11/06/14 - The Reception - Caliente!

We all walked back down the aisle to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by Israel Kamakawiwo and it was time to get the party started. Servers were waiting at the end of the pier to give each guest a glass of champagne as they exited the pier. Felipe and I stepped aside to get a few more solo shots with the photographer as the guests enjoyed the cocktail hour on the Seaside Deck. The videographer captured moments of a few of the guests saying a few words of congratulations to us. Most went along the lines of we love you both, we're so happy for you, etc. Leave it to my dad to knock it out of the park though... he introduced himself, he literally said "Hi, I'm Tom Sullivan, Jenny's dad" and continued. We got a huge laugh out of  that; who did he think he was speaking to?? 

We had put so much thought into every detail of the reception that it was such a relief to see everything come together so well and so cool to see all of our ideas become reality. One of my favorite touches were the seashell holders for the escort cards. They had gotten held up at the local post office and the resort's wedding coordinator was only able to track them down the day before the wedding - phew:)

I had found them on Esty and they doubled as an extra favor the guests could take with them.

We decided to have all the flowers at the reception in white, with the exception of one dramatic arrangement on the escort card table.

We used two LED lit rectangular tables for the bridal party and round tables for the remainder of the guests. Personally I think the all white flower look turned out really nicely and we loved it.

I had found a cake online that I loved and sent an image to the resort to see if they could create the same one, luckily they did a fantastic job and it turned out beautifully.

After the introductions we transitioned into the first dance. Our song was "Steady As We Go" by Dave Matthews Band. We had taken a few dance lessons in Dubai with a friend of the dance instructor at my school. It was really convenient as she was able to come directly to our apartment to work with us. We learned some basic ballroom steps, a couple spins and a dip. She had suggested that we try to incorporate a lift and we briefly thought perhaps we could pull it off. We started practicing and let's just say it didn't go well. During one of our practice sessions I literally head butted him while attempting the lift. After that we were both laughing so hard we had to stop practicing for the day. For obvious reasons we decided to nix the lift.

Clearly with Felipe and I both having our identical twins there, people were pretty confused all week. One of the best stories from that came during the speeches. While sitting at the bridal party table I had Felipe on my right and his twin on my left. During my dad's speech he was looking and speaking directly to us and I was trying to subtly alert him to the fact that he was speaking to Diego and I and not Felipe and I. He didn't catch on so I had to interrupt and say "Dad, actually Felipe is over here":)

During Diego's best man speech he also touched on the twin confusion. He said the three highlights of the wedding week were 1) when he dropped the ring, 2) my dad mixing them up during his speech and 3) when he and his girlfriend arrived to check in they offered him the honeymoon suite and he said "and we took it". All of the speeches were amazing but perhaps the funniest moment came during Elaine and Holly's. They had the awesome idea of having Holly translate Elaine's maid of honor speech into Spanish so everyone could understand it. I also have to give a shout out to my dad who shocked the hell out of everyone by starting his speech with a line in Spanish! But back to Elaine and Holly. Elaine started out by giving a shout out to Sarah W, her co maid of honor who couldn't make the wedding bc she had just had a baby! Elaine's speech was amazing and Holly killed it with the translation. Elaine talked about all of the life lessons we'd learned from our Nana, including the importance of finding a fabulous husband. She talked about how there was a time that I was single and in grad school and Nana was concerned that perhaps I was spending too much time studying and not enough time in the bars meeting guys. Elaine said, "I can say with certainty this was not a fear I ever shared":)

Then came the best part. Elaine was talking about when I met Felipe and how I had called her and said "the soccer director is really hot", when Holly translated this part she used the word "caliente" which does mean hot but in Chile when used to describe a person translates to horny, so you can imagine the reaction that got from the Spanish speaking guests. Felipe and I were laughing so hard we were almost crying.

I also have to mention that immediately after the cocktail hour a torrential downpour started. So we felt pretty lucky that the weather had cleared up just for us to have our outdoor ceremony. The reception was covered so the rain really didn't affect us. If anything it cooled the temperature down a bit which was nice since everyone was dancing so much. Then came time for the bouquet toss. The girlfriend of Felipe's second best man caught it. The DJ then went to him for a reaction and one guess as to what he said?..."Chuuuta":)

After the reception everyone made their way to the lobby bar and the party continued until that bar closed at 2am. Needless to say some of us were hurting the next day before the sunset catamaran cocktail cruise...