Wedding Part Two recap:

J and I woke up at 4:00 am on Saturday to head to Lori’s house where the rest of my family and Crystal were meeting. 

We got to the airport and sadly watched the luggage packed with fondant veggies for the top of Julie’s cake get thrown in with the rest of the checked luggage.  (I called on Friday to see if we would be able to put the fondant veggies in a carry-on bag, and the guy said that the fondant too closely resembled the consistency of playdough and would definitely not be allowed.)

The flights were fairly uneventful, except for a little extra turbulence when we were approaching Cleveland.  Obtaining the rental car, however, was not a quick process.  We had to wait quite a while for David’s car, which turned out to be this electric blue beauty:

We got two rental cars and David was the leader for the trip.  It’s a good thing he drove a bright blue car because he definitely made some sudden turns and stops.  At one point the interstate split in two and we saw the blue car cross four lanes to veer left rather than right.  Yikes.

We went straight to Julie and Tommy’s house from the airport since no one but J and I had gotten a chance to see it.  It was getting close to 3:00 and none of us had had much to eat all day, so you can imagine that we were all pretty grumpy.  We took a quick tour of their place and then asked for lunch recommendations.  Julie recommended a Chipotle close to their house.  Mimsies has talked about Chipotle several times on her blog, so I was glad to finally try it!

If you haven’t been and plan to go in the future, keep in mind they aren’t kidding when they say the hot salsa is hot.  Holy cow.  It was really good, though.  We were all satisfied and instantly became much happier people.

Our next mission was to get to the reception site to open the fondant veggie bag to see if any of the veggies survived the trip.  Here’s Lori unzipping the insulated carrier:

We had four glass Pyrex dishes and several other Tupperware dishes packed with fondant veggies and lots of bubble wrap. 

I knew everything was going to be okay when I unwrapped this chicken:

It survived!  And you could still see the indentions for the wings!!  (My co-worker made this adorable chicken.  I mentioned that Lori and I were working on the vegetables for Julie’s garden cake, and she asked if she could come help!  She came at lunch on Friday and after work until almost 9:00 p.m.!  I couldn’t believe it.  Another of my co-workers came at lunch on Thursday AND Friday, and Crystal helped on Thursday.  It turned out to be a lot of fun.)

I took great care when packing the tomatoes because they were my favorite of all of the vegetables.  I loved the tiny, delicate leaves.

They probably fared best of all the vegetables, but we were running out of time on Friday night and didn’t have time to make grids like that for each container.

It took me a long time to figure out why my mom had scissors in her hand for this picture, but I realized she was still unpacking the vegetables and was cutting the tape wrapped around the carrot.

We wrapped each individual carrot in a combination of parchment paper and wax paper and rolled it up and taped it.  It was a tedious process, but we felt it was necessary if we wanted the vegetables to look semi-presentable after traveling many miles underneath an airplane.

Some of the vegetables melted a little, but we were able to form them back into shape and ended up with a really cute cake.  I was so happy everyone pitched in to help – Lori and I would have never been able to assemble it in time by ourselves!!

Lori originally wanted to create two scarecrows wearing a wedding dress and a tuxedo, but we decided that there wasn’t enough time for that and turned the chickens into the bride and groom.  I loved the veil.  :)

They are sitting on top of the scraps from the sugar snap peas we had at dinner.  While we were unpacking the cake supplies, Crystal noticed a guy snapping peas in the corner.  She asked if we could use those on the cake, and he didn’t mind at all!  I thought it made a perfect foundation for the chickens (as long as people realized it wasn’t necessarily edible!)

Remember me telling you about the Tide-To-Go pen used to get chocolate off of Julie’s dress at the Batesville wedding?  Well, here’s Carey using it on the tablecloth for the very same thing.  We got chocolate everywhere when we were assembling the cake in such a hurry.

It didn’t all come out, so one of the caterers grabbed an extra tablecloth.  We were so glad he had a spare.

The table decorations at the reception coordinated with everything in Batesville the weekend before, but with just a slightly different twist.  The cauliflower arrangement was my favorite:

Everything was beautiful.

Julie asked my dad to say the blessing before dinner.  He obliged, but not without making a few comments beforehand.  He congratulated Ohio on their good sports teams and said how much he appreciated everyone coming out and supporting Tommy and Julie, and then said something along the lines of “I know you’ve probably noticed that my family and I talk kind of funny with an accent, but guess what, it’s mutual.”  What??!!  It came out of nowhere.  I couldn’t believe it.  I didn’t see many people at the other tables laughing, so I hope they weren’t too offended.  I personally thought it was hilarious because my dad is capable of saying anything when he gets nervous.

I thought my parents looked really nice all spiffed up at the dinner. 

It’s amazing we even made it there at all.  We finished with the cake just minutes before the reception was supposed to start, and we hadn’t even checked in at the hotel yet!  We were only an hour late, which is pretty remarkable.

We barely beat Julie and Tommy there!  Here’s the happy couple enjoying their big night:

I love this picture of Troy helping Julie with her corsage.

It’s hard to have a bad time whenever you’re around Troy – He’s literally the life of the party and I love him so much.

It was a wonderful evening filled with good food, dancing, and cotton candy.

What more could a girl ask?