reception

We were married, so the next thing to do was to sign the marriage license. Our bridal party witnessed the signing in the living room which had earlier been cleared out due to rain. 

 

We started off with a group picture (which I'll be getting from our photographer soon!) 

And then, we ate. One nice thing about being the ones getting married is that you're first. We were both hungry but not that hungry, so Carson grabbed a plate and we both ate off it.

What did we eat? Well, Barbeque, for one. This wasn't my first choice (I don't like it) but it worked out to fit the outdoor wedding and the price point. We also had Macaroni and Cheese and fruit.

Tables and chairs were moved from the ceremony location to the other side of the yard. Everyone sat or walked around and talked. I love the busyness of this candid.

The Cake: The alligator cake toppers were carved by my dad and brother and made pretty by my mom. The eyes of the alligators are airsoft pellets, courtesy of Scott, given brown and blue Sharpie eyes. 

The cake itself I didn't care about. Becca and Mom picked it out at Publix. I think the inside was yellow cake mix. I had one bite. 

The alligator "theme" is because Carson's mom thought that alligators just ran rampant all over South Carolina and kept thinking that they'd be at the wedding.

I'm not sure how Carson found out about groom's cakes being a Southern tradition, but he really wanted one. We were originally going to have an Armadillo cake like the one in Steel Magnolias, but we decided to go for an alligator one. It was HUGE - like three feet or something. Apparently tasty too - red velvet insides to look like, you guessed it, blood. Gross. 

And here we are, cutting the cake (after toasts from our Best Man and Maid of Honor - no pictures of that though). I was laughing because we had no idea how to do it. Carson has his concentration face on.

I made him promise (roughly 30 times) that he wouldn't smash cake in my face. He complied and we just  got it in our mouths :)

And then, the first dance! We chose "The Way You Look Tonight" by Michael Buble and faded it out at about two minutes. When we practiced the few days before the wedding, it was awful - I stepped all over his toes, he tripped me... it was not good and we were dreading that moment. But when the time came, our first dance actually turned out decently. Carson threw in a few spins for good measure:

We chose to combine the Father-Daughter and Mother-Son dance into one because 

1. None of us are super dancers

2. None of us wanted to be the center of attention for a 3 minute song

3. Not everyone loves sitting there watching people dance forever

We chose "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong (chosen the day before the wedding)

Ps - I like this picture too - the lights are twinkling!

More dancing... poor Morgan is going the wrong way and knows it...

After a little more dancing, we left! We had people throw lavender because it was purple and not very hard :) The camera flash in this picture makes me look headless.

Carson's camera was sitting in the car with us, so we took pictures of ourselves covered with lavender. Mom's poor car the next day... and I heard that more lavender was used as a prank in someone else's car.  

Just because we were gone, didn't mean people couldn't stay! I heard that people were dancing until late in the night. What a fun picture :)