Our Wedding Reception, Fancy Fashion Castle

We had our wedding reception a few weeks ago (June 29th). It was at the Friendship Botanic Gardens in Michigan City, IN. The date and location of this party were actually the first things we planned for our wedding events. We booked the venue before we even knew what we were doing for our ceremony. I had always known what style I wanted and Eddie was pretty easy going and agreed he wanted an outdoor, unique event. We decided on this place because it’s a vast garden with a pond that you can explore, that also allows dogs. I wanted my family’s dog to be there. If you haven’t seen my post about our ceremony, find that HERE.

As far as style, we went for a kind of whimsical/boho, garden theme. We had a photo booth back drop set up for pictures. That’s the trellis-style thing in some of the photos. My dad made it. The flowers are tissue paper and our hashtag was #ohhappyryans. We had a subtile nod to our engagement in Paris, with the French macarons. There were also some flamingos scattered around, because why not? For our welcome sign we had two lawn flamingos that held a sign. Our cake toppers were also flamingos. I made the cake myself because I am too picky and didn’t want to pay a ton for a cake. For food, we had the Rolling Stonebaker food truck. It’s a pizza food truck. It served buffet-style pizza. Luckily the food was super tasty. We also had an open bar. That almost didn’t happen but we managed to make it work. I am so glad we had an open bar because it made the event so much more fun. My favorite part was probably the conga line. That is one thing that I have alway wanted at my wedding. They are just so fun and goofy. The weather was honestly perfect. Because it was outdoor, we knew there was a chance it might rain or storm. I’m just going to say that I am a strong believer in the law of attraction.

As far as things going wrong, I wouldn’t say much did. It was almost perfect but looking back I am beginning to feel really bummed because I didn’t get enough pictures, or the kind that I wanted. that’s my own fault. I should have made more of an effort to get the photos I wanted, assigned that task to somebody, or hired a photographer. We specifically bought a camera for this event and hardly even used it. A lot of the reason was because we were so rushed setting up and getting ready. The venue provided the tables and chairs but gave them to us dirty so they had to be wiped down one at a time. Because of that, a lot of the decor didn’t get properly set up. We bought giant yard games and photo booth props that nobody touched. The tables and decor wasn’t exactly how it was supposed to be. Some of the decor didn’t get used for what I bought it for. I was all just super rushed. It looked cute in the end, but now quite right. I don’t think guests noticed, probably just me. The place we had planned on getting flowers also fell through at the last minute. We were going to get them from a flower farm but they didn’t grow because there was too much rain. The day before we had to run around to every grocery store looking for flowers. Most of them didn’t have many options. We drove to the nearest Trader Joe’s which was an hour away. Another thing that I wasn’t too happy with was the lack of dancing. People kept changing the music around and nobody really danced. I don’t want to dwell on negative aspects but I am a bit of a perfectionist.

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