My little friendly tribute to Zach and Arianne B.! So happy for them. They had a beautiful wedding ceremony. Despite the fact that my allergies were maxing out yesterday from pollen and stirring up dust from cleaning my home, I wasn't going to miss their wedding since I had nothing contagious. This is the first wedding in awhile where I didn't have any responsibilities, so it was nice to just show up and to be able to attend in honor of these two. Two super special and serving friends that I'm blessed to know. Back when Zach was a young, poor Freshman at AC I never forgot how he volunteered to take out and pay for a senior citizens dinner we had. I was impressed for a young person to take the initiative to do that. Arianne has also been so loving and mature. We played a game at my place with some of her AC classmates back in the day; and during the game many of them said her favorite character quality was of being nurturing and loving. (Congrats also to the wonderful Daryl and Stephanie Hochstetler on their big day. I woke up sick the day of their wedding and missed it. Didn't want to pass on my illness, but I was so happy for them too!)
A BIG YEAH to Jordan and Kayla Ellis! These two are both sooooooo super sweet.....one of the sweetest couples that I know. I was so happy for them. I really enjoyed their wedding....It was so family oriented and they both wanted everyone to enjoy themselves and relax. Everyone pitched in. Jordan's sisters, Anna G. and Ellen B. made the brownie tower. Jordan's brothers, John E. and Jed E. provided the live music during the dance. Many men volunteered to pitch in to help set-up and "move the furniture" for the reception right after the ceremony. It was neat to see that team work, and many ladies pitched in to make the reception line like an all you can eat buffet restaurant. It was a family dinner/reception, and I'm not the only one who thought this. It was neat with so many contributing in one way or the other. A HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to Jordan and Kayla for their marriage and for making their wedding so family oriented. We all loved it!
Sophia came over the night before the wedding and helped make some food for the wedding. Here is the evidence. She is turning into a big girl who is super helpful! I'm so proud of my niece! :-) Her parents are doing a great job with her. I can tell.
My niece Sophia found/discovered my flute for the first time ever. I had even forgotten about it. When she found it; it made me realize I haven't played the flute since she's been born. Wow! I use to play it all of the time, but getting back into piano put the flute on the back burner for me I guess. She has seen IA kids play the flute on stage in recitals and s.m. and was surprised and so excited to find that her aunt had one and could play it. She blew the cobwebs out of it. Being the age that she is, that means it has been that long since I've even gotten my flute out of it's case. Wow! She had me to try my best to show her how to get a sound out it, but I told her that her lungs probably hadn't developed strong enough yet to get a sound out it. I remember, when first learning to play the flute, getting a sound out of it is the first big hurdle to playing it. It's not easy for a beginner, but I have to give my niece props, she tried and tried, and finally realizing she was unable to blow it hard enough to make a real sound, she improvised and started making the sound with her vocal chords herself shown in the video below. So cute!!! Now, she told me that she wants to play the piano, the flute, and the violin, and continue with her ballet lessons too. I told her she's always said she wanted to play the piano and the violin as it's hard enough to keep up two instruments at a time, but she said she wants to play the flute now too. LOL. I think once she starts taking piano lessons to start with and learns how much you have to practice just on one instrument, her lists of instruments she wants to play will dwindle down quickly. LOL! Hit the play button to see the below video of Sophia attempting the flute.
After her "flute practice" she said she wanted to practice the piano. This girl was on fire yesterday. LOL! Look at that smile. Then she wanted to do dance moves. Aunt Carolyn slept well last night, but it was all very fun Aunt/Niece time! Thanks to her great parents for letting her have extended family time!
Piano lessons resume for me tomorrow which means tonight, I will be on the piano making up for three weeks of no practice while on winter break. This, by the way, is not recommended; but it's the hard truth in my case. It's been busy and I suppose a bit of procrastination too. Anyway, I saw this joke online, and thought I'd post it. Reminds me of myself right now. :-)
ABOVE: I absolutely love this snapshot of Dan and Paulette at their wedding because of their radiant smiles! They look soooo happy!....She made her own wedding dress and the bridesmaid dresses too! I really love my Proverbs 31 friend!!! It takes a lot to get me teary eyed, but I was so happy for D and P that I was just about to that point! It seemed like God really blessed every aspect of the wedding for them. It was great!
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 venuewith 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: Yours truly. This is one of the only times you'll see me in orange. Probably had a funny pumpkin look going on! :-)
Rachel C. checking in. She turned out to be a big help with the salad prep along with Amber Eagle! Those gals classically rocked the salad out! One would be surprised how much work it takes to prep a salad for a few hundred people....lots of cutting ETC.
A gluten lovers dream....lots of croutons and bread rolls fresh from the oven. The kitchen smelled soooo yummy!
BELOW: The Friday Afternoon Culinary Prep Work
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.
Rare moments like these are sepia tone worth. :-) Paulette's getting married!!! Yippee-Tie-Yi-Yo! - Yippee-Tie-Yi-Yay!
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. :-)!
BELOW: WEDDING DINNER PLANNING
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!
