Grand entrance and dances!

So first of all- yesterday was my 100th post! I had meant to do a whole special post for it, and instead I forgot and posted goat videos. Which honestly is so much better. And so incredibly me. So I'll just leave it at that!

But now it's time for another wedding post! Where we last left off, we had spent the first 45 minutes of our reception bar tending and greeting our guests. There had been a spread of appetizers (cheese/meat trays featuring Holmes County specialties- baby swiss from Guggisberg and trail bologna; as well as some other stuff that I really don't remember). But it was time to get things moving and get to dinner!

Our MC, who was the lead singer of the band, along with the DJ, asked everyone to be seated and we, along with our bridal party, lined up outside. We didn't really have a good plan for this, and I had meant for our bridal party to work their way up to the front of the room where our head table was and where most of their seats were. But whoever went out first missed the memo and ended up lining up along the back of the room. It worked out fine- there just wasn't as much space to dance our way into the reception. 

Our bridal party headed out first, to the awesome jam of "Let's Get Ready to Rumble." Figured no better way to get the party going!

Loved seeing our ribbon wands make another appearance!

We followed them up, to the musical stylings of Queen's 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love.'

Favorite part of this picture is Caroline running around in front of us.

As soon as we entered, we made our way up front to the dance floor to do our first dance. We had had a few choices for our first dance, but ultimately it came down to Sister Hazel- This Kind of Love.  We had talked about taking dance lessons, but between cost and running out of time- we just never got around to it. Meaning, we middle school swayed for the whole time- even throwing in the arm distance apart for a laugh.

This kind of love it's what I dreamed about
Yeah it fills me up
Baby it leaves no doubt
This kind of love it's why I'm standing here
It's something that we can share
I can't enough of this kind of love

I'm going to go a little out of order here, as I want the toasts to have their own post. And they came before the father/daughter and mother/son dances, so here they are. 

I danced with my dad to Somewhere Over the Rainbow- Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwo`ole's version of the song (he's the big Hawaiian guy who played the ukelele). This song has always been a favorite of my dad- I even made him a whole CD with different versions of the song for Christmas a few years ago. This was another one of those moments that I thought would be super emotional, but it really wasn't. We were both just so happy and couldn't stop smiling. It didn't hurt that Caroline decided that she wanted to join in!

She danced with us like this for almost half the song. Was hilarious

Doug has a bit of a rocky family history. His mom, as I refer to her here, is actually his step mom. But she was the one who raised him and his brother for most of their lives. Plus his relationship with his biological mom isn't a close one. They decided to dance to Simple Man by Lynard Skynard. Thankfully the DJ was able to shorten it, as the full song is something like 5 minutes long- with a solid 2 minute guitar solo in there. So while Skynard is awesome, this was pretty unnecessary for their dance. 

And be a simple kind of man.
Be something you love and understand.
Be a simple kind of man.
Won't you do this for me son,
If you can?

I have to say, I was glad to have all the dances behind us. While I'll admit I love being the center of attention (seriously- my wedding day was the best!), it was still kind of awkward to have everyone watching us just sway back and forth. 

Up next: Toasts and our fantastic dinner!