Good party

I'm recovering today from a night of gluttony. Last night a good friend of mine got married, and I sang at her wedding. She and her fiance had a pretty long ceremony (she's Episcopalian and he's Catholic, so they got married in the Episcopalian church, but with a marriage ceremony complete with communion) and they really did it up with the reception.

Since we had an hour and a half between the wedding and the reception, Ray and I went to the local dive bar with a few friends to have what we thought would be cheap drinks. I actually just wanted to go because I hadn't had lunch and was hoping to get some fries or something to tide me over until dinner. Turns out two pints of Guinness cost us $13! At a dive bar???? What a waste of money, considering we were going to a party with an open bar. Oh well.

When we did get to the reception, cocktail hour hadn't officially started yet, so we were ushered into another cocktail room where they had drinks, an antipasto bar, a crepe station, and some sort of carving station. Couldn't get much better than that, I thought, as I loaded my plate up with shrimp scampi crepes (yum!) and an assortment of olives and marinated eggplant. When the official cocktail room was opened, however, we were stunned to find a veritable cornucopia awaiting us.

To our left entering the room was a stir-fry station, where you could pick vegetables and sauces to be stir-fried together on a wok as you watch, Ã la Mongolian BBQ. To our right was a guy playing piano and electric piano, alternately, in a sort of lounge lizard style (I guess the electric piano had different instruments programmed in). Straight ahead was a huge circular antipasto display, the same as in the other room only more varied, including fruit and some incredibly tasty cheese and crackers. Along the left wall were all the cold things one could ask for: regular bar, martini bar, oyster bar. Along the right wall were all the hot things one could ask for: carving station, mussels in marinara, shrimp fra diavolo, and many more things I can't possibly remember.

All around the stations were spectacularly carved melons, displaying a scene of a fisherman sitting under a tree, a swan, hearts, and many more. The wedding itself didn't have a theme, per se, but it was just beautifully decorated.

I almost gorged myself during cocktail hour, especially since I heard someone say this was all we were going to get. But I stopped myself, and it's a good thing, too, because once they let us all into dinner (announcing it by having one of the wait staff wander around banging on a mini xylophone, very clever), I realized that what we had eaten was just the appetizer.

We started off with a salad, very tasty blend of sour and sweet with some sort of lemony vinaigrette paired with sugared walnuts. Next came a peach sorbet (to cleanse the palate), and then they brought out the main course: Chateaubriand or shrimp (or both). Obviously I had no beef, but the shrimp was smothered in butter and garlic, just the way I like it. We were served coffee before the cake cutting, and then after the cake was cut, we were ushered back out into the cocktail room where they had set up stations for waffles, more crepes, wedding cake (of course), a chocolate fountain, fruit, cannoli, etc. There were more drinks, too: a sambuca station was set up as well as some sort of hot chocolate type drink, ostensibly with alcohol in it (I wasn't drinking at that point in the evening, so I can only guess).

All during dinner we were entertained with a live band who were absolutely fantastic. Very energetic and very tight. They had their routine down, and it was excellent. I didn't dance at this party, mostly because I was having issues with my dress and Ray kept reminding me that every time I dance at weddings I complain about my knee and my ankles afterwards. I had a blast watching the guys go crazy, pulling out The Lawn Mower, The Sprinkler and even The Shopping Cart all over the dance floor.

So now I am home, trying to keep it easy and finish digesting all I ate last night. I didn't even drink that much, so I'm not too hung over, but it was a long night, and having to get up early for church didn't help things.