Part 12: The Reception

The reception is somewhat less of a blur to me as compared to the ceremony.

We walked into the reception area and I was floored. Two things. The beauty of the lodge, the spread of food and seeing everyone we loved there. Then the other thing... the DJ was NOT who we hired. And some lame 80's song was playing.

So I hadn't known who the DJ was until he came up and introduced himself and said if there was anything he could do, to let him know.

"Umm, who are you?" I asked.

"I am your DJ, I am with McClains Mobile DJ of Reno," he said.

"No, I hired a specific DJ and was assured that he would be here," I said.

"I am sorry," the guy said, "It is me."

"You don't understand," I told him, "when I put my deposit down I reitterated to the owner that music is important to me and that we had to have met the DJ who would be working our wedding beforehand - he understood this. We have never met you. Why are YOU here?"

AB stepped in at that point and said, "I am sure everything will be fine" and let the poor guy go.

My mind was racing. I was mad. It was a breach of contract, I was sure. AB assured me that we had signed no such document declaring one particular DJ even though we were told it would be one particular person. I vowed to read the contract when we got home. I complained about how mad I was that they didn't just give us a call and let us know there was a problem. He agreed.

Then the DJ from hell decided to go at it himself there for a minute.

The Greg Kihn Band's, "Our Love's in Jeopardy" came on.

I marched up to the DJ station and told him if he decided to deviate from our play list or from the genre of our play list one more time he was not getting paid. In so many words of course.

AB reminded me not to let this little fiasco ruin our day. Or course not, I agreed, I still had my grandmother behaving like a seven year old to take care of that.

Everyone mingled for a little while and ate baked brie encroute with shallots and grapes, crostini and crackers and cheese pesto rolls and drank the wines we had picked out in Napa and Sonoma. Before long we were all seated while the plated salads came out; fresh baby greens with a baked pear and sugared walnuts and a fantastic dressing.

My stepdad was rumored to have said, "this is delicious, if I could buy another salad, I would". And someone at his table reminded him that he was buying about 60 salads. Bottles of wine appeared on each of the tables so guests no longer had to wander up to the bar.

Of course our concern with the free wine and cash bar was realized and that many people DID believe that the bar was no charge. They went up and requested a beer, or a scotch, and were asked to pay. I would have loved to have had a hosted bar and in many parts of the US, not doing so is very unthoughtful. But it was horribly cost prohibitive to have a full bar.

We were called up by tables to the buffet line where our guests were offered potatoes with a red bell pepper sauce, asparagus with hollendaise sauce, prime rib and smoked BBQ'd salmon. The dinner was amazing... or so I was told. I don't usually have the problem of not being able to eat, but I couldn't. I don't know if it was nerves or what, but I had a horrible time trying to force food past my lips.

Instead of eating I found myself wandering around the tables making an effort to say hi to everyone who made it.

The toasts began shortly after dinner. We had specified 3-4 toasts, but nearly everyone stood up at some point. It was very humbling - and so amazing to have so many people speak so kindly about us.

Our cake was up next. AB was under strict orders that no smushing would be in order. He abided and we fed each other the rich chocolate bourbon cake. The middle tier was vanilla with a raspberry chamborg filling.

AB then, after prompting from our caterer, took the mic to thank everyone for coming to share our day with us before he swept me off to dance our heavily choreographed first dance.

It was at that point that something I never thought would happen, happened... AB's younger "middle" brother had tears streaming down his face. He blamed it on the birth of his first daughter 6 weeks ago. Maybe that was the reason, but it was very touching.

Our second dance was to Clapton's, Wonderful Tonight with our parents, me with my dad and AB with his mom. Then the floor opened up for everyone to Green Day's, Time of Your Life.

One of the funniest images implanted in my head from that night was seeing my punk rocker brother in law out there dancing to "Shock the Monkey" with my grandmother. Yes, there are pictures.

The dance floor was then opened up to everyone and we had a great time dancing and talking to people. When I had a chance, I went over and snagged a piece of chocolate cake since they had served me white cake.

The night ended too soon. At 11:30pm, AB and I had our last dance, Grow Old With Me by Adam Sandler. Yes, Adam Sandler. It was a fun way to end the night.

The caterer kept telling us the party could go on, but I was anxious to wrap it all up and be with my husband. All the remaining food was wrapped. Bills were paid - save for the caterer who insisted she would bill us. I even paid the DJ despite my better thoughts not too.

At that point we loaded everything up and took off to the Hyatt. Where yes, we did have rooms.