Never Gonna Feel Like This Again

I am a bit intimidated to write about the reception in one post just because it's obviously quite a long period of time, but I'll do the best I can :)

The reception started with cocktail hour. Towards the beginning of cocktail hour, the rain started to come down. However, towards the end...we got the first highlight of the reception time...a double rainbow!!!!

You can only see one rainbow in that picture, but there were actually two, not that it matters- one rainbow is more than I would've ever asked for on my wedding day.

Cocktail hour blew by in .5 seconds and then it was time for intros. I heard that many were legendary so I can't wait to see the video...I know there were multiple flips involved in Caroline and Josh's entrance...

Amazing. Other highlights of the night included all 4 of the speeches- my Dad, Caroline, Josh and Mike (Eric's brothers). My Dad welcomed everyone and talked about both me and Eric. It's hard to remember the details until I see the video, but I think my favorite part was when he talked about having a chat with Eric before we left for Europe telling him to have fun and keep me safe, not in that order haha.

If you read Caroline's blog you obviously know she worked hard on her speech. If you hung out with her in the weeks before, you know even more that she was carrying that speech around with her for over a week practicing- she had it totally memorized by the time she got up there.

I really liked her whole speech so it's hard to pinpoint the best parts, but I enjoyed her discussion of our friendship over the years and where it is now. The days when she was reading my diary and listening to my phone conversations (never knew about that!), and the days now where were talk online at least once a day, if not every hour. She talked about following my footsteps to college, into a long distance relationship and running her first 5k. She said she almost switched into the School of Education before she realized she couldn't follow ALL of my footsteps. Haha. She also told everyone about our family traditions with Eric- awesome trips to Ireland and San Francisco, gingerbread making contests and New Year's Eve parties. Then she told a story of watching an arena football game on TV with Eric, asking him why he stopped playing football and learning that it was because he didn't want to go to Texas when I was here, only a few months after we started dating. At the end she told us to always remember this day and what brought us to this moment- very important advice on the days in the future when I will surely consider killing Eric haha I kid :)

After Caroline, Eric's brother Josh got up to speak. He told lots of fun stories about Eric- avoiding left turns on the way to school, and sticking up for him when older high schoolers decided to mess with the kid "with the biggest brother in town." He even mentioned Eric's "too trusting" way his previous girlfriends (which could've gotten interesting haha), including the time he let his unlicensed girlfriend drive and apparently this ended with both Eric and Josh flying through bushes and into a nearby front lawn. He also discussed how I let Eric be himself (though I have to admit there were times when this was not true, such as the day I learned Eric didn't wear a seat belt- let's just say Eric does NOT get in the car without a seat belt these days) starting and ending with the story of how I was "mildly egging Eric on as he ate scoop after scoop of mayo by hand, stopping only to grin from ear to ear, and wipe his face clean with orange juice." Yeah- I don't like mayo or orange juice, but I found the whole situation pretty amusing. He complimented my ability to deal with Eric's entourage and his even more crazy family. This was funny, but I know I am the luckiest when it comes to both of these. I couldn't be any more luckily when it comes to Eric's family or his friends.

Finally, Mike, Eric's youngest brother got up to tell a story. He had been telling us he didn't have a speech, just a story and I was very curious what the story was. It turned out this story was about going to get sandwiches last year- me, Mike and Eric, after a celebration of my birthday at Katie's house. He talked about how Eric is very particular about his food and was very angry when the sandwich place did not cut through the entire sandwich. He described in detail Eric's anger- sounding exactly like I imagine he did that day. Then, he talked about me, who barely even noticed Eric's anger and continued to talk to Mike and Eric as though everything was 100 % fine. This story cracked me up because it's pretty much totally representative of our relationship. This story EASILY could've been reversed in a situation where I was upset about MY food, and Eric just carried on as normal. Almost the exact same thing happened on Friday as Eric yelled at every slow car in front of us thinking we would be late to the rehearsal. Since my #1 goal of the day was not to get stressed and upset my stomach, I asked about golf, told stories about my morning and avoided the subject of being late at all costs. Eric and I both have our things that make us tick (incorrect food orders is one of them for both of us) but we manage each others annoyances well, always balancing out the other's temporary anger.

So, the speeches were good. Sorry for the long description of them but I want to remember everything :)

Our first dance was good, but I wouldn't say the dance lessons really paid off. I was too overwhelmed by all of it to manage steps. We worked in a few moves though...

We danced to "My Best Friend" by Tim McGraw.

Other highlights of the night included when my brother Jake came over to my table to chat with me while Eric was gone...

Jake said after the speeches he was inspired, and I was like, "to what?" and he said, "I decided I want to find a girl like Kelly" aww :)

Cutting the cake was pretty amusing, since Eric and I really had no idea what we were doing. It tasted good though...

Dancing with my Dad was fun, even if I wasn't really paying attention enough to remember all of our moves...

My little cousins dancing was adorable too...

I went over to chat with my Nana too- she said that if I had as much luck as I did today for the rest of my life, we'd be all set...

I said I thought that was my Dad's luck, and she said that my grandfather Pops was also very lucky- and was born on Friday the 13th! So much for superstition, right?

Got a great Christmas card for Nana this year I think too...all her grandchildren, 20 of us + Eric (is he her grand son in law? lol)

I also got a picture of all my college friends...

Towards the end of the night, my bustle broke. We thought it just fell, but then Katie was like um...it's still bustled, yet not? I had a few people try to fix it and then I completely gave up on the whole thing and Katie and I ended up like this...

Oh well, it's my wedding and I'll change if I want to :)

Don't worry- I left on my awesome garter that Katie made for me (it was my something blue- though I honestly don't think I had anything borrowed on, oops!)

See it? haha. Love it!

And the FINAL highlight of the night was our last dance song, which felt like a lot less pressure than the first dance, and plus I was in shorts and flip flops. We look awesomely disheveled but we are happy...

Although there were points in the night where my stomach was not at 100 percent (like I ever expected that), I'd say the reception was overall perfect. And like Eric said at the end of the night, you are never going to feel as loved as you do on your wedding day.

Later today I'll post a few funny after/next day pictures and some wedding details (good pictures of flowers, the cake etc). I hope you guys are enjoying these recaps!