A Sunday Kind of Love: Food, Glorious Food

After the toasts, our first course of the evening was served. The three courses were spread out throughout parent dances & guest dancing, but I'm going to combine all of our food into one post - if there's one thing our venue does better than any other venue in Philadelphia - it's food.  There was nothing that wasn't included in our price per head cost, and anything we could have asked for - or changed - or added, they would have fulfilled any of our wishes.

At each seat, our guests were greeted with their menu for the evening:

(my mom had requested some special photos during the meal time, and our photographer didn't get the food detail shots - a special thank you to the bees at the wedding who got these shots so I could share them!)

 Menu / Photo by Mrs. Fox

First Course - Cescaphe Salad - Fresh spring mix wrapped in a thinly sliced English cucumber, served with fresh mozzarella, tomato, fire roasted red pepper, olive tapenade, and a crispy crostini with balsamic vinaigrette.

Photo by Mrs. Pain au Chocolat

The Intermezzo course was a mixed berry sorbet: 

Photo by Mrs. Pain au Chocolat 

For their main course, each guest had a choice of three entrees, each served with vegetables and herbed risotto. 

The most popular was by far the bacon wrapped filet mignon: 

Photo by Mrs. Coyote 

 The following was my favorite, the Orange Muscovy Duck Breast:

Photo by Mrs. Pain au Chocolat

 Our non-meat option was a pistachio encrusted Chilean Sea Bass:

Photo by Mrs. Pain au Chocolat

There were also a vegetarian (non-fish) option and a gluten free option that guests with special dietary needs could order specially.  

We were served our food first, and got a chance to sample everything before we started making our rounds around the room. 

Photos by Mike Landis Photographer: 

Proof that we sat and ate! 

One of everything - it was delicious! 

Our dinner left people feeling full (as if they didn't have enough to eat during the massive cocktail hour!) and satisfied.  When we see friends and family,  the food at our wedding always comes up.  We always believed that they ceremony was for us, and the reception is for our guests.  We might not have gotten to eat all we wanted, but our guests did, and it was worth every penny! We know it was better-than-average wedding food, and we are so pleased that our guests were able to have such a wonderful meal while celebrating with us! 

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.

Our ceremony space was flipped into an elegant reception space with gorgeous details.

The bridal party made their entrance to some very viral video tunes. 

We danced our first dance as husband and wife.
I was lifted (briefly) in a chair during the Hora.
Our very special guests toasted us with well wishes, love, and happiness. 

A Sunday Kind of Love: Raise your glasses

When our guests returned to their seats, my brother and uncle did the blessing over the wine and  bread.

All photos by Mike Landis Photographer

 

Then my MOH (who had recovered well enough from her brief sickness during the ceremony) was called to make the first toast of the night.  Unfortunately I don't have the exact text from her toast, but she made a lot of jokes about our friendship (we didn't exactly like each other when we first met), my dating history and blog (I used to bring my dates to the bar where she bartended when we were both living in NYC), and finally how happy she was that Mr. Ly and I found each other - and how well matched we are.  She wanted to mention the pregnancy, since she and I have the exact same due date - but since not all our guests knew, I didn't want people to find out through a wedding toast. (Better to find out through our thank you note!)

It was short and sweet, and full of laughter and heartfelt moments - all in all, the perfect toast.

Then our Best Man made his speech.  I'll be honest, before the wedding I was a little nervous about the Best Man's speech.  Mr. Ly and I have sat through some horrendous best man speeches - too long, filled with jokes no one really gets, or just wildly inappropriate.  Not that I thought our best man would do this, but I did have some concerns.  Thankfully, he also kept it short and sweet.  He said some touching things about his friendship with Mr. Ly and how he knew from the beginning of our relationship that Mr. Ly and I were meant to be. He provoked some tears from our guests, and didn't talk for too long.

Overall, both of our toasts were not too long or embarrassing, but meaningful and touching. They were both great tributes to our relationship and how it grew from the beginning - from each side's perspective.  We laughed, shed a few tears, and toasted the start of a beautiful marriage!

Did anyone else have any unfounded (or founded) fears about their toasts before they were given??

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.

Our ceremony space was flipped into an elegant reception space with gorgeous details.

The bridal party made their entrance to some very viral video tunes. 

We danced our first dance as husband and wife.
I was lifted (briefly) in a chair during the Hora.

A Sunday Kind of Love: Lift Me Up

(I feel like I'm always apologizing for the gap in my postings, hopefully this is the last apology.  Sorry I've been slacking on recap posts, prepping for Baby Lyre has taken over our lives with 4 weeks (maybe more, maybe less - let's hope for MORE!) until he arrives. My goal is to have these done before he gets here!) 

Mr. Ly and I had just finished our first dance, and the DJ seamlessly transitioned into the Horah.  Our bridal party, my side of the family and my friends immediately rushed up and circled around us, Mr. Ly's side of the family maybe had never done the Hora before or were a bit more hesitant, but they eventually joined the circle and kicked off our party in the traditional Jewish style.

All photos by Mike Landis Photographer

I am going to be 100% honest here.  I had some serious anxiety going into the horah.  Besides being a plus-sized bride to begin with (would they even be able to lift me??) I was now 3.5 months pregnant, and being jostled in a chair just didn't seem like the best idea.  I had kind of gotten over my fear of the plus sized issue, although I think it's a valid one.  I've seen some pretty beefy guys get lifted in their chairs, but still I was nervous about the weight being too much.  I tried to arrange it so that I had the strongest guys on my chair, and I tried to work that out with Mr. Ly before hand, but he didn't really seem to think it was a big deal and kept brushing it off.  Turns out it wasn't even an issue because I didn't last that long anyway!

Once I spoke to my DOC about it the week of our wedding, she reassured me that it was my call, we could do the chair or not, and no one would even notice it was missing. I felt a little better and was leaning more towards not doing it, but Mr. Ly REALLY wanted to do the chair. It was one of the things he was most looking forward to, and how could I deprive my new husband of that?  So I agreed, very hesitantly, to do the chair lifts.  I gave specific instructions to all the groomsmen that if they were on my chair, I was not to be bounced up and down, but just held up, and not too high (have I mentioned that besides my other worries, I also have a terrible fear of heights??), and when I say, "Put me down." they PUT ME DOWN.   As soon as my chair started to tip forward (which was maybe 30 seconds into it), I was done. Mr. Ly was up for a bit longer than me,  so the pictures are a bit uneven! I'm glad he got to experience it, and I'm glad I never have to again.

I was literally up and down in less than 30 seconds.  

The rest of the horah was great, and in hindsight, if we hadn't done the chair, I probably would have felt like we missed out on something.  No one got hurt and I managed to put aside my weighty-fears for just a moment (or a few seconds) to enjoy it.

 It was a great way to kick off the party, get our guests up and out of their seats, and having some fun.  

Anyone else suffer from "horah fears"  or any other traditions that maybe made you a little nervous??

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.

Our ceremony space was flipped into an elegant reception space with gorgeous details.

The bridal party made their entrance to some very viral video tunes. 

We danced our first dance as husband and wife.

A Sunday Kind of Love: I Was Made For You

Once our bridal party had made their way in, Mr. Ly and I were ready to make our entrance and have our first dance as husband and wife. When I last blogged about our song choice for our first dance, we had picked "Colors" by Grace Potter & the Nocturnals.  As much as we love that song, we loved another one a lot more, and while we weren't sure the rhythm was right for our first dance - we decided to go with the song we liked the best - rhythm be damned. Our first dance was to Brandi Carlile's "The Story."  But before we could dance, we had to enter.

As you may recall from our introduction post, nearly a year ago, Mr. Ly has a t-shirt with a well known lyric from a popular Kanye West & Jay-Z song.  After our YouTube viral video bridal party entrance, we really shouldn't have been so concerned about offending people even more with our own entrance song.  But we chose a part of the song that had the least offensive lyrics that we could find.  Yes, we entered to N****s in Paris. (Warning - the lyrics are NSFW!) We entered at about 1 minute 40 seconds into the song - with Mr. Ly's favorite lyrics...

What she order? 

We had so much fun with our entrance! 

At this point, I'm saying "Where is that rose petal entrance we were supposed to have??" 

Seconds later... Rose Petals! 

As the petals fell, our first dance song started.

All of these lines across my faceTell you the story of who I amSo many stories of where I've beenAnd how I got to where I amBut these stories don't mean anythingWhen you've got no one to tell them toI was made for you

I climbed across the mountaintopsTravel across the ocean blueI cross over lines and I broke all the rulesAnd baby I broke them all for you

Oh because even when I was flat brokeYou made me feel like a million bucksYou do, I was made for you. 

You see the smile that's on my mouthIt's hiding the words that don't come outAll of the friends who think that I'm blessedThey don't know I'm in this mess

No they don't know who I really amAnd they don't know what I've been throughLike you do, and I was made for you. 

All of these lines across my faceTell you the story of who I amSo many stories of where I've beenAnd how I got to where I am

Oh but these stories don't mean anythingWhen you've got no one to tell them toIt's true, I was made for youOh yeah, and it's true that I was made for you. 

We actually cut the song early, right before the 3 minute mark (it gets a little scream-y at that point and we always start laughing hysterically.) We thought 3 minutes was the perfect amount of time for a first dance anyway.  I tried to abide by the rabbi's ceremony rule here too, and not look anywhere but at Mr. Ly the entire time, which I almost managed. Except on my BM's was desperately trying to get my attention every time I was facing her direction.  Turns out, one of the rose petals landed on the top of Mr. Ly's head and was causing a distraction.  I brushed it off, and we resumed focusing on each other - singing along to the song and just marveling in our wedding thus far.  We couldn't have been happier. 

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.

Our ceremony space was flipped into an elegant reception space with gorgeous details.
The bridal party made their entrance to some very viral video tunes. 

A Sunday Kind of Love: Ain't Nobody Got Time for That

All our guests made their way from our incredible cocktail hour into the gorgeous reception space, and were seated.  The bridal party was lined up outside the reception space behind the white curtains and waited for their cue to enter the party!

When Mr. Ly and I were deciding what our bridal party would walk in to, we knew we wanted it to be fun and have a lot of our own personality to it.  Before we started dating, I had maybe seen 1 or 2 viral videos on YouTube.  For the first few months of our relationship, Mr. Ly would send me "must-see" viral videos that I had missed throughout the years, and to this day, he's still finding them every once in a while. We decided our bridal party would walk in to a mix of our favorite viral video songs/autotune remixes.

My parents and Mr. Ly's parents entered first.  My dad LOVED the Numa Numa song, and while this was one video I actually saw before my relationship with Mr. Ly, we thought it was a perfect fit.

All photos by Mike Landis Photographer

For our bridal party we did a mix of Antoine Dodson - The Bed Intruder Remix, the cat playing piano, and Sweet Brown - Ain't Nobody Got Time for That.  You can listen to our DJ's remix of these songs below:

Travis and Katie start off the entrances with some Gangnam Style moves

Dan & Sarah

Bill & Jenna

Dan & Elizabeth

Mark & Linda

Kevin, Alissa, & Debbie

Dave & Liz

Mike & Diane

Our bridal party gathered after their entrance, waiting for us to make our way in! 

We didn't make it through the whole mix, I don't think. And most of it was underneath the DJ's introductions.  It may seem like an unconventional choice to be the first songs play, but it was only a brief part of our reception. Yes, a lot of the adults at the reception had no idea what the songs were, but our bridal party had a lot of laughs during the entrances;  it was just a really fun way to kick off our party!

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.

Our ceremony space was flipped into an elegant reception space with gorgeous details.