Today: Our wedding reception.

If that last goofball dancing photo was any indication, I had a blast at our reception.  Before we made our way to the venue, though, we took our little trolley around the corner from St. Cecilia for formal photos with our wedding party and families (including Nick’s grandmother, who traveled from Portugal, and our four month old niece… who traveled from Charlestown).

Incidentally, just a few days after our wedding, our photographers Katherine and Craig welcomed a baby of their own.  He looks like such a love!   I am sure they have their hands full, but I will be sure to share some of our professional photos as soon as we have them.  In the meantime, we’ll make do with random photos posted on Facebook and/or borrowed from my mother’s iPhone.

We met the rest of our guests a bit later in the upper gallery at the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres (one perk of being a French major: I never misspell hors d’oeuvres… or Jacques Chirac).  The venue staff encouraged us to make use of the gorgeous balcony with a grand entrance, and so we did.  I held onto Nick’s shoulder for dear life as we made our way down the staircase to the main theatre.  If anyone’s likely to tumble into their own wedding reception, it would be me.  Luckily, I stayed upright.  While our wedding party entered to MJ’s “The Way You Make Me Feel,” Nick and I share an affinity for Stevie Wonder with the President and entered to “Signed, Sealed, Delivered.”   We went right into our first dance to Ben Folds’ “The Luckiest,” which is…. welp, my favorite song of all time by a non-Michael Jackson artist.

• My father and I danced to Van Morrison’s “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?“
• Nick and his mother danced to Scott Keo’s “All To You“

I fell in love with the venue the moment we entered the theatre and looked up to see the beautiful preserved ceiling.  The building is a renovated court house and has been hosting weddings for a little over a year.  Their staff was absolutely lovely to work with, and so helpful throughout the process.  Everything came together just as we had hoped, from the flowers to the dessert bar to the tiny canvases my sister helped me turn into table numbers.

The three of us (Nick, my dress and I) floated about the room chatting with friends and family over dinner, but still managed to get a few bites of our own meals.

We had a few hiccups along the way (that’s a cute way of saying I grew two new ulcers, right?) with our caterer, but the food itself was great.  Our guests chose between crispy stuffed chicken with Boursin and spinach, and pumpkin ravioli with sage brown butter.  The challenged among us (that would be me) enjoyed a vegetarian, gluten-free falafal cake with a cucumber yogurt dressing.  I took a very dainty bite of our (not gluten-free) ceremonial cake… because really… it was our wedding day.

Kelly at Mix Bakery clearly got our vision and delivered the perfect little mixfetti cake (with pale pink ribbons of frosting), and a full dessert bar for our guests that included carrot cake and peanut butter cup mini cupcakes, miniature whoopie pies, and several varieties of cake pops.

Kelly put together a Pinterest board as we went back and forth on ideas.  Being such a visual person, this was tremendously helpful for me.  Not to mention fun.  And appetite stimulating.  I loved that our friends and family were able to grab sweets and head to the dance floor, without having to wait for a traditional cake service.  And maaaaan, did we dance.  DJ Sheldon had nearly the whole crowd on the dance floor for hours.

I could not have pictured a more perfect day.  Let’s do this again soon.

Also On Tap for Today:

• Crossfit (woooooo!)
• New animal obsession: rhinos
• Scheduling Clark’s next therapy dog visit

If you were a DJ, what would your DJ name be?