The Wedding Details – Part 3

(You can read Part 1 and Part 2 here.)

Again I want to commend Grand Cru Catering. The food was absolutely amazing. I got nothing but compliments from everyone. Dinner:

Slow Roasted Beef Shoulder Tender with Chimichurri Sauce

Cedar Planked Bristol Bay Sockeye Salmon with Walla Walla Sweet Onion and Tomato Relish

Basmati Rice Pilaf with Orange, Saffron and Pistachios

Grilled and Marinated Vegetable Display (grilled, raw and pickled veggies)

Romaine, Baby Spinach and Rogue River Blue Salad, Toasted Hazelnuts, Apple and Honey-Sherry Vinaigrette

The salad was so amazing! My favorite thing I think. Everything was so good too.

I should have eaten a little bit more than I did because one thing I realized later…I was going to drink a lot! It’s not like it was a conscious thing, it’s just that someone was always handing me a glass or bottle of beer. I never actually went to the bar or asked for it. Maybe it was the wait staff keeping tabs to make sure Michael and I always had a drink, but it was all a blur so I don’t really know where my drinks appeared from. LOL Definitely drank more than I normally do and so I should have eaten a little more.

Before the cake cutting, we had the speeches. I think this is the part of the wedding that had me choked up the most (besides our first dance). It was so touching and amazing what our best friends said about us. I was particularly impressed with the best man’s speech. He did a fabulous job. I wanted to share my dad’s speech because it was amazing and touching and I got so many compliments from friends later on his speech.

“Good evening and welcome Ladies and Gentlemen,

For those of you who don’t know me I’m Don, Lisa’s Dad and on behalf of my wife Marsha and I, Judy and Denny and Geoff and Gayle, I would like to welcome all of you here today to celebrate the marriage of our daughter Lisa to Michael.   I know that many of you have traveled along way to be here. Thank you all for coming to help celebrate this special day.

I must admit that I am the proudest dad in the world to have accompanied Lisa today. I think that you will all agree with me when I say she looked beautiful.

When I first thought about organizing all of this I was quite worried about getting everything right……actually I have found it all very easy……You sit back and everything just happens….. It was just like my own wedding in 1971!   I really don’t know what all the fuss is about.

Today, I look at my daughter and I see an independent, attractive, elegant, stunning young woman……. She obviously takes after her mother. Of course she inherits other traits from me…… We’re both short.

In Michael I believe that Lisa has met her perfect partner and I think he is everything one could hope for in a son in law. Michael has many good qualities, not least of which is an ability to get a tee time set up for us when we visit Portland. 

Marriage is the meeting of two minds, of two hearts and of two souls. It is clear that Michael and Lisa are a perfect example of this. I wish them enjoyment for today, the fulfillment of all their hopes and dreams for tomorrow and love and happiness always. Finally, I would like all of you to raise a glass for the health and happiness of the bride and groom…Lisa & Michael.”

The speech meant so much to me. After the speeches was the cake. It was nothing special–I didn’t really care about getting some fancy wedding cake that cost hundreds of dollars. Here is the cake and topper:

During the cake cutting, we had the song “This Guy’s In Love With You” (Faith No More version). Michael picked it. 🙂 After the cake cutting my dad and I had our dance. He picked it. I went back and forth for like a year between five different songs and couldn’t decide. And don’t try and google “Father/Daughter Dance” it is the same 10 songs on every single website. There was nothing original or creative. I didn’t want something cheesy or sappy or overdone. The song I finally decided on was “Sweet Child O’ Mine” – New Orleans Style Guns N’ Roses Cover ft. Miche Braden. I thought for SURE my dad would love it. I mean it’s a cool blues-y version! But he said it sounded like stripper music. 😉 That’s when he suggested Skipping by Eddie Vedder. I wasn’t familiar with the song but when I listened to it and read the lyrics I was sold. Immediate tears to my eyes and the fact that my dad picked it was even better.

Michael and is mom danced to Hey Jude by the Beatles. Michael kept it a secret from his mom to surprise her. It’s her favorite song and Michael said she cried when they danced. Awww!

We had a photo booth for about 3 hours of the event. I’m glad we did it because it was fun but I’m disappointed that Michael and I never made it over there! I wanted to get some good funny pictures and was just too busy trying to say hello to everyone (and failing). But here are a few of my favorites (yes we got copies of the pictures!!!):

And probably my favorite one of them all…yes, that is my 93 year old grandmother in the photo booth!! I’m getting this one framed! Apparently she thought it was a Queen Elizabeth hat…little did she know she was wearing a pimp hat. 😉 Doesn’t she look great?

Seeing how much fun everyone had I wish I had made my way to the photo booth. BUMMER. 🙁 Anyways, it was so difficult trying to see and talk to everyone! Michael and I ate our dinner fairly quickly and then got up to mingle. We started working around the room from one side, visiting each table. But then we would get interrupted for things like the cake, the speeches, the dances, etc. And before you knew it, the evening was almost over and we’d only made it about half way around the room!

I truly wish I had been able to talk to everyone that came and thank them. There were so many people that traveled a long ways to celebrate with us. One of my very old friends my Seattle came down and I barely got a chance to chat with him! I did get to dance with him though!

Then dancing! I danced A LOT. I probably should have bowed out on some of the songs in order to see and talk to everyone but it was hard…I just got sucked into the dance floor. My family definitely likes to party and they were dominating the dance floor most of the evening. I think this picture was of us doing the YMCA–a very special request for my cousin Peter. 😀 And there may or may not have been a performance of the Time Warp…like I said, it was a blur. 😉

There were large chunks of the evening where I never even saw Michael. We were both so busy trying to talk to people! I didn’t toss my bouquet. There wasn’t an official “send off”. We stayed for most of it and my parents and brother packed up our car with all the stuff to take back to our house. Then my dad drove Michael and I to our hotel!

That’s it, that’s our wedding. 🙂