We were definitely more nervous about the Reception than any of our other plans - the pressure is on when more people are involved and we had 100 people to entertain! Thankfully, I quite enjoy planning parties and celebrations but I had no experience of planning anything quite this big. I gained a bit of experience while planning Mum's 50th birthday celebrations (which was a small event) and that was stressful enough so planning our wedding reception had my head spinning from January 2015 right through to January 2016.
One thing I did learn though is that preparation is key. However, I also learnt that you cannot plan for everything and things will not always go exactly how you imagine them to. It's easy to build up an idea of how everything will go and your expectations can easily be shattered on the night so my advice would be to go into event planning with this in mind! Thankfully, I already knew that so on the night any little surprises didn't irk me at all. I'll give you an example of what I mean. We planned a drinks hour for our immediate family as a chance for our parents and siblings to meet before the actual party started. We had rented out a room where we hoped that everyone would stay and mingle together and get to know each other, but in actuality, most people grabbed a few drinks and canapés and went to sit in the hotel lobby in their separate groups and didn't spend much time together in the assigned room at all. Infact, my Dad completely disappeared for most of it! There were also a few other guests who showed up early and we invited them in for drinks and canapés too, which we weren't expecting but it was completely fine as we'd ordered plenty of drinks. So it was little details like that, where what we had imagined in our heads was different in reality and it was interesting to see how events actually played out in real time. It's important to remember that you can try to control every aspect of your event, but you can't control the people who attend and your day/evening will pretty much run as your guests allow it.
We have to give big thanks to our wedding/event planners Lisa Marie and her successor Jenna at Malone Lodge Hotel who were so helpful and completely lovely throughout the whole planning process. We basically told them what we wanted and they made it happen! Jenna was there on the day which was great and the whole evening we were looked after by the very attentive Erwin for whom nothing was a problem or chore. We stayed at the hotel for 2 nights in total, the second of which was in the Bridal Suite which they had sprinkled completely with rose petals and all the usual decorations - very sweet! A member of staff also knocked on our door and delivered a lovely card from the hotel which was nice. We weren't really expecting any kind of special treatment as we didn't have a full wedding day there but they didn't seem to treat us any differently and it was a lovely surprise.
We started the evening at 6pm with the aforementioned drinks hour which was nerve-wracking stuff but it all went well and everyone got on fine. We were served our canapés and drinks by some very well dressed hotel staff in The Study filled with candles and Erwin was there making sure everything was going as we wanted it to. At 7pm we all moved into the Deramore Suite where the rest of our guests were starting to arrive. The room looked great and our jazz music was playing and the vibe was really relaxed and fun, I was about 4 Prosecco's down at this point and was buzzing from one person to another like a bee in a flowerbed. I don't think there was any time that I didn't have a glass of wine pressed into my hand so things definitely did get a little bit blurry from a certain point which annoys me slightly - I had so much fun, but I just wish I wad more "present" mentally - there was just so much going on that I didn't have any time to absorb too many details. My biggest regret is not getting to spend as much time with everyone as I wanted to but all brides say that. It's the nature of hosting events I think. It's hard to juggle chatting, drinking and embarrassing myself on the dance floor! One thing that Michael and I both wanted to make sure of is that we managed to spend some time together during the night as it's easy to get distracted with all our separate friends and families but we managed lots of time, thankfully!
Before the DJ's started playing, the hotel brought out the food and Michael had organised some speeches. The food was (apparently) great, I didn't have any of it or even see any of it as I was so busy! The speech was made by Michael's sister Megan, followed by an super-sweet and unexpected speech by Amanda, Lucy and Sam who I had met while travelling in Australia. Michael's best friend/man Paul stood up and said some really lovely things about Michael and I. The best speech was saved for last when Michael delivered his - it was so good and everyone (especially me!) was so proud of him. He did really well, everything he said was perfect and he didn't even come across as overly nervous. I ran up to give him a huge hug afterwards and he is still so pleased with how happy it made me, and it did! The speeches were a great start to the night and the DJ's started playing straight after. The music was great; they played all our favourite songs and some surprises which included Rage Against The Machine which was hilarious! They took requests (Salmon Dance anyone?) and played every song that was asked for (except Rock The Boat as per my strict instructions ha-ha) There are some really funny photos of me and Michael dancing and we looked like we were having a great time so I suppose we were! The dance floor parts are all a little hazy...probably for the best...
Overall, it was fantastic to get all the family together in one room. Lots of both of our family members travelled over from England just to be there and it was such a privilege to have them do so. I also had friends fly over from England too, people I hadn't seen since I was in Australia 5 years ago. The night before was spent catching up with old friends and family. We had drinks in the hotel bar with Michael's visiting Aunts and Uncles - all of them great craic with lots of interesting stories about Michael growing up which was a bonus for me! One of my favourite moments was seeing my lovely friend Sam for the first time in 5 years - I've never been jumped at quite so dramatically :') I loved seeing the girls again and meeting their boyfriends. We had a couples night out on the Friday to The Albany for a lovely dinner and Filthy McNasty's for drinks afterwards and it was such fun - you know you have true friends when you don't see them for years and then when you do, it's like you've never been apart. I'm so thankful to them for making the trip over - thanks ladies - we can't wait to repay the favour!
When the lights finally went up, I remember being devastated! How could our night be over so fast?! Everyone piled onto the dance floor for the last song which was "New York New York" by Frank Sinatra - perfect! As everyone filtered out of the room we stayed behind to help clear up and then eventually some of us went to the residents bar for another drink. This was a great time to catch up with my Aunt and Uncle who were also visiting from England. My uncle Joe was an absolute hero and ordered Dominos Pizza in the wee small hours which we nicked a slice or two of - it was the perfect end to a perfect night!
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