BELOW: Gail L. did a great job with the cake for sure. I really like this snapshot of the crowd watching the cake cutting.
Going back in time.....Here is the behind the scenes story of Dan and Paulette's wedding. Paulette, the bride, gave me permission to share a behind the scenes photo story. Her wonderful brother in law, Robert B., took her official wedding day shots which are probably top secret for now, and will be so fabulous to finally see, but here is some behind the scenes footage. We'll go in reverse order.
BELOW: Sunday Afternoon Minutes Before the Wedding
The Food! Green beans with basil and tomatoes, Au Gratin Potatoes, Chicken in Butter and White Wine Sauce, Beef Bourguignon, Dinner Rolls, and Salad with a choice of many condiments. Thanks to D and P for being so giving with their wedding. Having this much food at their wedding was a real act of family love on their end to serve everyone at the wedding. Food isn't cheap. They also had assorted fun drinks too. Sweet sharing couple!!!
BELOW: The Sunday Morning Wedding Rehearsal
ABOVE: The groom Dan looks like he's having one last super deep thought before the wedding at the rehearsal. :-)
BELOW: The bride Paulette as calm, cool, and collected as can be at her wedding rehearsal just hours before her wedding.
ABOVE: Looks like Paulette is giving her bridesmaids a pep talk before the rehearsal. :-)
Mother of the bride and P.s uncle.
The groom chilling with his Dad, Bro, and best man.
Jordan, another groomsman made this below pic. :-)
Mrs. Dattolo smiles.
The groom and bride side.
ABOVE: P's bro in law was her official wedding photographer. I told him I ahd to get a pic of him as he was P's family and always behind the camera.
BELOW: P's lovely big sis. They came here for the wedding all the way from the land down under...AKA Australia!
P.'s niece and nephew. Lovely young lady and a super nice young gentleman.
Here comes the bride! So at the actual wedding ceremony I was seated at the very back of the hall with "the help" LOL ...and being at the back doesn't give you good photo ops since the bride walks past you in a flash, so this is as close as I got to P. walking down the aisle on her wedding day, in her wedding rehearsal. :-)
The Saturday Night and Sunday Morning Decoration Works
Ariel H., Arianne O, Kayla T., and others turned the field house into a beautiful wedding venue with simple elegance.
The Sunday Morning Culinary Works
ABOVE and BELOW: Working in the AC kitchen Sunday morning was fun working around the regular AC kitchen crew as shown. Thanks to Mrs. Krueger for allowing the wedding culinary crew to share the kitchen with the regular AC crew on this day. Wow, I have a new found respect even greater than I already had for the AC kitchen staff. It's hard to get things pushed out on a time crunch, and to work efficiently around so many others, but it sure was a lot of fun!
BELOW: My niece, Sophia, came and visited the kitchen. She's such a sweetie. She offered to "help." :-)
BELOW: The Saturday Night Culinary Works
We started getting the food heavily prepped around 7:30pm Saturday night and left the AC kitchen around 12:45AM that night, or I guess technically in the wee early hours of Sunday morning. :-) It was so much fun! All of these ladies were great! Thanks to Ms. McKoy, being the only full time AC kitchen employee there for showing us around ETC. She was a huge pillar for sure. She kept getting on me to speak up as the "head chef." Wow, that is harder than you'd think to do, but I got into the groove, I think I actually did have one "Chef Ramsay" moment, in a kosher way, LOL, when I got stressed once.
ABOVE: Kay-LA G. working hard and with a smile!
BELOW: Rachael G. looks like she's thinking, "Whacha talkin' about Willis?" :-) She was a super, super hard worker! Wow, she classically rocked!
ABOVE: Ms. McKoy with one of the big chunks of beef.
BELOW: Sonia getting the yeast ready to make bread rolls.
BELOW: The bride Paulette as calm, cool, and collected as can be at her wedding rehearsal just hours before her wedding.
BELOW: P's lovely big sis. They came here for the wedding all the way from the land down under...AKA Australia!
Ariel H., Arianne O, Kayla T., and others turned the field house into a beautiful wedding venue with simple elegance.
We started getting the food heavily prepped around 7:30pm Saturday night and left the AC kitchen around 12:45AM that night, or I guess technically in the wee early hours of Sunday morning. :-) It was so much fun! All of these ladies were great! Thanks to Ms. McKoy, being the only full time AC kitchen employee there for showing us around ETC. She was a huge pillar for sure. She kept getting on me to speak up as the "head chef." Wow, that is harder than you'd think to do, but I got into the groove, I think I actually did have one "Chef Ramsay" moment, in a kosher way, LOL, when I got stressed once.
BELOW: Rachael G. looks like she's thinking, "Whacha talkin' about Willis?" :-) She was a super, super hard worker! Wow, she classically rocked!
BELOW: Sonia getting the yeast ready to make bread rolls.
BELOW: Yours truly. This is one of the only times you'll see me in orange. Probably had a funny pumpkin look going on! :-)
Friday afternoon.....Thanks to my wonderful bosses for letting me off work Friday afternoon to go and get some pre-wedding culinary prep work done. Stock had to be made, and we had to pound out the chicken breasts. Thanks BIG TIME to the lovely and just absolutely wonderful Sherry Beezley for giving of her time to help with this on her day off work! Wow!....she's amazing. She was a God send b/c we got done right before sunset Friday afternoon. I couldn't have done it without her. Thanks also to her amazing sister, Jessie B., for covering the HoA front desk so S and I could work in the kitchen, and thanks to Mrs. Krueger and Ms. McKoy for letting us in! Big team effort! Below are some pics from Friday afternoon adventures.
A video of Sherry pounding out chicken.
BELOW: Wednesday Shopping and Thursday Food Drop-Off
Wednesday evening P and I were suppose to go shopping for her wedding dinner buying food to feed 400 people. We got to thinking, it would take us forever in the store, and we would have enlist helpers just to push carts because we would need several. That is when the convenience of modern technology came into play. We bought everything online and P and her family went and picked it up from the store all boxed up and ready to go. Other than probably being the biggest grocery bill P will ever spend, it made life easy.
Thursday mid-day, Paulette and her family unloaded all of the food. I wanted to get a pic of them unloading, but it was so busy that I missed this photo op. Mrs. Krueger was and is so wonderful too! She let them use some of the AC kitchen space to store the perishable food. That was a life saver!!! We put all of the dry good in the back of my Jeep. Wow, it turned my Jeep into a temporary low rider! :-) Photos of my Jeep turning into a temporary pantry on Thursday - Friday is shown below.
BELOW: A few photos from Paulette's Bachelorette party.
Wednesday evening P and I were suppose to go shopping for her wedding dinner buying food to feed 400 people. We got to thinking, it would take us forever in the store, and we would have enlist helpers just to push carts because we would need several. That is when the convenience of modern technology came into play. We bought everything online and P and her family went and picked it up from the store all boxed up and ready to go. Other than probably being the biggest grocery bill P will ever spend, it made life easy.
Thursday mid-day, Paulette and her family unloaded all of the food. I wanted to get a pic of them unloading, but it was so busy that I missed this photo op. Mrs. Krueger was and is so wonderful too! She let them use some of the AC kitchen space to store the perishable food. That was a life saver!!! We put all of the dry good in the back of my Jeep. Wow, it turned my Jeep into a temporary low rider! :-) Photos of my Jeep turning into a temporary pantry on Thursday - Friday is shown below.
BELOW: A few photos from Paulette's Bachelorette party.
Below, P's gals at her bachelorette party hosted in Melinda Brown's home. It was a surprise....her fiance at the time, Dan, had to get her over to the Brown's place without spoiling the party surprise. Once she arrived, we asked her what Dan had done to get her there. She told us that he told her it was a surprise where he was taking her, made her close her eyes in his car while he drove, and when he got to the party house, he made her keep her eyes closed, and then rang the doorbell, and then we jumped out and said SURPRISE!!!...and the rest is history. Good job to Dan....that was simple, yet effective. I may have to save that one in the books. P didn't have a bridal shower per her own request, but she didn't mind us have a bachelorette party for her. So much fun! It was a small group of her closest gal pals though she has a lot more great friends that she loves, and told me to make a point to mention that; she just likes the smaller more intimate settings. I took the pic, and somehow got my hand in there to the right. Oops, I decided to not crop it out and leave it in as a blooper funny. At least a part of me is accidentally in the picture. :-)!
Planning a wedding dinner for a few hundred people for Dan and Paulette's wedding really made me totally relate to the character "Mr. Banks" on the old movie Father of the Bride; Part I; in the clips shown below right after he found out that each guest at his daughter's wedding reception was going to cost him $250.00 per guest. LOL It's a family affair like a big ole extended family dinner! :-) Anyway, these video clips from the old 90's movie, Father of the Bride Part I, is totally even more hilarious to me now since I catered their wedding. The only part in the first clip that I didn't like was at the very end when the daughter got upset.....! :-) I also know on many movies they try to make the male role look silly in which I don't like at all, but in this case, I think this is how one may feel, perhaps. I can relate now. :-)
below clip 1.....when you find out how much the food is going to cost. :-)!!!
below clip 2.......when you have a few hundred mouths to feed. LOL :-)
below clip 3......at the end of the reception you can breathe once it's a success....and all of the effort put into it was well worth it to give the newly married couple, and all of their guests a very happy day! :-)
Anyway, weddings are always so joyous, but this one with D + P was extra super special!
Anyway, weddings are always so joyous, but this one with D + P was extra super special!
