Wedding Week | The Reception & Party
Welcome to wedding week! Everyday this week I’ll be bringing you a post about our wedding, which took place in Anglesey on the 24th of June. I’ll be sharing all the little details with you, from the outfits to the venue to the party. Enjoy…
I can't believe that wedding week is drawing to a close - I have one more post to share with you tomorrow, all about our fabulous suppliers, and then that will be it!
Today's post is all about the fun bits - the reception and party! I loved this part of our wedding day as everyone really relaxed and got into the swing of everything. We ate yummy food, drank copious cocktails and danced until the wee hours at the silent disco - what's not to love?!
The Drinks Reception
By the time Sam and I got back to Tros Yr Afon, the drinks reception was already in full swing in the courtyard. We were so lucky with the weather at this point - we had been forecast rain, but as you can see from the photos, it was absolutely glorious! With the beautiful palm trees and bright flowers it felt like we could almost have been abroad, rather than in North Wales.
We laid on a couple of different types of drinks, including good old Prosecco, Pimms and soft drinks for the kids. We also had old vintage tin baths filled with Brooklyn lager - Sam and I got engaged a few blocks down from the Brooklyn Brewery, and if you've read this post, you'll know it's what we drank to toast our engagement, so it felt only right to have it at our wedding!
We also laid out antipasti boards filled with meats, cheeses, olives and bread - they were so popular that they were pretty much all gone by the time we got back from doing couples photos!
I love all of these photos of everybody mingling and enjoying drinks in the sunshine. It was such a nice feeling to see all of the people from different parts of our life finally get to meet each other and lots of new friendships were formed that weekend.
Sam and I arrived back to a shower of confetti...
And quickly got chatting and cheers-ing with our guests! We had a couple of group photos and then it was time for everyone to take their seats in the marquee.
The Wedding Breakfast
My lovely friend and bridesmaid, Fiona, was also our master of ceremonies and welcomed us into the marquee as the brand new Mr and Mrs Airey to a huge round of applause and plenty of cheers.
Everyone took their seats while our wonderful catering team poured the wine and started to bring our dinner out. Some people couldn't wait for dinner and got stuck into the sweetie table instead...
We ummed and ahhed for ages about what food to serve for the wedding breakfast. We knew from the offset that we didn't want a formal sit down 3 course meal - we aren't very formal people, plus we had 11 kids at the wedding, and asking them to sit down through all of that would have been unfair.
We originally planned to have food trucks, but coordinating queueing with 110 guests felt like it could get a bit tricky. Then Sam had the brainwave of serving Turkish sharing food - our favourite restaurant is a little Turkish place in our village, and we loved the idea of everyone passing round the food and sharing it with each other, just like a big family meal.
Our caterers put together the most epic feast of kebabs, falafel, koftes and salads, all mopped up with plenty of flatbreads and dips. It was all bloody delicious and loads of our guests commented on how nice it was to have something that was a little bit different to the usual wedding fare.
Once we'd finished, it was time for us to cut our very epic wedding cake...
My Dad very kindly made our cake for us and it was AWESOME. Not only did it look like something straight off Pinterest, but it tasted amazing too! We had three tall tiers of sponge cake filled with jam and buttercream - yum.
While our caterers whisked it off to get it all sliced up, we cracked on with the speeches. Dad was first, with not one, but two embarrassing stories about me - thanks Dad!
I think my cringe face and Sam's laughter says it all! There were also lots of emotional parts and nice words said too, so I suppose I'll let him off.
Then it was my turn! I've always found it incredibly old fashioned that only the blokes get to speak at weddings, and as I said in my speech, I never usually let Sam get a word in edgeways, so why should our big day have been any different?! I was really nervous, but managed to get through it with only a little bit of a waiver in my voice at parts...
Next up was Sam, who did a brilliant job and had us all in tears...
I love this photo of my Mum looking adoringly at her new son-in-law - he's definitely the favourite child now!
And finally, it was time for Sam's brother, Tom, to deliver his best man's speech, which I can honestly say was one of the funniest I've ever heard! I also learnt that Sam was a huge Spice Girls fan as a child, which definitely made me love him a bit more...
My friend Fiona also did the most amazing little impromptu toast at the end of the speeches - she read an Irish blessing that was absolutely perfect. It was extra lovely because it was a toast that was made at her grandparents' wedding many years ago!
Once we'd all finished toasting and laughing and crying, the dessert table was declared officially open! As well as the wedding cake, there were also plenty of other sweet treats that my amazing friends Yen and Fi had whipped up, including fudgey brownies, amazing cookies, Pimms jelly and lemon squares.
It's safe to say that none of it stuck around for very long!
The Party!
With tummies full of delicious food and Prosecco, it was time to get the party started!
We kicked things off with our first dance, which was to Harvest Moon by Neil Young. I think I was actually more nervous about this than I was about my speech or our vows, but once we got going I really enjoyed it - it was quite emotional!
Our friends, Nick and Wheels, DJ'ed for us and they did the most amazing job - the dancefloor was literally always packed! These photos of everyone dancing away are some of my favourites...
For our evening food we decided to go with something we knew everyone would love - pizza! We actually stumbled across this supplier while we were at the Wilmslow Artisan Market, which my Mum and I discovered when we went to visit the showroom where I bought my dress from.
We had gone for a day out with my family and everybody was raving about the pizza, even my Dad who never eats the stuff! We figured that if it was good enough for him then everyone else would love it, and sure enough, they were a hit!
They did a great job of fuelling everyone for the next part of the evening - the silent disco! Sam and I have danced at many a silent disco at festivals, and we thought it would be a great idea to make the party even more fun. We don't have any professional photos of the disco as our photographers had gone by that point (they had already earned their money three times over!), but I thought I'd share one grainy photo with you just for a laugh...
Forgive how drunk and sweaty we look - let's just say we'd had a couple of tequila shots by this point!
We kept on dancing until the wee hours (the great thing about having a silent disco is that there's no noise and therefore no obligation to switch the music off!), before finally calling a day on our wedding and heading up to bed.
We honestly had the most incredible day EVER, and I hope these posts go some way to showing how you much fun we had. I'm so glad that we'll have them to look back on for years to come!
Make sure you stay tuned for tomorrow’s wedding week post, where I'll be sharing a full list of all our fabulous suppliers!
*All images in this post were taken by the lovely Jenna Woodward