A Sunday Kind of Love: Reception Details

Before our guests headed into the reception, the room was finalized and our photographers got some great shots of the room in all it's glory.

All photos by Mike Landis Photographer

We had three different styles of tables - 2 long tables that sat 18-20 guests on either side of the dance floor, 4 oblong tables that sat 14-16 guests on each corner of the dance floor, and 5 round tables that held 10-12 guests on the outside corners of the room.  Each table style had a different centerpiece (or centerpieces for the long tables).  We ended up splurging a bit on the lighting as well, but the chandeliers were our main source of lighting and definitely the focal point of the room, and we had them lit in amber lighting.

Our sweetheart table was in the center of the room, with these large white chairs, that were very low to the ground.  You'll see in future posts that it looks kind of silly how low they are, and made it kind of difficult to eat comfortably.

Another Portal reference - our table numbers were photos of us - our table had us from Halloween, dressed as Portal characters - Mr. Ly was a weighted companion cube! 

Our gorgeous Kate Spade toasting flutes with delicious champagne

All of the tables were beautifully set, all of the linen was included in our package with Cescaphe, we chose a charcoal tablecloth, in different textures - pintucked and crinkled, and navy napkins to match our wedding colors. 

We had a lot of left over hand sanitizers from our welcome bags, and we got married during this past winter's devastating flu season.  I didn't get the flu shot before the wedding (I know, being pregnant, that was pretty stupid) and it hit me a few days before that we'd be hugging/kissing/touching a lot of people at the wedding.  And I kind of freaked out. So we put out all our extra hand sanitizers on the tables.  I don't know if anyone used them, but they were at least taken home, we had none left at the end of the night - and as a bonus - I didn't get sick.
 

We also had a wedding app for our guests to upload pictures throughout the night.  My mom created the entire account, and printed up instruction cards to put on the tables and around other common spaces.

The tall centerpieces of baby's breath that we used for the ceremony decor were on the four oblong tables:

 The long tables had three low centerpieces each spread out on the length of the table:

The round tables had medium-sized low centerpieces on each table:

The room was breathtaking, and more gorgeous than I could have imagined.  It's a pretty impressive space when it's empty, so it wasn't a huge leap to add to the beauty.  You might notice the lack of cakes in our details - those will have their own posts later on, but now we're ready to get the party started!

I pre-capped our recaps with a big announcement!
Recaps began with our Same Day Edit video.
I needed to get some perspective the week of the wedding.
Personally brewed beers gave our rehearsal lunch a special touch!
I spent a fantastic last day as a Miss.
I shared some gifts for my bridesmaids. 
The girls spend an easy and relaxing morning getting made up.
The guys spent the morning building a chuppah and doing guy things.
I panicked when the morning went by too fast.
We exchanged lovely notes and gifts on the wedding morning.
I put on my dress and became a Blissful Bride.
Bridal details and my "somethings" rounded out the wedding morning.
We had our not-so-private first look.
We took some silly pictures, just the two of us.
Broad Street gave us gorgeous shots, but we nearly lost some of bridal party in traffic.
The Lyres and their huge bridal party storm the art museum, Rocky style.
I shed tears of pain at our final photo stop in Olde City
The ceremony space and details took our breath away when we arrived for a quick rehearsal.
We were officially married under Jewish law when we signed our Ketubah.
Guests were seated and the bridal party got our ceremony started.

I got a little emotional for my walk down the aisle.
We did not take our eyes off each other in our traditional Jewish ceremony.
Post-ceremony photos were taken with some special gender pictures for our surprise!
Our extra-long cocktail hour was full of delicious food and drinks, and a controversial ice-sculpture.

A Sunday Kind of Love: The 90 minute hour

Our caterer, Cescaphe, is known near and far for their exquisite cocktail hour. Although calling it a cocktail hour is a bit misleading.  It's actually an hour and a half, and during that time, our ceremony space was being flipped into our reception space, Mr. Ly and I snuck off to take some pictures, and our guests got to enjoy more food than they could imagine.  We really didn't want to miss our cocktail hour, and we tried desperately to get there, but we managed maybe 20 minutes of the hour and a half.  We took some family photos, and of course that takes time to gather everyone, we spent some time in our bridal suite - which was also packed to the brim with hors d'oeuvres and samples from all the stations. Cocktail hour was held in the same foyer area where the guests entered before the ceremony.  It doesn't look like a huge space, but both  But I don't have many professional pictures and without our own personal experience, I am relying on our guest photos and their commentary to tell this part of our wedding.

BEES! Mrs. Fox, Mrs. Pain au Chocolat, & Mrs. Coyote / Photo by Mike Landis Photographer 

I hadn't mentioned it yet, but I had some very special bee guests at the wedding.  I was so lucky to have Mrs. Pain au Chocolat, Mrs. Coyote, and Mrs. Fox at the wedding, and as fellow bloggers they know they importance of the detail shots - they made sure they were taking plenty during cocktail hour!

Sushi Station & Seafood Station / Photo by Mrs. Fox 

Mrs. Fox sampling the seafood station / Photo by Mrs. PaC

A selection of what Mrs. Fox had during cocktail hour

Antipasti Station / Photo by Mrs. PaC

There were also carving stations and over 30 passed hors d'oeuvres, and a full top shelf open bar featuring our signature drink with just about everything else for our guests to enjoy.

Mrs. Fox's drink of choice - an orange cosmo with a splash of champagne 

Photo by Mike Landis Photographer 

Our cocktail hour came with a custom ice sculpture as part of our package, and while we didn't get to see much of it, we picked something that was representative of our relationship and meaningful.  We didn't want to do the LOVE sculpture or our monogram, we wanted to the weighted companion cube from Portal.  It's not the first (or last) Portal reference you've seen in our wedding (the cufflinks I bought Mr. Ly were the Aperture Science logo) or the first time you've seen the companion cube on the bee - Mrs. Wizard made a companion cube cake for Mr. Wiz for their rehearsal.

One of our guests posted a picture of our sculpture on Reddit, and while we loved reading how much people hated our choice of sculpture on our way to our honeymoon - we didn't choose the companion cube because we wanted to be different or special or show the world that we played a game once, we chose it because it means something to us.  And to everyone else, it's a box with a heart, and how could that be wrong for a wedding?

For the entire 90 minutes, we made it down one hallway, and got to see about 20 to 30 guests before everyone started filing into the reception.  Even though we didn't get to fully enjoy all our cocktail hour had to offer, every time anyone talks to us about our wedding, the cocktail hour is one of the first things they mention.  It left a memorable mark on most of our guests, and I'm glad I had the bees there to document some of the parts I missed! I'm sure you'll see more glimpses of the bees throughout the wedding, and their photos will pop up from time to time, too.

I pre-capped our recaps with a big announcement!
Recaps began with our Same Day Edit video.
I needed to get some perspective the week of the wedding.
Personally brewed beers gave our rehearsal lunch a special touch!
I spent a fantastic last day as a Miss.
I shared some gifts for my bridesmaids. 
The girls spend an easy and relaxing morning getting made up.
The guys spent the morning building a chuppah and doing guy things.
I panicked when the morning went by too fast.
We exchanged lovely notes and gifts on the wedding morning.
I put on my dress and became a Blissful Bride.
Bridal details and my "somethings" rounded out the wedding morning.
We had our not-so-private first look.
We took some silly pictures, just the two of us.
Broad Street gave us gorgeous shots, but we nearly lost some of bridal party in traffic.
The Lyres and their huge bridal party storm the art museum, Rocky style.
I shed tears of pain at our final photo stop in Olde City
The ceremony space and details took our breath away when we arrived for a quick rehearsal.
We were officially married under Jewish law when we signed our Ketubah.
Guests were seated and the bridal party got our ceremony started.

I got a little emotional for my walk down the aisle.
We did not take our eyes off each other in our traditional Jewish ceremony.
Post-ceremony photos were taken with some special gender pictures for our surprise! 

A Sunday Kind of Love: Oh Baby!

Right after our ceremony ended, Mr. Ly and I headed outside to take some photos just the two of us.  I was hoping to get some sunset photos, but I think the timing was just a little off.  It was still great light outside and we took our gender reveal photos that we were going to use for our thank you note once we found out if Baby Lyre was a boy or girl.

I hunted long and hard for shoes I wanted to use for the shoot, they had to be distinguishable boy or girl shoes to make the photo work. In the end I found some cute blue sneakers and some sparkly pink shoes.  I think the blue shoes actually photographed better, so lucky us that Baby Lyre is a boy!

All photos by Mike Landis Photographer

We took a few pictures of just us in the park, before adding the shoes into the mix:

For some reason, we took a lot more shots with the pink shoes than the blue ones.  We have two shots with us holding the blue shoes, and at least six shots holding the pink ones.  Maybe our photographer thought we were going to have a girl?

If Baby Lyre had been a girl, we would have had a lot more shots to choose from! 

 I am so glad we took these shoe shots on the bench:

As you saw, we used the shot in the middle, and added our own text to it. 

Once the baby pictures were taken care of, we shuffled off to an alley across the street for some more pictures (I say shuffled because at this point I was wearing my slippers and that is exactly how I was walking):

 Before heading inside to our cocktail hour, we made one more stop outside the Curtis Center to take just a few more pictures:

This one is somewhat reminiscent of our engagement photo in the hotel hallway

I am grateful for the photos we had for the gender reveal, our guests loved them in our thank you notes, and we got to spend some time after our ceremony without anyone else.  I wouldn't have wanted to do all our photos after the ceremony, but spending a half hour was the perfect amount of time before heading into to our extra-long cocktail hour!

I pre-capped our recaps with a big announcement!
Recaps began with our Same Day Edit video.
I needed to get some perspective the week of the wedding.
Personally brewed beers gave our rehearsal lunch a special touch!
I spent a fantastic last day as a Miss.
I shared some gifts for my bridesmaids. 
The girls spend an easy and relaxing morning getting made up.
The guys spent the morning building a chuppah and doing guy things.
I panicked when the morning went by too fast.
We exchanged lovely notes and gifts on the wedding morning.
I put on my dress and became a Blissful Bride.
Bridal details and my "somethings" rounded out the wedding morning.
We had our not-so-private first look.
We took some silly pictures, just the two of us.
Broad Street gave us gorgeous shots, but we nearly lost some of bridal party in traffic.
The Lyres and their huge bridal party storm the art museum, Rocky style.
I shed tears of pain at our final photo stop in Olde City
The ceremony space and details took our breath away when we arrived for a quick rehearsal.
We were officially married under Jewish law when we signed our Ketubah.
Guests were seated and the bridal party got our ceremony started.

I got a little emotional for my walk down the aisle.
We did not take our eyes off each other in our traditional Jewish ceremony. 

A Sunday Kind of Love: I Only Have Eyes For You

Our ceremony was quick and traditional.  We met with our rabbi (if you're looking for a rabbi in PA to do an interfaith wedding - or any wedding, really - I highly recommend Rabbi Bleefeld.) a few times before the wedding so he could get to know us and personalize the ceremony a bit.  He gave us one crucial piece of advice for the ceremony that we both took to heart.  He advised that as soon as the ceremony started, we look at each other, and no one else, the entire time. He told us some stories about brides who were more concerned about where the photographer/videographer were throughout the ceremony, and didn't pay attention to the real reason why they were there. He advised us that there's nothing like being able to recall the way your beloved looked the moment you were married, and we didn't need to look at him, or our guests, or anyone besides each other.  I am so very glad we took his advice, because there is nothing that I remember more vividly about our ceremony besides what Mr. Ly looked like in those moments where we were married.  I did not see guests come in late, my photographer lying on the floor to get some of his shots, or my MOH run out in the middle of our ceremony (surprise: she's pregnant too!), all I saw was the face of my love as we promised each other to love, honor and cherish each other for the rest of our lives.

So all of our photos are us, looking at each other.  And I love that. If you can take this advice and look at no one other than your partner for your entire ceremony - do it.  You'll never regret not looking anywhere else.

All photos by Mike Landis Photographer

(also, sorry to jam all these photos into one post, I didn't want to do more than one ceremony post but love ALL these pictures. I couldn't choose. So very pic heavy post ahead.)

The rabbi started the ceremony by welcoming our guests, mentioning those in remembrance who have passed, and offering up a bit of his rabbinical advice about marriage.

(this is the shot that was taken from the floor)

 We recited our vows in both Hebrew and English, and exchanged our rings:

We exchange rings

There is a blessing over the wine, and we each take a sip of wine from the Kiddish cup:

Confession: I didn't tell the rabbi I was pregnant. So I drank a sip of wine. 

The rabbi then gives the seven blessings, I believe he did them all in Hebrew for our ceremony.

(this is the last picture you see my MOH in until after the ceremony)

One of my favorite ceremony shots.

The breaking of the glass is the traditional end to the Jewish ceremony, Mr. Ly was kind of nervous about this.  The rabbi had told us a story about a couple who tried to use a shot glass for their glass, and the groom ended up breaking his foot - and missing his whole wedding.  Needless to say, we used a thin royal blue wine glass. (We would have just used a light bulb or some other really thin glass - but my mom bought us a gift for our home to display the broken glass from the ceremony - so we wanted something nice)

Despite being nervous, Mr. Ly was really excited about breaking the glass.

Easily broken, no broken bones either. 

We kiss! 

... and kiss some more. 

The violinist began the recessional song right then, and as the first few notes to Love is All You Need played in the ceremony space, I realized we were really, truly, 100% married. In Jewish law, PA law, and in the eyes of our family and friends - we were now committed to each other for as long as we both shall live. I was on cloud 9. I didn't even realize as I stepped down from under the chuppah  that my MOH was missing and my sister was the one who handed me my flowers. Talk about oblivious!

Beaming. 

We are married! 

All in all, our ceremony lasted about 20 minutes.  I like that it was short, sweet, and personal - and most of all meaningful to us both.  Our guests definitely enjoyed the shorted ceremony, and that meant more time for cocktails!

What type of ceremony did you/will you have? Long, short, somewhere in between?

I pre-capped our recaps with a big announcement!
Recaps began with our Same Day Edit video.
I needed to get some perspective the week of the wedding.
Personally brewed beers gave our rehearsal lunch a special touch!
I spent a fantastic last day as a Miss.
I shared some gifts for my bridesmaids. 
The girls spend an easy and relaxing morning getting made up.
The guys spent the morning building a chuppah and doing guy things.
I panicked when the morning went by too fast.
We exchanged lovely notes and gifts on the wedding morning.
I put on my dress and became a Blissful Bride.
Bridal details and my "somethings" rounded out the wedding morning.
We had our not-so-private first look.
We took some silly pictures, just the two of us.
Broad Street gave us gorgeous shots, but we nearly lost some of bridal party in traffic.
The Lyres and their huge bridal party storm the art museum, Rocky style.
I shed tears of pain at our final photo stop in Olde City
The ceremony space and details took our breath away when we arrived for a quick rehearsal.
We were officially married under Jewish law when we signed our Ketubah.
Guests were seated and the bridal party got our ceremony started.

I got a little emotional for my walk down the aisle.