After much partying, bouquet stealing, and rabel rousing during the cocktail hour, the caterers told us they were ready to start serving, so we ushered our guests into the tent.
The group of us goofing off outside the tent.So after a muddy foot powwow, we entered the tent.
Everyone's muddy feet! If you look closely you can see a couple of the mosquito bites I got that day. (I ended up with 47).First the Man of Honour and Best Lady . . .
Sarah multitasks carrying her bouquet and second shooter camera.Then the Matron of Honour and the Best Man . . .
Nick carries his trademark highball glass.And then us, the Bride and Groom!
Mr. Hum and I carefully dodge a speaker to cross through the only dry spot in the tent. Hehehe.Now there was much talk of music with our wedding and for the most part, Mr. Hum let me have free reign when it came to what I wanted to play. However, pretty much from the get-go, he had one stipulation - we had to play the Halo theme. He didn't care where we played it, he just wanted it played, so we ended up using it for our reception entrance, a move which was awesome for two reasons.
1) We were sitting at the Halo Table as Master Chief and Cortana respectively;
2) We somehow magically managed to time it so we entered the reception at the perfect ass-kicking part in the song.
If you've ever heard it, it's the part where it gets really loud and triumphant and is like "Hey grunts! We're here to kick some ass and take some names!" so walking in just then was awesome because it was like "Hey institution of marriage! We're here to kick some ass and take some names!"
Us settled into our special seats.Anyway, once everyone got organized and after everyone had some time to get through the buffet line and have something to eat, Mr. Hum's Uncle Tim started up the speeches, starting with sharing a few words of his own.
Now, something that you need to know about Tim is that, in addition to being one of the four people in the world who actually rocks a mustache**, he is innately lovable. He and his wife Anne have been very close to Mr. Hum (he lived with them for a few months while he was in school) and from the moment I met him, he was incredibly kind to me so having him MC was awesome.
After Tim, my dad shared a few words.
My dad is kind of a shy guy, but he kicked off the speeches with a bang, talking about raising me and having to put up with the parade of losers also known as my ex-boyfriends (he was not a fan of anyone before Mr. Hum). His parental advice to the other fathers of daughters in the crowd? "Kill the first one and hope word gets out." His speech also mentioned poop (it didn't sound as weird in context, but oh yes, he went there) so you can see the kind of freaky sense of humour our gang has from that because everyone was laughing like mad.
Me hiding my face as my dad teases me.After my dad, Mr. Hum's dad stepped up to the mic.
We had a bit of a heads up with this speech as Mr. Hum's dad is a big fan of Reader's Digest and is known to pull out a specific article of relationship advice at weddings. Continuing the tradition, he read the same piece at our wedding he had at Nick and Erin's three years before. :)
After Mr. Hum's dad, it was my mom's turn.
Now although my mom pretty much stayed out of the way when it came to planning our wedding, the day of she was so freaked out that we ended up giving her a sedative at lunch.*** I'll admit, I was a little nervous about this because you never know with medication and I didn't want her to be out of it for the whole wedding, but it totally did the trick! Not only was she focused and totally on her toes, but her speech was one of the absolute funniest of the night! But most of all, she said something that I absolutely love - "Not only is it good to have someone who's at your side, but it's good to have someone who's on your side." So true!
Me laughing as my mom cracks a joke.And with one mom speech came another as Mr. Hum's mom went up to speak.
Mr. Hum's mom is a writer and a very creative person so, as part of her contribution to the evening, she wrote her speech in rhyming couplets! Detailing everything from our births to our meeting to our years together, it was very awesome and totally surprised me. Now a minor admission - Since the beginning of one of the couplets was "built like a truck," I (and apparently a bunch of our guests) half expected the second part of the couplet to end in the f word****. I was only slightly disappointed when it didn't.
With the parents now off deck, the wedding party started their turn on stage, starting off with my Man of Honour Greg.
As I've mentioned before, Greg and I met in college and basically bonded over our love of sarcasm and silliness. For weeks leading up to the wedding, he was vetting jokes with me, so I was expecting it to be a mix of pretty much every ridiculous joke we've ever had. However, what he said was very heartfelt, and culminated in a Navajo Prayer.
All of us raising a toast.After Greg came Mr. Hum's Best Lady Sarah.
Leading up to the wedding, I think Mr. Hum was bracing himself for the ribbing of a lifetime, but Sarah actually took it easy on him and even complimented his transformation from a goofy teenage boy (he was 18 when they met) to a pretty cool grownup man. Aw!
And one lady followed another when my Matron of Honour took the stage . . . and read my blog post from the day before the wedding!
I was totally shocked to hear my words read back to me but I totally appreciated being able to share them with all of our guests. Yay!
And last but not least in the official lineup was Mr. Hum's brother and Best Man Nick.
Growing up, they were kind of adversaries - they got along because they were brothers, but they were so intrinsically different, it was almost like they were a wacky sitcom pairing (He's a tidy born again Christian! He's a messy Neo-Pagan! See them battle it out Thursday nights on NBC!). Happily enough, over the time I've known Nick, they've become really close and I truly believe that he is Mr. Hum's best friend. And not only is he a cool brother-in-law, but I have to give him extra points for working the phrase "running over pimps with a car" into his wedding speech. Deftly done, my friend.*****
The brothers share a hug.We were just about ready to do our little thank you to the crowd, when my grandfather popped out of the crowd and went running for the microphone.
I have to admit, I didn't expect this as it wasn't scheduled (we didn't think anyone else would be interested in speaking) but it was really nice to hear him talk about the wedding and about his experience being married. As much as I love my Bubbi, the days approaching the wedding without my grandmother were kind of hard for me, so it was nice to take a moment to acknowledge her and their life together.
Another small acknowledgment of my grandmothers - the bouquet locket!After my grandfather's speech, Mr. Hum and I finally took the floor and, after weeks of people telling me I was going to turn into a marshmallow and me insisting I wouldn't, I totally ended up crying.
If you haven't gotten married yet and think you are totally prepared to get in front of everyone you know and love without shedding a tear, my darling, you are dead wrong because I assure, even the hardest of us have been known to crack.
Anyway, that wraps up the entrance and speeches - up next the bouquet and garter tosses!
*I've said it before and I'll say it again, Mr. Hum did an amazing job with the escort cards. Even people who didn't get the whole video game thing loved them and almost everyone took theirs home!
** The other three are Alex Trebek, Tom Selleck and Wilfred Brimley.
*** For the record, just so people don't think I drugged my mom, she requested it so we gave her a proper dosage as advised by my MOH's pharmacist father.
**** This is not a reflection on my mother-in-law, who is a lovely women who I don't think has ever said a swear word in front of me, but more a reflection on me and the fact that I watch too many shows on cable.
***** The first time I met Nick he was sick and hiding out in his room playing Grand Theft Auto San Andreas so we spent the afternoon kicking it on his broken futon and chatting while he played.
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Comments (2)
Oh, how fun!!!!!!
Seriously the only thing I noticed were your boobs.