Our Cran-Lemon Wedding: Details! (Part 3)

Steve and I have been married for six months today! I know everyone says this, but I seriously can't believe it's already been half a year. Tonight we're going out to dinner to celebrate. Our one year anniversary will be here before we know it! :)

Right before our cocktail hour ended, Steve and I got to peek into our reception space before our guests filed in. As I said in this post early on in our planning, we really wanted a room with a ton of natural light, since we were having a daytime wedding. We actually chose to have a daytime wedding because we wanted natural light so badly. The Winter Garden Pavilion at the Fox Hollow was exactly what we were looking for, and the sunlight was perfect on our wedding day.

I also loved the fireplace, which contributed to the coziness of the room. Our DOC moved frames with our engagement photos from our escort card table to the mantel.

We opted to have a sweetheart table and let our bridal party sit with their dates and the other guests they knew. It worked out well!

The sweetheart table doesn't have any flowers yet because we used the bouquets to decorate it. They got placed there at the beginning of the reception.

I was SO pleased with our centerpieces. If you've been following for a while, you might remember that we switched centerpiece florists a few months before the wedding. Originally we planned to get our centerpieces from the same florist who was creating our bouquets and boutonnieres. I wanted them to include cranberry dahlias (like my bouquet), but dahlias in the centerpieces were going to be too expensive. So I decided to look elsewhere. We ended up going with Stew Leonard's (a specialty food market with a floral department), who was much more affordable and did a fabulous job! The dahlias looked incredible. We also included a few white mini pumpkins on each table. This was a fall wedding, after all!


When our photographer took these photos (at the beginning of cocktail hour), there was actually one element missing from our tables. My mom had made linen fabric squares to place in the center of each table, to add color and texture to the ivory damask tablecloths that our venue provided. For some reason, they went missing! Luckily our maitre d and DOC tracked them down and put them on the tables before the guests came into the room. The tables looked great without them, but I'm glad they made it onto the tables.

Table with linen square
{guest photo}

I designed our table numbers and menus using the same graphic and fonts as our other wedding paper. The table numbers were on 5x7 paper from Paper Source. We placed them in inexpensive clear acrylic frames.


For the menus, I used letter-sized linen-textured paper from paperandmore.com. I printed two menus on a page and had it cut in half. I "borrowed" the wording ("Eat, drink, we're married!") from Kim at Perpetual Party Planner, who also used it on her menu. :)

I mentioned in my cocktail hour post that our venue is known for its amazing food. They have a restaurant on premises and instead of just offering two entree choices, they give seven! That's not including the appetizer that we'd chosen: Grilled Vegetable Royale (portobello mushroom served with red peppers, green zucchini, asparagus & assorted baby greens in a balsamic vinaigrette).

For Entrees, our guests had a choice of:

• Chateau Briand: sliced tenderloin of beef crowned with wild mushrooms
  
• Shrimp Scampi: gulf prawns served in a lemon butter, white wine sauce
  
• Fox Hunt Chicken: french breast sautéed & topped with fresh plum tomato & wild mushrooms in a light demi-glaze
  
• Grilled Salmon
  
• Duck a l’Orange: crispy Long Island duckling stuffed with fresh fruit & topped with a Grand Marnier sauce
  
• Land & Sea Duette: sliced tenderloin of beef crowned with wild mushrooms & shrimp scampi
  
• North Fork Vegetables: assortment of marinated & grilled vegetables, crowned with a champagne risotto

For dessert, to go along with our wedding cake, each guest got an old fashioned banana split. Our wedding had a crazy amount of food, but it was all included in our package and so yummy! Unfortunately I only have pictures of the first course but trust me when I say everything looked as good as it sounded, and our guests let us know how much they enjoyed having so many delicious options to choose from.


Last but not least: our cake! We'd decided to skip the fondant and go for the edible look. I'd found this berry cake for inspiration and our venue's baker executed it perfectly. It looked (and tasted) so delish!


As a topper, we used cake flags from Baumbirdy's etsy shop. I was able to customize the colors and initial. I loved it.



That's it for our wedding details! Besides my dress and bolero, the reception details were my favorites.

Right before the reception began, Steve and I posed for a photo in our lovely space:

<3

Next up: our reception begins!

Catch up!
Rehearsal Preparations
We Rehearse, We Eat and I have a Mini-Breakdown
Just One More Day!
The Only Thing That Went "Wrong"
The Guys Get Ready Details (Part 1)
I'm a Bride!
Our First Look
Garden Photo Shoot
Bridal Party Photos
Details (Part 2)
Down the Aisle We Go
The Ceremony
Post-Ceremony Fun
Cocktail Hour

*Unless otherwise noted, all photos in this post are by Windau Photography