Our reception

Today was our wedding reception. We were both nervous about it because neither Ryan nor I like much attention on ourselves and at a wedding reception in honor of OUR wedding it was sort of hard to get around the attention being on us! :-) This morning we all woke up and had breakfast and then started getting ready for the reception. Ryan, Libby, and I had to get there early so we left about an hour before the rest of my family left for the reception. We get there only to find out that about 15 minutes before we arrived the wedding cake was being delivered and as they were bringing in the cake THEY DROPPED IT!!!! Oh my gosh. Ryan's dad told them that they had an hour and a half to get another cake made for us. What a great way to start the day!! After that people started arriving so we were greeting the guests as they arrived. Ryan's dad did a little introduction/welcome at the beginning of the reception and then it was time to eat. The food was great and my favorite food group (sugar!) was well represented! We had a candy buffet, a selection of pies, and the wedding cake (that made it back just in time for the reception to start!!). After a nice lunch Ryan and I made our rounds visiting with each of the tables and thanking everyone for coming. Later, Ryan's good friend Chris gave a very sweet toast to us and then it was time for us to cut the cake. We went up there and cut the cake and just as we were about to feed it to each other we both did a pinky promise that we'd be very gentle and clean with the cake as we fed it to each other. :-) After the pinky promise we calmly and cleanly fed each other cake and then it was time to bring on the sugar!! :-) After dessert it was about time for the guests to start leaving and after just about everyone left we took some family pictures of all of Ryan's family that was there with me, Libby, and my brother and nieces.

When everything was winding down and we were about to start taking family pictures an old dear friend of mine showed up. He is a neurosurgeon at Shands hospital and was called in at 11:30am today for an emergency surgery. As soon as he was finished with the surgery he changed and rushed to our reception...he got there so fast after the surgery that he still had the line across his forehead that was caused by the elastic in his hair cover-cap that he wore during surgery. :-) He apologized profusely for being late and said, "But I did the surgery fast!" :-) He's so funny. It was very sweet of him to show up and it meant a lot that he cared enough to rush to the reception from surgery just for a 10 minute hello.

After the reception was over we came home and had a caravan of Ryan's relatives follow us back to our house because they all wanted to see our house. They were all in from out of town and since they were here for the reception they wanted to come by and check out our new house. My house wasn't as pristine as it was on Thursday before my family arrived - but everyone understood that I've had three houseguests since Thursday. :-) They left and my friend Debs and her family stayed and visited for a while and after they left we all ate dinner. At 7:00 my wonderful friend Cindy (who is Libby's godmother - or if you hear it from Libby she is her "fairy godmother"), her boyfriend, and her mom came by to see our house. They were in town for the reception from south Florida and they decided to spend the night and go home tomorrow morning so they stopped by to see our house while they were in town, too. It was such a great day getting to spend time with some of our closest friends and both Ryan and I really enjoyed the reception. What a wonderful day! The only sad part is knowing that my family is leaving in the morning right after breakfast to head back to Tennessee. :-(

Debbie's husband Corey took pictures throughout the reception so as soon as I get those from him I'll post one. :-)