If you like wedding pictures, this is the blog post for you! 👰💗🤵 Our whole reason for vacationing in Iowa was to attend my coworker, Audrey's, wedding. She got engaged in 2019 (on my birthday, actually) and we've been talking wedding planning & details ever since. Audrey is an extremely meticulous and dedicated wedding planner. It was nice to finally see the fruits of her labor!
Neither Audrey (Iowa) nor her fiancé (Illinois) are from Oklahoma so I assumed that none of their wedding guests would be either. Luckily, a coworker of mine was able to attend and Audrey sat us together. Always good to see a familiar face! We were also sat with the parents of the matron of honor and the husband of one of the bridesmaids.
Audrey and Ryan were married at The Celebration Farm. It didn't much resemble a farm but it was still a very pretty event space. The wedding and reception was in a large round, contemporary-style barn that was set on a large plot of land with wooded landscaping. She warned me about the cooler temperatures (and sometimes even snow!) in Iowa this time of year but it turned out to be a lovely day.
Audrey and Ryan had a beautiful traditional Christian wedding. They built a unity cross at the end of the ceremony. I've never seen one before. It's a three part cross. The outside frame was placed on the stand by Ryan (I guess he is the foundation of their marriage). Then Audrey put the center part in (to fill their marriage with her love) and then they placed the pegs into the cross together to hold it all in place. We weren't seated too close to the alter so I couldn't really hear their minister. I thought she asked them to use eggs (instead of pegs) to hold the cross together. I was thinking they were really going to make a plaster and cement that cross together... ugh, what a messy chore to do in a gorgeous wedding dress! Wes politely informed me that I had misheard. LOL
We had a happy hour between the ceremony and reception while the wedding party took their pictures. The night before the wedding, Wes and I had dinner at Big Grove Brewery and I loved their beer. Guess what was served at the open bar??? Big Grove Brewery's Boomtown beer! Since it was a Halloween wedding, they had a candy bar and a treat/toy bar for children. I really wanted to raid the toys (glow sticks, stickers, masks) but they put up a sign proclaiming, "No Grown-ups!!"
Much like the ceremony, Audrey and Ryan had a traditional reception with a delicious buffet dinner, speeches & toasts, first dances, cake, phot booth (the most fun part!) and more dancing -- Wes actually danced!!! *Gasp!* I made him do the anniversary dance - the one where all married couples get on the dance floor and the pair married the longest wins. We got kicked out pretty early since we were only married 6 years. LOL The winning couple have been married 69 years! 😮 Wow!! My coworker, Reba, wanted me to do the Cupid Shuffle with her so I did... and failed. I completely forgot how to! Which is pretty hard since the instructions are in the song. 😂 The theme of the reception was The Nightmare Before Christmas. Audrey and Ryan changed into costume! A lot of the guests did, which was pretty fun! A quick note regarding Ryan's shirt - Audrey wanted to be Jack Skellington (in her elegant black dress) so he had to be Sally. She bought a white dress shirt and some patch fabric that looked like Sally's dress. She wanted to remove the original sleeves and back panel of the shirt and replace it with the fabric she bought. She thought of this idea last minute (like a week or two before the wedding) and wondered if it was doable. I told her it was doable... for a professional tailor...not an amateur hobbyist like me. LOL You can't really tell in the picture below but his shirt turned out so good!! And now I have an idea of what I want to do to upcycle an old button-down shirt and fun fabric!
Since I travel primarily for food, I will now detail our meal. Hors d'oeuvres were a charcuterie platter, pigs in a blanket and flatbread pizzas. For dinner, we had either brisket (what Wes got) or chicken breast (what I got), green beans with crème fraiche (the best part of the meal), au gratin potatoes, macaroni & cheese, farm slaw (a weird coleslaw with red cabbage & blue berries) or house salad, and smoked cornbread. A very yummy meal!! 😋 The three layer cake consisted of yellow cake, red velvet cake and carrot cake. I think wedding cakes are meant to be pretty and not tasty. It wasn't bad but I've definitely had better red velvet cake.
All in all it was a beautiful and fun wedding; you could tell everyone was having a good time. Audrey's mom came to our table to thank us for coming all the way from Oklahoma! I was shocked she recognized mine and Reba's names and/or faces. I'm pretty sure Audrey must have mentioned us to her mom while they were arranging the seating chart but I didn't think she would remember that tiny detail in the midst of everything else that was going on. She was so nice and exactly like Audrey (or I guess Audrey is exactly like her! LOL) Congrats again to the bride and groom. We wish you a long and happy life together!!
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