jason’s family who was still partying the night away.

The Next Morning

We woke up the next morning we were awakened by a knock on the door with a kind gentleman who brought a lovely breakfast, complete with our wedding day napkins.  We enjoyed our final moments in our suite and then packed up our things (including my wedding dress) and headed downstairs to checkout.  We then headed back to Jason’s apartment, which was now our apartment!  We relaxed for a little while and then went to my mom’s to pick up our gifts and some leftover cupcakes!  I am so grateful for my mom (and all the other angels) who helped to clean up after the wedding.  It’s amazing that these things got done, and I didn’t even have to worry about them!  We then headed to Mass for our first time as a married couple J J

We went back home and rested the next couple of days…getting ready for our HONEYMOON!!!

You’ve done it!  You’ve made it to the end!  That was our amazing wedding weekend, a weekend I will never forget and will forever be grateful to everyone who helped us to make it so special!

The VrlyFries