Our {Surprise} Wedding: Reception

Our ceremony and reception were all in the same place: the backyard!  We began with lots of family pictures and I even had the photographer recreate a few shots I had found on Pinterest; I can't wait to see how our professional photos turn out!  

Drinks:  An open bar with cocktail servers.  Also, one of A's sisters made infused lemonades.  One was strawberry/mint and the other was strawberry/orange.  I can't wait to try them at home.  (I'm hoping marriage helps me in my lack of domestic skills..)

Eats: finger food like mini quiches and pastelitos.  Lots of cheeses.  Churrasco.  Mini shishkabobs. Spinach & ricotta crepes.  {I am praying that the photographer took pictures of all of this!}

Sweets: Polverones {soft powdered sugar cookies}, deditos de novia {guayaba filled cookies}, and suspiritos {merengue}.  And of course, wedding cake!  Ours was a simple vanilla cake served with hefty dollops of cream sauce. 

First dance: I'm Yours/Somewhere Over the Rainbow mashup by Jason Mraz.

Father/Daughter dance: The Way You Look Tonight by Tony Bennett.  There are so many great versions of this song but my dad sought out the sloooowest version since neither of us like to dance!  This way we wouldn't have to move so much, hehe. 

We had a DJ, which I certainly was not expecting!  Unfortunately by the time the real dancing started, our photographer had left!  A new brother-in-law taught my mom how to dance salsa, merengue, and we all did a mini Harlem Shake on the dance floor.

Bouquet toss: I don't think there are any pictures of this but I threw the bouquet from a balcony overlooking the party.  Here I am with the girl who caught it and her long-time boyfriend.. 

Garter toss: I had wanted to take some sort of "trash the dress" photos, and I figured that the jacuzzi would be the perfect opportunity - it was so hot that night!  It wasn't until I had finally convinced A to jump in with me at the end of the night that I realized I still had my garter on!  He took it off underwater and his friends made him remove it, (underwater) with his teeth!  Poor guy. 

Although I was a little warm in what felt like a 30 pound dress, the weather was beautiful and I'm so thankful that it didn't rain!  At one point a friend told me, "Look at the sky!  The moon is smiling for you!" and she was right, the half moon was angled perfectly and looked like a happy face.  Although we hadn't planned to have a "real" wedding, I'm glad that we did.  And after our wedding flop a few weeks ago, I can truly say that everything happens for a reason.