Show Us Your Life - Wedding Receptions & Honeymoons

Our reception was at the Knights of Columbus (KC) Hall in Hempstead, TX. When we walked in the DJ announced everyone in our wedding party.

We all walked in to "Let's Get It Started" by the Black Eyed Peas

Here is my mother, with our ringer bearer (my nephew Matthew) and our flower girl Kennedy. Don't they look precious?

We were excited, can't you tell?

As our bridal party was walking in, the DJ had them line up behind the head table, so they were all "waiting" for us to arrive.

Then, everyone clapped and cheered and then we had a prayer. I had the DJ play "Be Our Guest" from Beauty & The Beast, when they announced that it was time to eat!

This was our entry/sign in table. How do you like that arrangement? I loved it! My mom made it. The vase is filled with lentils and beans. The basket to the right, was filled with our wedding favors.

We gave our little individual bottles of Vermont Maple Syrup. It's seriously, the best syrup I have ever had in my life!

This is how the bridal party tables were decorated. I don't have pictures of the head table or the guest tables! :(

We had a fruit and cheese display, for everyone to snack on before the bridal party arrived. The pineapples were covered with chocolate covered strawberries. We also had dried apricots, pears, plums and a whole array of cheese and crackers. This was all that was left when we arrived. We don't have any pictures of it "before".

We had a wonderful fall feast for dinner. We had white and wheat dinner rolls, green beans, sausage and rice stuffing, roast beef with brown gravy and mushrooms, roasted stuffed pork loin, abd baked apples that were stuffed with cinnamon and cloves.

From the bite or two that I was able to eat, it was delicious! We got a lot of compliments on the food! We served beer, some kind of punch, spiced cider, tea, water and sodas.

This was our wedding cake. It resembled my bridal shower invitations. It was a spice cake, covered in fondant. It didn't turn out quite like I had wanted it to, but it was delicious.

People still talk about that cake :)

Cutting the cake! The DJ played "How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You"

We don't drink champagne, so we were going to toast with cider but we forgot to put a bottle back to make sure we had enough and ran out before we cut the cake and did the twisty arm drink thing! We did it with the punch instead :) Darren said "Morgan, I think we were just supposed to take a sip", but I said "Darren, that was some good stuff". :)

Darren's mother made his groom's cake. Its not "professional" but it meant a lot to both her to be able to make it, and him to have had her make it, so I think it was perfect. It was his two favorite kinds of cake - the large sheet cake was chocolate and the tractor was red velvet. When we cut this cake, the DJ played "She Thinks My Tractors Sexy".

Our toasting flutes. They were beautiful, but you can't tell because our genius photographer didn't take pictures of the whole flute. I paid all that money to have them HAND beaded with brown and gold beads, and you don't even get to see them!

You can see a little bit of the beading on the serving pieces.

For our first dance, we danced to "You Already Know My Love" by John Anderson. That was Darren's request :)

Halfway through the reception I had them play "Stay All Night, Stay A Little Longer" by Bob Wills.

Throwing the bouquet. The DJ and I faked them out the first time, this is the second time around!

During the bouquet toss, I had the DJ play "Here's To Findin' a Good Man" by Danielle Peck.

There was some pushing and shoving, so after flying through the air and sliding across the dance floor, my little sister caught the bouquet right before it hit the ground!

She was ok, and everyone thought it was hilarious!

They played the Mission Impossible theme song, when he went for the garter :)

Cole, my little sisters boyfriend caught the garter. They sat my sister down in a chair and then the DJ blindfolded him, then put a sack over his head and told him that he had to get that garter on her, right above the knee.

Then, they gave him the garter and switched Meredith out for Darren! It was so hard for everyone not to laugh and give it away!

When he got it up past the knee, they took of the sack and blindfold and everyone died laughing! It was so funny! He kept saying "I thought those legs were awfully hairy, I got a little scared".

Then they shared a dance! I would like to happily announce that they are now engaged and are going to be married in October of this year! :)

This is my nephew, Matt. He was 2½ at the time, and highly obsessed with guitars. He did so well during the wedding that they let him bring his guitar to the reception. Most of the time, like this picture, he was on stage with the DJ. He also jumped off stage, slid across the dance floor and ran around all over the place playing that thing! It was SO CUTE. Needless to say, he had a blast and we all got a kick out of watching him!

We had a wonderful reception and the DJ was amazing! They brought a whole box of props, we did the limbo; we had a conga line and maracas; we did the chicken dance and Darren wore this huge chicken hat; we did the YMCA complete with fireman, construction worker and police hats, and indian headdresses. It was so much fun! Unfortunately, I can't find the pictures of all of that right now.

For the last song, we played "Turn Out The Lights, The Parties Over" by Willie Nelson.

We didn't get to do our big exit, with bubbles because it came a torential storm when the reception started and so many people left after we cut the cake and did the toasts. We hated it, but completely understood and just wanted our guests safe!

Darren and I were starving when we left the reception so we drove through McDonald's after we left. Everyone came to the window to tell us Congratulations! We couldn't get any close parking at our hotel, so he pulled up as close as he could and I ran in my dress, through the rain to the room. Then he parked the car, grabbed our bag and did the same. When he got to the room, I realized that he grabbed the wrong bag so he had to run back out to the car to get the right bag and run back!

We went to the Texas Hill Country for a few days, for our honeymoon.

This is what our whole drive was like. Beautiful and serene!

This is the little private cottage that we stayed at, at Meyer House Bed & Breakfast in Comfort, TX.

This is the sitting room, when you first walk in. There was a huge bouquet of roses on the dresser and a bucket of chilled sparkling cider, a silver tray of the biggest chocolate covered strawberries I have ever seen, and chocolate chip cookies.

The bedroom with an old timey fireplace and a view of the creek.

This was the bathroom. There was a cooler full of cold Dr Pepper when we arrived :)

This is the porch, off the back of the cottage.

This is the back of the cottage.

This is was we saw every morning when we woke up. It should have been sweet and fun to watch except Darren was pacing back and forth and kept muttering "I wish I had my gun, I wish I had my gun"!

This is the creek that ran behind the cottage.

Isn't he handsome?

Me, playing in the creek. We went and got lunch and came down by the creek (the day before we left) and had a picnic. It was gorgeous outside, and it was about 75 degrees out.

After we finished lunch, we went back to our cottage to get cleaned up and were going to run and get some more of those strawberries before we left to go home the next morning. When we came out of our cottage 2 hours later, it was 36 degrees!! Needless to say, about 2 days after we left, I had the flu!

We got up on Thanksgiving morning and drove 7 hours to Center, TX to have Thanksgiving with the Fountain Family. We stayed there until Sunday and then headed back home! We had a wonderful time going through some Texas wineries, and enjoying the shops in Fredericksburg. It was quiet and peaceful and a wonderful way to spend our first few days as husband and wife.