Welcome to the Jungle

 

After as many hellos and hugs as we could manage to squeeze into an hour, it was time to head in to dinner.



Dave and I waltzed straight into our first dance, "California Stars" by Billy Bragg & Wilco (for 47 seconds too long, much to DVC's dismay), and then my dad gave a great welcome speech - didn't sound nervous at all, people loved learning more about why we had the caricature artist (an homage to my late grandfather) and nobody even noticed his crazy eye!

 

I was starving at this point, but thankfully the staff had a full spread of appetizers waiting for DVC and I when we sat down.  We had a few minutes to hoover some shrimp and fried green beans (so good!), then lined up with our parents to greet guests as they went through the buffet.  We'd recently seen this done - one couple we know held their receiving line at the buffet instead of attempting to walk around to all of the tables, while another donned his'n'hers aprons and handed out plates to guests - and really liked the idea.  We invited our parents up with us, so there were quite a few of us for those eager to eat to get through, but it was really neat tohave a brief moment with every single one of our guests and introduce them to our whole crew of 'rents. 

 

 

Leaf kicked off the speeches and made us all cry. I'll share her heartfelt words in a later post, as well as those from Dave's best man, Spero, and sister, Sophie, who each stood up and spoke as well.  Dave's dad warmly welcomed me to the fam and then everyone was in tears again when he got a bit emotional addressing his son.

 

Not a dry eye in the house.  Onward to cake cutting!  No shoving of cake in the face (sorry kids, not a fan). 
Our little topper cake was hazelnut flavored with Nutella filling.  Seriously, what (my) dreams are made of.  There were a bunch of different flavors of cupcakes, all in adorable little polka dot wrappers and all SO GOOD.  I had about seventeen carrot cake minis for breakfast the next morning.

My dad and I took a spin round the dance floor to Little Miss Magic, which we've been touting as our father-daughter song since I was ten, then invited everyone to join us.  DVC sweetly stuck around for a few minutes doing the white man shuffle, then excused himself so I could shake it like a polaroid picture with my gal pals. 
And let me tell you, our friends can BOOGIE.  It was like the grand finale of Footloose out there.

 

 

I had so very much fun.  I hope you all did too.

 

Thank you, Slater, for capturing so many great shots of our dear ones.  I love these photos.