Wedding Recap: Part 10 – Potato Moon

Without question, Potato Moon rocked the house at our wedding reception! I never thought I would have the budget to have a live band at our wedding, but fortunate for us, when they are family they come very reasonably priced. Like, on the house, kind of pricing. If not for that, we would have never been able to have live music of this caliber getting everyone movin’ on the dance floor.

For those of you, who may not be Potato Moon followers, let me tell you a little bit about the band. Potato Moon (sometimes known as the Lonely Jones) is made up of the Stancil family, Ben, the “Master” of the band is the oldest son, sisters Jane and Laura and father Phil on bass along with adopted Stancils Mikey on guitar and Jimmy on drums. Evan’s Aunt Grace, the Mom, manages the band and the youngest cousin, little Phil, will join in on occasion. Not only are they talented musicians, but they are also a very very good time.

We asked them to play their original music and they threw in some great covers as well. Jane serenaded with a soulful performance of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, that has been known to bring sentimental Evan to tears. They did a rockin’ interpretation of Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison. And they kept the party going with their own original songs like Hey Yeah and House on the River.

A quick side story about House on the River…when Evan and I first started dating, he was living in a duplex with a good friend Fletcher in Richmond Virginia. One night I came over late. The guys had been sitting on the front porch drinking run drinks listening to Old House on the River on repeat for who knows how long.
One of the best parts about having your family perform at your wedding is that everyone can get in on it. My stepfather has been known to play the harmonica with various bands and goes by his stage name, Rico. Potato Moon was more than happy to have him play with them for a few songs and it was a riot. He did great on the harmonica, but also had a secret weapon planned that no one knew about…THE SPOONS. That’s right friends, Rico Jones pulled the spoons out of no where and they were a hit. The next day when we were scouring through left-overs, he announced, “These spoons have never been washed because they are a musical instrument, but I will make an exception to eat chocolate cake.”

Link to some more Potato Moon videos.

Wedding Recap: Part 9 – The Fun!

Without question the best part of our wedding was our entertainment. One of the main goals we had when planning was for everyone to have FUN at our reception. Creating fun is a lot harder than you think. You need a lot of things to fall in to place in order for guests from across the country, young and old, drinkers and sobers (although not that many of our guests were sobers) many who do not know each other, to all get together and have a really fun time. Here are the key components that created fun on our wedding day:
1) No sit down dinner – too formal for us, we wanted the whole evening to feel casual so that people were comfortable meeting new people rather than forced to converse with who happened to be sitting at their table. We strategically placed food tables throughout the space so that people would have to walk around to taste everything. We also had a mix of tall boy tables and seated tables so that everyone wouldn’t all be seated at once.
2) Extra Activity – let’s face it, not everyone is going to get crazy on the dance floor, so in order to give those guests something fun to do. We had a Photobooth where guests could get a little silly and we could get great shots of our friends and family.
3) Splurge on the booze – in actuality we got a really great price for our bar service and were just lucky that they were trying to get rid of the top shelf stuff. Our bartender kept the line moving even while mixing up anything our guests could think of. Even my mother was taking shots of who knows what.
4) Provide transportation – the big reason that we were able to go so heavy on the booze was because we had reserved a Trolley service to take guests to and from the hotels in the city. Less than half of our guests came by car which made it easy to safely transport the drunks back to Coney Island and then the hotel.
5) Awesome Entertainment – I married in to one talented family. Evan’s cousin’s band, the Lonely Jones, performed at our reception and they rocked the house! My step-father got in the action and played the harmonica and the spoons! While the band took a break, his other cousin, DJ Hubbs, kept the crowd dancing. More on the entertainment in my next post…

Wedding Blog

Is a wedding blog like a wedding gift? What I mean by this, is do I have a year to update in order to still be on good terms with the happy couple? I sure hope so because I have so much more to share and finally have some time to put together some more posts!

Stayed tuned this week...

Wedding Brick

I understand that this blog title might be confusing, so let me explain. As you know, Evan and I were married in Detroit, the underdog city. Detroit is working very hard to try to rebuild their city and their reputation and one of the major projects going on is the expansion of the Detroit River walk. As part of this expansion, donors can sponsor a brick that will be part of the River Walk.

My mother and mother –in-law bought us a brick as a wedding gift!

Last week, my in-laws were traveling through Detroit and made a stop to see if they could find our brick. And lucky for us, they did! I am surprised that it is in place so quickly and excited that our wedding date is stamped on Detroit for good.

Wedding Recap: Part 8 – My Wedding Day Look

Want to know why I looked so good on my wedding day? I have friends with some wonderfully wedding-y talents. My good friend and long time stylist, Jamie, took care of my wedding hair to the point that all I had to do was show up. Literally, all I said was, “I don’t want an up-do” and she said, “Ok” and took care of everything from my color to the style without me having to make one decision. My make-up was the same scenario. Another friend, Nancy, who is Jamie’s beautification partner in crime, came over for our hair and make-up trial and asked me what I wanted. I said, I don’t know, but I don’t want a natural look, I want to look like I’m trying, but not trying to hard. These are not good directions and yet somehow she just said, “Ok” and I ended up looking way more fabulous than I ever could have figured out on my own.

One of the best parts about having your friends do your hair and make-up for your wedding is that it makes the getting ready part of the day even more fun. My little brother used to work with Jamie, so their banter was cracking me up all day long. He was making fun of her for being so meticulous with every single strand of hair (which is why she is such an amazing stylist). She was teasing him for thinking he is a big shot. She was spraying absolutely excessive amounts of hairspray sometimes accidentally in Nancy’s face while she was doing my eyeliner. The jokes were flying all day long.

Not only did I get amazing special treatment, but so did the rest of my ladies. It just so happens that the stylist, who regularly does my mother’s hair, is also a long time friend of the family. Heather took care of my two Mamas (my Mom and Evan’s Mom) and one of my bridesmaids. The rest of my crew was taken care of by my bridesmaid, Stephanie, also a talented stylist. Is that a hook-up or what?

Even better than all the fun we had getting ready was all the fun we had at the wedding. These girls are not just good at making other people look good. They are hot Mama’s themselves! This is always a nice thing to spruce up those wedding guest photos!

Wedding Recap: Part 7 - "Day-Of" Pictures

On our wedding day, we decided to go the non-traditional route that is becoming more and more popular. We planned a “first look”. We knew we wanted to do pictures in the city of Detroit, but we didn’t want to miss out on our reception. The only way to make it work was to do pictures before the ceremony.

At around 3’oclock on my wedding day, my little brother walked me through the Detroit Renaissance Center to meet Evan on the first floor of the GM Building. Along the way people were asking me if I was a bride, stopping and staring and some even snapping pictures. Evan stood with his back to me and I approached. It was kind of a funny thing that we probably didn’t need to go through, but it is the new tradition and could have made for a good surprised face photo. After a few moments of looking each other over, we headed to the People Mover to go on our photo tour of Detroit.

The weather was warm on the day of the wedding, so we were a little worried about getting sweaty before the ceremony. Luckily we passed a CVS on our way out of the building and Evan and our photographer, Chris, stopped in to get something to keep us dried off. The best thing they could find was a pack of socks. So we each had a sock that could be ours to keep dry and luckily had some extras to give to the groomsmen once the whole bridal party was to meet up outside.

Armed with a roll of quarters we jumped on a off the People Mover to get pictures all over the city. Again our photographers already had sites planned where they wanted to shoot. Some empty city streets, some at the People Mover stations, the classic monument shots and strolling through Greektown. All day cars were slowing down and honking as they passed, people yelled congratulations out the windows and some took photos for themselves. It was comical to watch me carry the dress around town, trying not to totally brown the bottom.

Fortunately, the dress was easy to manage once I figured out my system. I was so happy with the way all of these pictures turned out. And it was no stress at all to know that we still had plenty of time until the wedding would begin, instead of having to worrying that we were missing the party.

Wedding Recap: Part 6 Engagement Session

We had our engagement photo session the Thursday before the wedding. It was a nice feature that was included in the photography package we chose and it was good practice for us to be in front of a camera. Neither Evan nor I consider us to be very photogenic, so it took a little while to get used to having people take our picture. We had looked through lots of photographs that our photographers had done for photo shoots and the scenes from Belle Isle really stuck out to me. So we chose to do our session there, on largest island park in the United States.

Our photographers already had a bunch of different sites around the island scouted out for our photos. They look at things completely different from us. They see light and texture and all kinds of details that don’t even flash in my brain. One our favorite pictures from the session was this photo that they took in the reflection of a big puddle in the road.

Belle Isle was a wonderful place for pictures, but I would have had no idea where to even begin if it weren’t for Michelle and Chris. We were pretty awkward at the beginning of the session, but their direction and calm demeanor put us at ease. The whole session was less than two hours and we got pictures at a ton of different sites. I am really glad to have these photos of us while we are young and pretty.