Over at Kelly's Korner, it's the last day of wedding rewind in "Show Us Your Life." Since I have shared the rest, I'll share the last installment as well, despite a lack of pictures! Actually...I've got them. But they're all snapshots, and none are on the computer...and I'm too lazy to dig them out and scan them.

This week, the theme is Wedding Reception and Honeymoon. I actually have NO pictures from our honeymoon. What's with that!? Not one! I do have pictures (somewhere) of AFTER our honeymoon -- my parents hosted a backyard BBQ and our family and closest friends came over to eat and help us open presents. But none from the honeymoon itself.

Probably because we went to Minneapolis.

For 3 days.

It was only 4 hours away and we'd been there a million times.

Wohoo. :)

We were 22 years old, 3 weeks out of college, both starting new jobs and had no time off, not to mention, we had no money. So we decided to go somewhere that we could just chill and not worry about whether or not we missed anything on a "once of a lifetime" trip. We only were gone for 3 days!

In hindsight, while it would have been fun to go somewhere exotic and tropical, it worked out well that we didn't. My Grandpa had several mini heart attacks during our wedding -- but didn't tell anyone, because he didn't want to ruin our day! So on the last day of our honeymoon, he was actually having multiple bypass surgery! We were so thankful that we were close enough to come home and not having to cut short a trip. (As an aside, he lived until he was 92, which was nearly six years past our wedding). Also, Jon's entire family came in for the wedding. His family is scattered across the country, and we rarely get to see them. They were all staying in cabins out at the lake. Coming home a little bit sooner than we'd have liked gave us the opportunity to spend more time with them. You just don't get to spend time with people at weddings!

But I've gotten ahead of myself. Let's rewind and go to the reception!

Here we are leaving the church. Daisies are one of my favorite flowers, and I wanted to leave the church in a shower of daisy petals. So I got up the morning of the wedding and started pulling the petals off hundreds of daisies that my Grandma brought in from her garden.

Enroute to the reception location (our church's fellowship hall wasn't big enough), we stopped at a little lake for a photo opp. I love this picture!


And we've finally arrived at the reception location. In my little town, there's only ONE place that has adequate seating to host larger weddings -- so that's where we were. Unfortunately, the decor has basically NEVER been updated, so it made for some really dated looking pictures. I do believe that it still looks the same (i.e. stuck in the 70s) -- and it's now 11 years later!

But onto the important thing... check out that CAKE!!! YUMMY!!!!

I'm not a fan of cake. I never had a "real" birthday cake, because I simply don't like cake. So my Mom always made me strawberry shortcake with real shortcake (not angelfood). It was divine, and is still one of my favorite foods. When we were at a bridal show, my Mom and I walked one way around the room, and Jon and my Dad walked the other way around. As we got to the center in the back, my Dad and I saw this cake and our eyes met. And our eyes lit up! That's the cake, we both said! The fact that it was DELICIOUS was an added bonus. White cake, bettercream frosting, and glazed whole strawberries. No need for more decorations, because the strawberries provided that and also matched our colors. We even had a friend who couldn't make it to the wedding, but stopped at my parents house later to drop off a gift -- and she asked if there was any cake left, because she had heard such good things about it! HA!

And as for the grooms cake....

I'm quite sure it's not a northern (or at least not an upper midwest) tradition. I've never been at a wedding (until I moved south) that had a grooms cake. Can someone please enlighten this northern girl as to what in the world is their purpose?

In other words... we didn't have one! :)