Group photos and cocktail hour!

As I said in my last post, our grand exit kind of fizzled when we realized we didn't have a get away car. Not like we would have been leaving though because we wanted to do a few pictures in the church with family and our bridal party after the ceremony was over. I won't bore you with pictures- just a few of my favorite family ones.

Note- my dad is a horrible photo taker. Half the time, he looks like a little kid fake smiling (kind of like in the group shot below), but I do really like the photo with him below- it's definitely more a natural look!

With my mom and dad, my husband and mother-in-law
One of my favorite pictures of the day with my niece
Our parents

As we were taking pictures, someone told me what time it was and I realized we were running a little behind! Because we had a smaller ceremony, we were inviting about 100 more people to the reception. We did all our photos before hand- so there was only an hour and a half of time in between the start of the ceremony and start of reception. Everything had been a bit behind, and I didn't want our guests to be waiting too long for us at the reception. So we quickly wrapped up the photos and took off. In my husbands Camry. With our best man squished in the backseat. There was no need for some fancy getaway car for the short drive to the reception. So it was a fun 20 minute drive of "holy shit, we're married!"

One of our favorite parts of the reception was when we first got there. We wanted to do some sort of receiving line to greet those who hadn't been at the ceremony and we hadn't yet seen. But in my opinion (and no judging if you did this), I hate receiving lines. You stand in line for a long time to give the bride and groom a hug and move on. And then you have to go wait in a bar line. Too much waiting- too many lines. So we combined the two. For the first 45 minutes of our reception (basically the cocktail hour), Doug and I bar tended. And it was a blast!! Everyone loved coming into the reception to see us behind the bar- and at least when they waited in line, they were able to get a drink at the end. We also walked around to tables after we finished eating, especially those of the adults since they weren't as likely to come to the after party.

I received the apron at my shower from my parent's neighbors daughter- who I think is 7 and made it for me herself!
So cute, and the sunflowers were perfect :)

 After we finished bar tending, one of the women working in the kitchen was supposed to take over. I'm not sure what happened, but for some reason- that didn't happen. Instead our family and friends jumped in and rotated throughout the night. At first I felt bad that people were having to do that, but everyone who stood behind the bar said it was some of the most fun they had all night! They got to visit with a lot of people and no one was stuck doing it alone. Two of my aunt's actually battled with one of my bridesmaids/one of Doug's groomsmen about whose turn it was!

It might not have been traditional- but the whole bar situation worked out perfectly- and was very us!

By the way- our bar consisted of only wine and beer. We had 3 different kinds of beer (Bud Light, Molson and Great Lakes Dortmunder...as well as a few Guinness for my dad and his college friends). We had a red wine (Fred's Red- one of my favorites and normally only $9.99!) and a white, as well as a few different bottles from our local winery- which is mostly sweeter wines, but something that definitely appealed to our guests.