Thursday, October 20, 2022

#tbt Our Wedding Reception in Maine

Today we're doing another special edition of Throwback Thursday, because exactly 10 years ago today... Eliot and I had our Wedding Reception in Maine!!!

As soon we decided that we were definitely having our wedding at Disney, we knew we wanted to have at home receptions to celebrate with everyone who wasn't able to travel down to Florida for the actual wedding.  Unfortunately, our California reception never took off the ground, but my parents and I were determined to have one in Maine.

You probably think that we're crazy for trying to plan a destination wedding and then a reception a month later... but that was just par for the course.  Over the summer of 2011, we went to scope out a potential location for our Maine location during one of Eliot's and my trips home to visit my parents in Trenton.  Thankfully, it was perfect and literally a five minute drive from their house.

A few days before the event, Eliot and I traveled the 5.5 hours from our apartment in Woburn, MA up to Trenton for our reception.  We were renting it for Saturday, October 20th, but they allowed us to go decorate the hall the day prior

We held our reception at a local campground's event center and it was very informal and more for fun.  We had a video of our wedding that we showed to our guests before we made our "grand entrance".  Eliot and I both dressed up for it.  (He wore a lime shirt, a pink tie and a black suit to match our wedding colors instead of renting a suit again.)  I wore my wedding gown again so my Grammie could see me in it.  

Katie D, Katie N and Kaitlin wore their bridesmaid dresses and BJ and Jeremy dressed up as well.  It was as close the real thing as we could make it feel.

We had Katie D and BJ make maid of honor and best man toasts.

BJ didn't give a toast at our wedding, so it was special to have him make one here.

Katie gave another wonderful toast at our Maine reception.

We also had a cake.  The girls really bailed me out on that.  They all arrived at Mom and Dad's house right about the same time I was having a breakdown.  Mom and I cooked the cake ourselves and I don't think I let it cool off long enough before I tried to ice it.  It wasn't the prettiest thing, but it worked and tasted good.

My cousin Luke agreed to be our DJ and unofficial "host" of the afternoon, so I gave him my laptop with a bunch of pre-selected songs in a folder that we also had played at our wedding reception in Disney.  Eliot and I recreated our first dance to "Promise".

Then, we also had another father/daughter dance.

Finally, Eliot and my Mom also did a mother-in-law and son-in-law dance.

We brought our wedding guest book for people to sign.

I also had some some fake leaves and a Vinylmation to sign.

We had copies of our invitations, wedding programs, wedding photos and a few other things on display for everyone to look at when they first entered the venue.


I put my Build a Bear plush in the windows along with a few other decorations.

Emery was quite taken with the display, especially the photos.  He pulled me over there and kept pointing me out in all of the photos.  It was adorable!

The best part of the Maine Wedding Reception event was having so many people who weren't able to make it to our Disney Wedding in Florida be there.

I was especially grateful to have my Grammie there.


We also made sure to take a photo with me wearing my wedding gown along with Mom, Grammie and Nana at my request.  (This photo is very special to me.)

I'm also really glad that Eliot and I took a photo with us and all of my grandparents... especially since 10 years later, Papa and Grammie are no longer with us.

Eliot's and my Maine Wedding Reception was a simple, yet very special event.  I'm so glad that we had one, even when planning for it and our wedding was a bit dicey at times.  The only regret I have is that we didn't hire a professional photographer for the event.  These photos are so precious to me and it would have been wonderful to have more of them.  However, I'm so grateful for what we did have.  It was a wonderful day celebrating Eliot's and my wedding that was filled with friends, family and love.  °o°

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