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  • Oh my gosh I’m finally updating, whoo hooo. I didn’t mean to make you hang so long after that last post, oops. But it’s finally getting a bit sunnier and my spirits are up and it’s time for more happy fun wedding pictures. This is going to be the last set I think, I pretty much covered everything. Although on alp+whg I might post all the details, who did what for us and where we got everything as a resource for other brides in the area, since it took a while to track down everything we wanted. I so love looking at these pictures, and I really want to get all my frames up so that I can have them around the house as well. In addition to all of these

    First of all since only a handful of people attended our ceremony I wanted to do something so that we could have a kind of entrance. We had the reception start at five and we didn’t walk in until 5:45 ish I think. In between we walked around outside taking pictures. Hmm maybe I will have to do another post about that. So when we were set to come in Emee (our super extraordinary planner ) had everyone line up and in walked all of our attendants before us in pairs, introduced by our Dj, before we walked in "Mr and Mrs William Henry Garrison the fifth!" So exciting. It was great to see all my friends lined up like that. All the pictures snapping I felt like a movie star! We walked straight through to the dance floor to have or first dance.
    First_dance

    I chose that black and white floor instead of the normal wood one and love it. Totally went with our black tie dress code. So Ceara sang our first dance as well, which was just so amazing. Brian and Melissa accompanied her so beautifully. It was the same song they did at the

    We had listened to all these "wedding bands" but they were too cookie cutter for us, we wanted something different, more romantic and special. Emee suggested Johnny Martin. He plays little gigs at hotels around Portland, but then he knows a bunch of guys who can accompany him when he plays big band stuff. He only does forties music, but that fit perfect with our old school style we were going for. We also had a DJ for MCing and dancing later.
    Buttons

    After we danced we went with the wedding party back to the entry way to collect our buttons. Sciarrino and I had made up one for each person, specific to them.

    It was attached to the seating card.  We did not come up with this idea, it was in a Martha Stewart Wedding mag one year.  Can I just tell you we had the most fun doing these. I went to the library and checked out every clip art book. Sciarrino did some cool stuff with colors and text, and that button maker, that thing is a blast.Prize

    Bj wanted to have a door prize, to which I was like, "what?" I had never heard of anyone doing that so we came up with this compromise. We had three boxes that corresponded to three keys on the place cards. Our guests went to try their key and the winners got one of three things: an iPod shuffle with "WHG+ALP and our wedding date engraved on the back", a titanium spork, and a DVD of Zoolander. Each gift had a note about why that thing was important to us (we love Apple, we had a year long bet about a spork, and Zoolander was our first date). Oh and before I forget, check out those trees. They were picked by our dear family friends and my dad had them brought up, we put little spots on them and they just added the perfect touch to the room. We also had a candy bar:
    Candy_bar

    Somewhere in here we ate but it was really a blur of eating and congratulating. I don’t think I have any pictures of the food, it was a plated service, salad and then chicken and stuff. I ate like two bites, it was good, but we were just way too busy. Good thing it was almost time for cake:
    Cake_cutting

    I have no idea why people cut cake. Anyone know? So this cake was so hard to do. Well it was hard to find someone who would do it. Bj really wanted a hexagon, and we couldn’t find anyone to do that, or any cake we really liked until we went to Joeseph’s bakery. They gave us four miniature cakes to try and we were in love. When we showed them the picture we wanted with all the sugar flowers they went in the back to talk about it and I was afraid it was going to be a million dollars, but it ended up only being five dollars a person. They painted the sugar flowers all different colors of green, layering them together and it was so beautiful. The cake was oh so yummy. Next we brought out the champagne.  Remember I had

    The toasts were wonderful. Especially Sciarrino’s special toast to my mother for all her help with the wedding. She totally deserved it.
    To_my_mom

    Then I got to dance with my dad. We had no song picked out until like the week before. We wanted something that Johnny could play so we could dance with the live band. It turned our really fun because we danced to Mack the Knife. It was really fun and upbeat, totally us. He had come in that morning to my hotel suite to practice. I was like "dad, quit whipping me around so much." He was all, "oh come on, it’s fun." I replied, "it’s not that, I just don’t have a bra on." hehehe. I was a little more secure in my dress so he swung me around like crazy. So fun.
    Dance_with_dad

    Then it was time for everyone to get out on the dance floor.
    Break

    Doesn’t that look cool with all the layers? We took some shots of the Sprague high school alumni:
    Sprague

    I love all these people oh so much. Then it was time for a little surprise:
    Cotton_candy

    Cotton candy to keep everyone going. So yummy. I could totally have a cotton candy machine in my home. I’d probably die of sugar overdose but yum, yum, yum. By this time things were quieting down a bit, and most of the older people had gone home. I looked over to see Taylor being pestered to death by my little sister and her friend. I had to send the photographer over (so glad I had him stay all night):
    Girl_talk

    Oh Taylor buddy, LOL, sorry! Bj re-enacted our

    (uh, hum, ya right). Then it was time to make our mad dash exit, through the tunnel of love:
    Escape

    and we were off.
    Just_married

    Could this post BE more picture heavy? I think not. Anyway then we were off to this awesome hotel suite. The next day we had a brunch for everyone who stayed in town, which was so wonderful because so many people had come a ways and we got to see them again. I don’t really have any pictures, but I got all blotchy saying goodbye, so that’s probably a good thing. There you go! If you’d like to see the pictures of us walking around let me know, I put a few up but I have some more fun ones. Oh and just click the category "I’m getting married" to see all the wedding stuff at once. And again all these pictures were taken by our wonderful photographer Eric.

    6 comments on Wedding – The Reception
  • So the little ones are now back at home. And I miss them and the cute little things they say. It’s fun to be able to be crazy and dance like a nutter and make a mess and have lots of good old fashioned fun. I love the way kids look at things, how big they see everything, how every little thing is a treasure.
    Look

    It’s fun to see them explore. I know that I want to always be like that, to look around at the little things and appreciate the little things. I think that’s why I love to thrift so much, to get things that are worn, have a history, and will continue to live on. We used some of those things to make some fun puppets the last night they were here:
    Puppets

    It was all good clean fun until Sciarrino and I acted out a scene from Grey’s Anatomy (just finished watching the second season, she finally got me hooked!)
    Hugging

    "Meridith, Meridith"
    "Leave me alone, just leave me alone"
    "I just want to make sure you’re alright!"
    "Stop looking at me!"
    "I’m not looking at you…"
    "I can’t breath with you looking at me like that."
    "Do you think I want to look at you?"

    LOL. We also found a great kids album via Sciarrino: Colours Are Brighter. It’s an import here and not on iTunes so I was only able to download the one song they had for free (Ninja Dinosaur), and then play the other ones featured on the my space page. The Monkeys are Breaking out the Zoo caused quite a commotion around here.  "Because today the monkeys are breaking out the zoo!!!" I need to feel that joy again. Hopefully we will be around a lot of joy this weekend, Brian and Melissa, the wonderful accompaniment to Ceara at our wedding are getting married themselves Sunday, and Bj is groomsman. I just got back from helping to make the cake topper, it’s very cool.  Which reminds me that I never officially blogged my reception, the thing that took the longest to plan. I just never really got back into talking about it after Bj’s dad died, but I think that I should do it, it’s the last real wedding thing to blog about, and I need to bring the happiness back. What do you think?

    6 comments on I love to be a kid (at heart)
  • When cuteness attacks you stumble upon things like a stuffed puppy on your shipping cart. So cute.

    Withpupply

    That’s right I have the little munchkins with me, that’s why I’ve been a little lax in updating. Not only do they keep me busy but their parents have a Dell and I’m a total Mac snob (three weeks till the iPhone, whoo hoo).

    Kids_3

    Karsen is such a chatterbox now. And the things she says are way super adorable times ten. Remember that big picture of Bj and I at the wedding? Well she was looking at it and goes, "ohhh you the princess, you cinderally. Who the prince?" I said, the prince is my husband. "ohhhhh." The next time we came over after dropping off big brother at school she walks into my house and starts calling out, "prince, prince, where are you?" Until she found Bj working downstairs. And then Bj asked her who I was (wanting to see if she knew my name) and she looked at him, then me, and said, "your princess?" So right darling. Melts my heart.

    Kids_4

    And look at the cute little stud Hogan! We went on a little walk on Sunday while it was still nice (it’s rain city here now). He was brave enough to be hoisted up into the big tree outside my brother’s for pictures, which somehow didn’t load in my post so I’ll put those as the picture of the day when I get home. The cute thing he said? Well it wasn’t so cute as gross. Bj had just turned off the water to work on a pipe and I hear him calling to me from the bathroom. "Amber, Amber." I go over to the door. "Can you help me I had diarrhea and I couldn’t get it all." Ew. And we couldn’t flush it right away, great. But he has seriously been great. He stayed up with me tonight to play playdoh. His sister had to go down early.

    Jump

    I wore her out this morning by letting her monkey around on my bed, but then her daycare never put her down for a nap so she took a major dive later in the evening. You know one of those I-think-I’ll-cry-about-nothing-while-I-laugh-at-something-else rants. Really funny, but I knew she needed sleep.

    4 comments on When cuteness attacks

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