Wedding of the Year

Yes, I said it, THE Wedding of THE Year. If you were not there.. it means we did not know you, or you were not available locally that day.  We did not invite any of the Khardashians either..
 LOL.

My eldest son Brian took the hand of his lovely bride Esther on March 5,  2016. Brian pretty much planned the entire affair over the prior few months, with some guidance from his Mama, who has had a tad bit of experience in such matters. He also enlisted the volunteers of his brother Mike and beautiful wife Pamela, and made good use of their stunning home and 5 acres of property. Esther was in charge of  the wedding cake and desserts, flowers, etc.  Mike and Pam's son Nick was the photographer of choice. Mama was also enlisted to make most of the food items, and guide with amounts, and to perform the ceremony as I am a minister. ( never did any ministerly duties before, though)

We did it all. Invitations were sent via Evites online. 115 people planned to attend, and all save 6 did arrive. I did the food preplanning as to pricing, and scouting , trying to guide him for months on amounts needed. ( he ended up buying WAY too much food anyway.) (( My scouting trips always ended up with me coming home with over $100 of stuff I probably did not need, so what is new?)

He ordered decorations from various online sources, candy for the candy/dessert display, serving boards.. tables and chairs, and cloth tablecloths. ( does that even sound right? )  Pam and Mike made decorative items, including a wooden tree to use as a guest book. Theme for this affair was Love Birds, and colors were purple and navy. They had a bounce house for the young ones, games for the lil ones, and they put together a Let Love Glow station with glow in the dark glasses and bracelets, etc for the night hours. There was a smores station, made form a planter box and sterno, so smores could be made by all.

Fully stocked bar,  Sangria, red and white wines, and champagne, as well as beer and sodas, teas, and lemonade were available.

We had and smoked 40 pounds of beef brisket, 40 pounds of pork cushions, and we had 15 rotisserie chickens ( pterodactyl size) (( thank goodness for spell check!).  There was macaroni and cheese, corn casserole, 2 types of baked beans, greens, rolls. I made potato salad, Cole slaw, and macaroni salad, and I also did a Caesar Salad.  We set up a snack station, with veggies, fruits, and home made spinach  and a hot artichoke dip in bread bowls.  There was a salsa station, with 3 colors of tortilla chips, with all types of salsas, from mild to hot, from red to green, to Pineapple Mango, and 2 hot  chili cheese dips.

Not to be outdone, was the dessert table. Alongside the candy buffet, was cannoli, 2 types of cookies,  mini chocolate dipped cheesecake,  and the gorgeous cup cake tiered wedding cake, 4 gourmet flavors. topped by the  Mr and Mrs wedding cake.

A really good friend gifted them his service as DJ and he was the bomb.

I share some photos with you, and think we should be starting up a new family business. What do you all think?

Smoked BBQ Brisket and Burnt Ends

Smore to  Love

Pulled Pork

Sand Ceremony supplies

Cupcake Wedding Tier

Wooden Guest Book made by Pamela

Vows. Dr Seuss Style.. Awesome

Beautiful Family united

You may kiss your Bride!!

Good looking group. Awesome job Nick!

We rock!

As I said, there was way too much food, despite the crowd and how everyone raved over it. The smoked meats were the bomb, and very well received,  and the brisket and " Burnt Ends" were to die for and were gone baby gone.

Brian and Esther donated most of the leftover to my Meals On Wheels group, therefore Tuesday that week I was able to prepare 53 meals of pulled pork and all the sides for our local shut-ins. We pulled the meat from the rotisserie chickens,  and froze it. The following Tues we used that meat to make Chicken and Dumplings for the 52 people that used our services that week. Not bad, huh?