Mari & Jason's Reception - finally!

Sorry gang, I just realized that I never posted pics from the reception that I worked on. Thought you might like to see how it turned out. The bride and groom seemed to be very pleased with the results and the host couple said it was "a magical night", so I think all in all it was a success.

Here are some photos from set up to close, including the happy couple and the host couple. I wasn't the official photographer, so I didn't take too many pics of the people there. I mainly wanted to capture the atmosphere of the night. It was a perfect location, which made things very easy.

As are most wedding receptions these days, this one reflected the bride & groom. We served Norwegian food for Mari, the bride and Mexican food for Jason, the groom. Norwegian Rakfisk was served, since it's one of Mari's favorites. If you click to enlarge the photos of the signs, you'll see the significance of the menu chosen. We even included homemade salsa made by Jason's mom. Fabulous Food catered the event and did an amazing job. I would definitely use them again.

The dessert island was pretty cool. You can see it here. It has lucite shelves with lights above, so it made all the delicious sweets look really beautiful.

The house was a little hard to find, so we had luminarias lining the way to guide guests down the long driveway.

The Jazz ensemble was excellent. Jason found them and I would recommend them as a great option for music at any event of this kind. The keyboard player put the group together. His name is Ioannis Goudelis and he's from Greece. You'll find the music on his site to have a definite Greek influence, but they played really nice traditional soft Jazz for the reception.

The only glitches all night were some temporary tripped breakers, due to the power we were using, but the guests barely noticed anything unusual.

It was a fun time of celebrating with Mari & Jason!

So I guess my posts must be getting pretty boring because the volume of comments has come to a screeching halt. Sad for me...I miss you, my visitors.

These photos are from Pemaquid Lighthouse in Bristol, Maine. We stopped there on the way from Bar Harbor to Portsmouth, NH. It was a gorgeous spot! More to come...

The reception that I've been coordinating is coming up this weekend. I'm looking forward to it for several reasons:

1. It will be the first event where I've had a reasonable budget and have not had to do absolutely everything myself, so it should be more relaxing than other events that I've coordinated.
2. We hired a "real" caterer (Fabulous Food) and we're serving Norwegian food in honor of the bride and Mexican food in honor of the groom. I can't wait to see how the food is displayed and how it tastes. I'm really hoping to have time to take some pictures.
3. The hosts are stringing white lights all over the yard and we'll line the driveway with special luminarias, so it should be quite magical (more photo ops)
4. The RSVP guest count actually ended up being almost exactly the original target number. We had the potential for double that amount and I was a bit nervous.
5. Once this event is over, my schedule is wide open with no big activities until our vacation in December, then the holidays. I'm looking forward to being able to concentrate on home, family and friends for the rest of the year. That includes more blogging time as well.
   

More news!

• Check out Amy's news about her photography business. Great things are happening so you'd better book her before her prices go up any more.

• We had a fun time with Terry's mom this weekend. I wish she lived closer so we could do more with her.
• My brother, Pat is back in town from Ohio. That's a long story. He is looking for a one bedroom apartment or a room to rent so let me know if you hear of anything.
• Kevin has moved on to the western U.S. for his training. He's busy, busy - training 7 days a week. Sounds like he's still on track for going overseas in the next few weeks. I wish we could see him before he goes, but right now it's not very promising.
• Our ladies' bible study meets for the last time next week, then we'll break for the holidays. We haven't decided for sure if we'll continue in the Spring, but it's looking like a possibility.
• I've committed to organize the food for an upcoming ladies retreat at church at the end of January. I've already got some fun ideas, but need to get my budget before I can do any definite planning.