Wedding Wednesday: Reception, Part 1

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Happy Wedding Wednesday!

The reception involved too many things to fit into one post...and I want to drag out my content as much as possible.
Hope you don't mind ;)

The cocktail hour sounded like it was a blast, but the bridal party had our own party in the library at The Athletic Club. Andrew and I were even able to sneak upstairs and see the gorgeous space before everyone else went in. These are some of my favorite photos, both from our Instagram hashtag #AndrewMarriesMary and from Tessa, our incredible photographer, of Starling Studio.
(Unless otherwise noted, all photos are from Starling Studio)
(It's easy to tell which are from Instagram and which are from our photographer, though! Obviously!)

Lots of photos, yet again! You were warned!!

Where we dined:

Where we danced:

 The window!

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Loooove this one:

After our mini photo session we snuck back down to the library for a cocktail before introductions.

Do I wish we would have joined the cocktail hour with all of our guests?

Kind of, considering how after the reception Andrew and I felt like we didn't talk to everyone enough. However, those few moments alone in that window were so special that I'm glad we didn't! We wouldn't have been able to get that lighting had we waited, and the window photos were something I dreamed about since we toured the space!

The intros were really fun: since the bridal party had our own cocktail hour, the DJ called everyone to gather around the dance floor. Basically we had a standing ovation crowd for our introductions.

Grandparents and parents walked in, carrying wine and looking fabulous.
Everyone cheered quite loudly. It was rather awesome.

Then the bridal party walked in, demonstrating a different sport (basketball, football, tennis, baseball and horseback riding (Monty Python-style)).
So amazing and so very us!
Here's Evan getting some air to catch the winning touchdown pass from Holly:

Then it was our turn!

Before our intro:

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From there, since we had everyone's attention, we went right into our first dance, Nat King Cole's "When I Grow Too Old to Dream"
It's a dreamy little ditty.


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Another favorite photo:

By the end of the song, the whole bridal party was swaying to the music. It was really cute (and I'm SO happy that our videographer got that on our video!)

 From here we ate!
Steak and chicken and mashed potatoes and asparagus and bread and salad and wine and champagne! Oh my!
We ate like kings!
And yes, I ate EVERY bite! haha

Here's my Dad giving his welcome speech. It was very sweet and funny and awesome, just like my Dad! In the below photo, this is the part where he says that Andrew and I met at a Steelers bar on a Sunday.

And a Facebook cover photo was born.

My sister and Best Man then gave heartwarming and hilarious speeches:

(Isn't she gorgeous?!?!)

She made me cry! 

Best.sister.EVER

Then Justin brought down the house:

He made us crack up!

I smile every time I see these photos.

Thanks for taking this trip down memory lane with me.

That's all for this week.
Next week we party!

All non-Instagram photos from this post are from Starling Studio (you can tell which ones they are because they are beautiful photos!!!): website | Facebook

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