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!