My Wedding Reception!!!

WARNING: Lengthy post!
   One year ago today was my wedding!  However, it is not my one year anniversary.  Thursday (23rd) will be our 2 year anniversary.  Our engagement and marriage thus far has been unconventional to say the least.  Unless of course this military is involved in your marriage, then it is actually, sort of normal.  I basically coerced Louis in proposing to me in April 2008.  He was planning to, then chickened out and told me he didn't think he wanted to get married at all. (He'll hate me for telling you this.  And by the way, he was the one who had brought up the subject of getting married while he was still in the Marines.)  After a night of screaming and crying and being locked in the same hotel room together, he went to work the next morning while I sat alone in the hotel with no electricity.  Awesome.  That afternoon, he told me he didn't know what he was thinking the night before and asked me to marry him (with no ring.   So I told him EXACTLY what ring he was going to buy me.  He was somehow oblivious the concept of proposing with a ring.... Yeah.)  Once that was done, we sent a date for December 19, 2009; the day I graduated from college.  But, he decided to fast track everything in October 2008 so that we could be married before his first deployment.  He didn't give me time to plan a wedding and I had already bought a dress.  Also, he was kind of wishy-washy about when we were going to do it.  Finally, on December 23rd, after rushing around and trying to get to the county clerks office before they closed at like 2:00 pm (this is how he plans things, seriously) and then sitting in the basement of his dad's church for while, we got married.  Just us, our parents and his sister.  We had the mutual agreement to keep the wedding/party date of Dec 19, 2009.  And it was an awesome party!

   Like a total weirdo, I themed the wedding around my favorite place in the world.  This may not sound odd because people have Paris and Roman themed weddings all the time.  Well, my favorite place in the world happens to be Central America, specifically Costa Rica and Honduras.  (I even have a Pura Vida tattoo and intend to expand it into an entire Central American thigh piece.)  The colors were deep emerald green and red orange.  My mom and I bought hand woven table runners and table toppers in Honduras that are made by a lovely little Guatemalan woman.  The centerpieces were really simple and elegant with birds of paradise (my favorite!) and big tropical leaves. (I actually arranged them myself, they were that easy.) And we had jars of Doka Estate coffee everywhere!  Oh, and mine and my bridesmaids shoes were dyed "persimmon"!  The setting of the barn at Travellers Rest Plantation (my favorite field trip destination as a kid) set the mood perfectly!

   Food was a major part of getting the theme across!  I worked with the woman who made our cakes to plan out a menu then she headed over to her friends at The Mad Platter for the execution.  I am so glad we worked with them; it was WAY too hard to find a caterer who would do a custom menu.  It was phenomenal!  The owner of The Mad Platter actually owns property in Costa Rica so he was right on board with what I wanted!  We had roasted pulled pork, Veracruz style fish, rice and black beans, roasted plantains, fresh corn tortillas, salad with mango and papaya... I think that's it.  It was everything I wanted (for a very reasonable price!)  If you need a huge event catered (or small....) I absolutely recommend The Mad Platter!

Buffet being set up.

My friends Krista and Andrew seriously enjoying their food!

   I have briefly mentioned our cakes before.  But now, let me tell you how truly amazing they were!  I didn't want any huge fancy cake.  Overall, the wedding was very understated and a giant, garish cake in the corner would have been distracting.  I also feel the fancier that a cake is the less delicious it is because they have to make the cake so far in advanced in order to complete all the decoration on time.  So I may not have had the prettiest cake ever, but it was so so sooo good!  The vanilla cake was ridiculously moist and the tangy, homemade lemon curd filling was perfect.  Simple buttercream (in not too thick of a layer) set it off perfectly!  The groom's cake was chocolate with a mocha filling and ganche.  Louis could have eaten half of the cake himself.  He was so in love with it; he didn't even look at me while he was eating it.  Flour Girls is owned by the sister-in-law of a family friend, and I am so happy we went with them.  Seriously, we had the best wedding cakes ever.  I am not being biased here!

We are smiling stupidly because it was so delicious!

   Overall, the night was absolutely amazing!  And I was really happy that there were plenty of leftovers because we ate them over our honeymoon (saved money, didn't have to drive down the scary mountain in the snow, and didn't have to leave the cabin!)  Except that Louis ate all the pulled pork when I wasn't looking one day. 

This pretty accurately sums us up.

Photos by Chip Talbert