JohnandRain&Eric
31 December 2000
Sunday 31 December 2000
The DJ does a great job announcing all of the members of the wedding party. As he announces JohnandRain, "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen begins to play!!!! We walk up to the DJ's stand and offer the Cherokee Wedding Prayer as grace for the wedding and for the meal. Then, dinner is served!!!!!!! When John gets back to his seat, he sees the "Groom" baseball cap that Rain bought for him...then the cake topper makes sense (it is the three of us in our wedding clothes and John is wearing his cap).
The pace stays pretty fast and furious...but that is what we wanted. We quickly eat, then we begin making the rounds to see our guests and to hand out the rest of the gifts to our wedding party. Everyone has been such a great help!!!!! We barely make it completely around the room, when the DJ calls us up for our first dance...then toasts from the maid of honor and best man...father/daughter dance (Dad surprised me by telling the DJ that night what song he wanted to hear...it was a fun surprise)...John's dance with his mother-in-law...Mom and Dad's toasts (Dad sang his!)...Rain and Eric's dance (Eric worked really hard to learn how to dance for our reception)...JohnandRain&Eric's dance...dedication dances (John to Rain & Rain to John & again)...cutting the cake...bouquet toss...STOP RIGHT THERE! We never found the toss bouquet! Luckily the hostess (Rain's cousin,Tammy) scammed a bouquet of cheap fake flowers from the restaurant across the hall, tied some ribbons from the favors on it and used THAT. Then the garter toss...John went in on his knees and did the traditional removal with his teeth. (It couldn't have been THAT hard...with my silk hose, the damn thing had been sliding off all day!!!!!!)
Finally, everybody got up to dance! And we danced, and danced, and danced. At midnight, we danced to Auld Lang Syne and had more champagne. A young guest had been jumping up and down on a chair since 4 minutes till 12...she kept telling Rain that she had something very important to tell everyone and that she HAD to get their attention. Rain knew what the important something was...so she went to tell the DJ to make a change in the program. After Auld Lang Syne, the DJ called this special little girl to the center of the dance floor and played "Birthday" by the Beatles...because SarahCaitlin just turned 7!!!!!!! (Not everybody gets to share their wedding reception with a front-toothless little angel in pony tails!) Eric went home with John's sister shortly after midnight...it had been a long couple of days! Rain's parents didn't last too much longer!
The party continued until nearly 2:00. During the last song montage, all of our remaining friends stood in a circle and danced around us! It was wonderful! The ushers moved all of our important things (gifts, guest book poster, toasting flutes, etc.) to our room...a few of our guests worked on the other important things (keg, opened bottles of wine, etc.). Then the party went on.....
The Post-Reception Party
Well, John and Rain decided to take a few minutes to themselves...to change into comfortable clothes AND to uncover the bed that our attendants had so thoughtfully covered with our gifts, etc. John had already discovered the plastic wrapped toilet seat and the missing bathroom light bulb...and the plastic wrapped recliner was easy to spot! What we hadn't discovered was that the mattress on the bed (including sheets, blankets and pillows) had been so tightly wrapped that we could bounce quarters off the plastic wrap and nearly hit the ceiling! Not only had the bed been wrapped...but the mattress had been turned 90 degrees on top of the box spring. Oh well, we weren't ready for sleeping yet...there was more party to be had! (There
was also a great sign on the wall outside our room saying "Help wake-up the Newlyweds!" and it had three of our party horn favors attached!)
We followed the keg and wine from room to room with our friends...gradually one-by-one they dropped. Around 5:30 am...we all decided that we'd had enough (oh ya...and the keg ran dry!) so we headed for bed. It took us over an hour to unwrap!!!!!!
WOW! What a night!