*Again...sorry for the HUGE pictures! Wowza!
We stood around and hugged and visited for a few minutes and then it was time for cake and champagne. We decided in the interest of time to save the toasts for the DP later that night, so Tanis passed around the champagne and cider. We were just going to say thank you and we love you, and after watching the video, it was a little awkward, especially because Joey’s stepmom kept asking over and over if we were doing toasts. “No, we’re doing them tonight.” “So no toasts right now?” “NO...we are doing them tonight...” “So, we aren’t doing a toast?” Grr. On the video you can hear Tanis tell her three or four times, and you could hear that she was getting frustrated. We got everyone their glasses except for poor Noelle, and Martha was going to share her champagne (Mind you, Noelle just turned 18 on this day), and it freaked Tanis out! She was like, “No, no, no!!” Very funny. Anyway, we got Noelle her cider, and we all raised glasses and Joey and I thanked everyone for being there with us, told them we loved them, and we were so happy to share this day with our 16 favorite people, and then it was time for cake.
Tanis gave us a quick tutorial on how to cut and then asked us if we wanted fingers or forks. And I got this weird look on my face, and I remember thinking, obviously forks. I don’t want my guests to eat cake with their fingers! What an odd question! So I said, “forks...” really slowly and dumb-like. And only after we cut the cake and we’re getting ready to feed each other did I realize that she was asking us how we wanted to do that, with fingers or forks! DUH! I felt like a moron! I think part of the reason I was so out of it, was because I wasn’t focused on Tanis at all. The violinist was playing, and he was supposed to play “I See the Light” from Tangled. And he starts playing “A Married Life” from Up. If it were any other song, I don’t think I would’ve been too upset. I could have brushed it off. But “Married Life” was our first dance song. I was really distracted and upset about it. It was all I could focus on. At one point, I’m just staring at him, almost willing him to stop playing that song. And Joey finally asked me if I was ok. Not wanting to mess up the cake part, I snapped out of it, and turned my attention back to Joey. Music is SO important to us (well, me) and I had wrestled with music for months. And all of a sudden, it was all wrong. I am pretty sure Tanis or the violinist figured it out, because he switched mid song to something else. I have no idea if it was “I See the Light” but I didn’t really care, as long as it was something other than my first dance song!
Also, unfortunately, the cake was melting. Tanis warned us about it, and I knew it was a possibility. But I just didn't think it would be THAT hot in the middle of October. But it was unseasonably warm and humid, and the cake was dripping black all over. I was sad! My wedding cake was melting worse than I was! haha. But, after I got the pics back, I just photoshopped where it was melting, and it looks ok now. You can hardly tell! I left one photo of the cake meltdown below so you can see what I'm talking about....
So we fed each other cake, and Joey picked up the biggest piece on the plate for me, and I was struggling with trying to gracefully eat a mouthful of cake when the photographer is like, “Kiss” and that was the most awkward kiss ever. Ok, a lot of you are probably going to yell at me for this, but I HATED that cake. I thought it was dry and I almost didn’t get it swallowed. I did however like the fondant! Haha! The cake server guy was removing all the fondant, and I was like “Hold up! I want that part!!” (I had specifically asked Tanis to put into her notes that I did not want the fondant removed. I guess he missed it). I know a lot of people don’t like it, but I love it. So I ended up eating mostly fondant instead of cake! Haha. On the video, right after the cake kiss, you can hear Joey say to me, “Mmm, that’s good cake.” And you can see me just stare at him like, “Uh, yea. Whatever buddy. Crazy fool.” It’s pretty amusing. So we wandered and visited and ate cake. They had the chairs set up on the lawn outside of SBP, but it was so flippin’ hot (at 10:30 in the morning) that everyone stayed in the shade.
Ever the lady....haha!
Wow, this humongo picture of Andy looks a little creepy! I swear my sweet little nephew is NOT possessed! haha...
I think this is super cool
The cake is melting, and I have a huge mouth apparently
Awkward!
My guest book...
I wonder what mischief these two were getting into!
Wow...that's really classy ladies!
ooh! What a handsome husband I have!
After we were finished with our cake, Tanis led us out towards the water and we had our first dance, and he got the song right, and it was beautiful and fun. I was enjoying dancing, but after a bit, everyone got a little restless and talkative, so we cut it short. Then it was time to dance with my daddy. I knew early on (before I knew who I was going to marry!) that I wanted to dance to “Stand by Me” with my dad. It’s one of his favorite songs, and it will forever remind me of him. And it’s amazing and beautiful. I was glad that we had a violinist for this one, because it’s such a violin heavy song. I didn’t tell Dad what we were dancing to, I wanted it to be a surprise and a gift to him. I had been looking forward to this probably even more than the wedding itself! Haha!! So we take our places and the music starts and we dance. At first, I thought he’d messed up the songs again. I kept waiting and waiting for “Stand by Me.” Straining to hear even an inkling of it. I honestly have no idea if he played my song or not. I could never make it out. I even asked dad if he knew what it was, thinking maybe I was just stressed and not hearing it right. He had no clue and I finally just had to tell him what I was trying to do and why. He said that it was so sweet of me and thanked me for the thought, but he just didn’t hear it. So, we decided to end our dance. It was really disappointing, but I loved dancing with my daddy. I’ve been a dancer all my life and this was only the second time I’d ever danced with him, or seen him dance at all. So that made me extremely happy and was one of the best wedding memories.
So after the dancing, it was time to take family pictures. Joey went to tell the photographer that we wanted off beat, artistic kind of photos, and weren’t really looking for the standard, “let’s all get in a clump, line up symmetrically, and take a cookie cutter, boring photo.” So, what does he do? Lines us up in a symmetrical clump, and starts taking cookie cutter, boring photos. So I’m telling Joey under my breath that I don’t really like the direction we are going, and he speaks up to Joe and very nicely says, “let’s do something a little different and unique.” This doesn’t happen. To top it off, all the guests were talking and cutting up, and not paying attention to Joe at all. It was really upsetting, and taking forever. I didn’t want to miss interesting photo ops around the boardwalk because we were taking photos I didn’t want, so I was starting to freak out a little. Finally, (and I’m not proud to say this), Joey goes over to Tanis and very loudly explains that he is NOT happy with the way it’s going. Drama, drama, drama. Needless to say, I don’t think Joe liked us very much at that point, but he gave up and started just taking candid shots. We had fun, but I don’t think we got a lot of good ones. Then it was time for the staged exit, and to walk back to the Boardwalk Inn. I LOVE my staged exit pictures. They were awesome. And I also love the pics of Joey and I on the way back to BI. Joey apologized to Joe and Tanis, and explained that a lot of our problem was with our guests being so disrespectful, and not really being able to say anything to them. We kinda took it out on Joe instead. And like the guy’s pictures or not, he was really, really nice and we had a blast with him the rest of the week. (He did our DP and MK/Epcot shoot) Both Joe and Tanis said they understood and that people can get a little stressed during these things. Anyway, we took pictures all along the Boardwalk, and even stopped to commandeer a surrey bike for some photo ops. These pics are some of my favorites from the whole wedding week. It was such fun, and a nice preview of the fun we were going to have at our bridal shoot. When we got back to the BI, a few of our guests were still in the lobby. We took a couple of pictures on the big chair, (none of which came out very good) and gave Tanis her gift, she gave us ours, and we gave big hugs. I thought that she would be at our DP that night, but she was taking her family to
MNSSHP. It was sad to say goodbye. On our way out to the limo, we met the famous Randy Chapman, and he and Joe chatted for a minute. Then, we crammed in with everyone in the limo and headed back to the hotel.
Annnnd...that's all the pics, folks! Continued below:
I did love the look of the cake! The bottom tier was almond with raspberry mousse and the top was yellow with bavarian cream. I liked the top tier better, but it was still just ho-hum for me. I'm bummed about that
