So You're EnGAYged, a LGBT wedding blog

I want you to know that entering into this wedding I was bound and determined that I was going to eat dinner at my wedding.  Everyone told me that it couldn’t be done, everyone said that I would be far to busy to eat.  And you see it on TV all the time, the couple get married and spend the entire day chasing the food around to never get any of it.  Well let me tell you two things; the first is that I do not do well without food.  We call it being hangry in my family – hunger induced anger – so not eating was not going to make for a pretty bride.  The other things is that our recption was being catered by Red Bones, which is by far the best bbq place in the greater Boston area.  I absolutely love their food and was not about to pass by an oportunity to eat it.

So keeping all this in mind we schedule the reception like so:

At the end of the cocktail hour guests were invited to find their tables becuase we were going to be starting dinner.  After they were in Jen and I were announced into the room…

And then we started dinner.  It was buffet style so Jen and I went first through the line, and then we got to sit down and eat while everyone else was getting food. Please note that two minutes into the reception I was eating dinner.  What was also great about this set up was that as Jen and I finished our food other people had gotten their food and were seated, which meant that Jen and I could circulate and talk to people, so we didn’t need to do a recieving line because we made it around to see everybody.

Once people were done with dinner we cut the cake, this was the one thing that had fell through the cracks in planning.  I knew what was going to happend before the cake cutting (the ribbon pull) and what was going to happen after the cake cutting (the caterer would cut the rest of the cake and people would eat it), but we went to cut the cake and had realized that we had never talked about how we were going to do this.  So someone had to go get a knife and then someone had to go get a plate for us to put the cake on before we fed it to each other.  It was fairly commical and, all things consered, not a distasterous thing to do sort of on the fly.

So that being done we all sat and ate cake, and then there were toasts.  We kept it simple and did two, one from my college roommate Amanda, and one from Jen’s college roommate Cheryl.

After the toasts we danced.  Jen and I danced together to “The Power of Two” by the Indigo Girls – I know very lesbian of us, but it is a song that means a lot to us, so it seemed like the very natural choice.  But then of course we realized just a few moments into the dance the problem with it, it’s 5:23 long, which when it’s just the two of you in the living room dancing doesn’t feel that long.  Let me tell you, when your suddenly dancing, just the two of you, in front of 70 odd people…you feel every second of it.  That’s not to say that I wish we had chosen a different song, it was just awkward to realize in the middle of your dance that everyone is looking at you and you’re only halfway through.

After that we did a combined father daught dance, and then danced as three couples, Jen and myself, my parents, and Jen’s parents.  I think the last one might have been my favorite dance.  There was something about dancing as a married couple with our parents that made it feel real and like the start of our family.

After this the reception had no planned structure.  We danced the rest of the night of away, full of love in the company of our family and friends.  It was a perfect night, more perfect than I ever could have hoped for.  I find it difficult to put into words the simple euphora of that night.

Next I will go through some of the details we slaved so hard over.

*All Photos by Leah LaRiccia Photography

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