Wedding Post #3 - Shoo, Fly! (photo heavy!)

For the big event, we rented one of these:



Josh's friend Chad graciously agreed to be the driver, and everyone met at the reception site to be shuttled to the ceremony site and back. 4 or 5 trips each way. No problem. The beach was within a short walking distance, but we wanted to make it easy on everybody. Plus, it was fun!

We went to the Guard House before the ceremony, to bask in how great the place looked, and also grab my bouquet. I wish I had thought to get better photos of it, but I didn't. Just know it was lovely.



Love the little bee detail... I kept these to put in a box of wedding keepsakes:


We also got a glimpse of our cakes:


(this was obviously before we put the flowers on top)



And don't you just love our cake cutter set? A little bit modern and a LOT simple. Something we can use over and over again. We bought it on Amazon for under $30. The gaudy ones from bridal websites were $50-$60, and just not really our style in the least.



The wedding cake was amazing - pound cake with buttercream icing.

Josh's groom's cake may have been even tastier, though. Chocolate on chocolate with the UT logo - he was thrilled with it. Can you believe this cake was only $30?



My friend Daeon did these amazing cake pop favors for us - they were lemon flavored, and delicious. They were a hit, and beautifully presented!




Pat from Tybee Island Weddings was there at the Guard House to oversee everything and ensure it went smoothly, and accompanied us to the beach to get things rolling.

We got to the beach, and met our officiant and photographer. Both were wonderful. We joined hands and walked down the aisle together. I know I was smiling big, but everything was kind of a blur. I know my focus was all on Josh, I barely even realized anyone else was there!

However, we did have one little snag. As the officiant was saying some (I'm sure) meaningful words, I was looking at my hands intertwined with Josh's, and noticed a little sand gnat type thing hovering around his thumb. No big deal. Suddenly, I started feeling little stinging, burning pains all over my ankles and feet. I thought maybe there were more gnats, and they were biting me. I didn't want to look down, because, you know, these were marriage words being spoken! I didn't want to look like I was distracted or not taking it seriously. But oh my Lord, were my ankles on fire! Was I standing on a nest of fire ants? I had to look down - and I saw my ankles and feet covered with about a dozen flies. Biting flies. As in, I had spots of blood on me where they were eating me. Flesh eating flies!

But, I got through it (with a lot of shuffling), and truthfully, I didn't feel a thing as soon as we were pronounced husband and wife! Insect repellent was brought out immediately after the vows and before pictures, though. That helped some. The photographer later said he had never experienced them before. It was strange... but with the Hurricane that had just blown up the eastern coast, who knows what bugs that blew in? Truthfully, everything else was perfect. I can deal with a few flies, and I like to look at it as a metaphor for my life & marriage - it may not be without annoyances, but put on some repellent and get on with the good stuff.

My friend LeAnn took these photos of the ceremony site - I edited them in picnik. It was a beautiful place, flies and all!











Meredith took this one:



Our wonderful photographer Adrian gave us these gems:





My handsome husband after the vows:



The whole gang:



The girls:


The boys:



The kiddos (except Judson):


My personal favorites:



(the above one is on our recently-ordered wedding announcements)



While we were doing photos, our guests were back at the Guard House, enjoying drinks and cheese and veggie trays. (I didn't know what to expect from the caterer - for all I know he could have been serving dried-out carrots and cheese cubes, but I was very happy to see the spread was anything but chintzy. It was all so delicious, and you could tell he really took pride in his business and his food and presentation. We snagged the leftovers, and man oh man, that was some GOOD gouda!)

We finished up our photos with the amazing Adrian (and if he hadn't said it was his wife's birthday, we would have made him come party with us at the reception, too), and Chad was waiting with our little electric chariot to take us to our reception.

I busted out our very elegant toasting flutes so we could get our drink on



and we proceeded to eat, drink, and be married! The food was amazing... we had:

roasted red potatoes stuffed with boursin cheese (TO DIE FOR)
bacon wrapped scallops
prosciutto-wrapped asparagus in puff pastry
mini crab cake with chili-lime aioli
chicken quesadillas
finger sandwiches (pimento cheese and cucumber - so good!)
stuffed mushrooms

Wowza - the food (like everything else that day) far exceeded our expectations. After the eating and the cake-cutting, we boogied until it was time to leave. We had the absolute BEST time, and I think our guests had fun as well! I was surprised by a couple of things - I did not expect the Jones Sodas to be such a hit. I figured only the kids would drink them and we'd have a ton leftover. Wrong - we had exactly one of each left over to keep as souvenirs.



I was also surprised at how creative our guests were with the DIY-card craft station. I will snap pictures of them soon! So wonderful.

Another surprise was that our signature drinks were a hit... not everyone loves vodka and Jack Daniels, but apparently our guests did. I fretted for weeks over which wines to get (as not everyone likes liquor, and we weren't serving beer), only to have Josh (and the boys) run to the liquor store the day of the wedding and grab the wines that struck his fancy and his wallet the right way... and the wine was not even touched. Not a drop. Moral of the story? When in doubt, serve vodka.

We received many compliments on the food, decor and overall vibe from not only friends and family, but the people from Tybee Island Weddings as well. For one, we were praised for being so 'low-maintenence'. I suppose it helps that it was the second wedding for us both. We weren't caught up in the details, and we didn't do any of the traditional stuff like a boquet toss or first dance. We didn't even have a DJ. We made a playlist, Josh brought his own speakers and computer, and we just hit 'play' and boogied. We did make sure dance to 'our' song, though ("You are the Best Thing" by Ray LaMontagne). At the end of the night, Pat (our coordinator for the day - Jennifer at TIW took care of everything for us leading up to the wedding, but said she had a more high-maintenence wedding to tend to, so we got Pat since we were so low-key. She was wonderful and really took care of the last-minute stuff) told us that she has been to weddings with 3 times as many people who didn't have nearly the fun our little group did. She said you see some weddings where the bride and groom barely even crack a smile, and no one dances. Doesn't sound very fun to me! I saw her smiling and laughing at our antics many times.

I guess it's about time to wrap this long-winded post up. I do have a lot more to share, though, about Tybee, Savannah and our honeymoon in future posts. In summary - it was truly the greatest day of both of our lives. I couldn't ask for a better person to spend forever with.