On Friday, we went over to the Red River Valley Fairgrounds to help with the decorations for the reception. Later, I'll upload some of the pictures from there - so come back if you're reading this early. They had planned for about 360 people at the reception - small group, nothing but their closest friends and relatives :-). Since Reilee works for an Ag Credit bank and Clint is a rancher, the theme was farm and country related. The tables, seating eight each, had white tablecloths with vases containing alfalfa (it was convenient that the plants had just flowered with the result that they had nice leaves and beautiful purple (excuse me, violet) flowers. Every other table had the alfalfa and the alternate ones had floating candles in vases, both of which were surrounded by three votive type candles. The head table which was raised had seats for the seven bridesmaids and seven groomsmen. The backdrop for the table was a huge board fence from an old pole barn which Clint and his friends had brought in from one of the farms. Awesome setting for the reception. Along the back wall was the area for gifts and wedding cake - actually a small cake surrounded by black and white cupcakes. That's a really neat idea and made for easy serving and a lot less waste.
After leaving the reception hall, we went back to Michelle and Adrians for dinner with the Michelle, Melanie, and Melissa families - Melinda was busy with a few other details. Great meal of steak and salmon followed by a game of Horse Racing (not sure whether that's two words or one). Really fun game (once we caught on to the rules, one of which was subtitled Vi Loses and the other was the Banker Wins). Didn't play for money, but even so you really get involved. Time flies when you're having fun. Tim arrived around 6:00 p.m. at Hector International Airport and it was great, really great seeing him and having him involved in the festivities. Needless to say, Da Girls were delighted to see him (or at least gave a good impression of being happy).
Saturday was the wedding, but not till 4:00 p.m., so we amused ourselves with breakfast at home and just conversing and enjoying a relaxing day. Vi, Tim and I left for the church in mid-afternoon and had an opportunity to get caught up with a lot of friends and relatives which we hadn't seen in a while. The church was beautiful and very simple in its' decoration. The bridal party and then the bride and groom came down the aisles, but not until after Clint had escorted both mothers down the aisle and seated them. The minister did a fantastic job of personalizing the ceremony and explaining how he was delighted to see how much Clint and Reilee were in love. He said that was apparent from the first time he sat down with them to plan the ceremony. After the ceremony, we were among the first to leave the pews and got a chance to go through the receiving line to greet the new couple. After that we headed over to the Reception Hall where there was more mingling and conversation. Reilee and Clint had respectfully asked that no pictures or videos be taken during the ceremony and that they would share the professionally done photographs as soon as they were available. That meant that there was not a lot of jockeying for photo positions and flashes going off. It was a great way to do that portion of the ceremony.
The bridal party came over to the reception hall about an hour later in a bus painted green and yellow (gee, I wonder what the NDSU colors are?). They came down the aisle into the reception hall as each of the bridal group was announced and then finally the bride and groom entered. They had a live country and western band (Troubador). The music was great. They had the tables line up for the buffet after the bridal party went up. The sisters and their husbands were in charge of getting the tables started. Excellent buffet (and the bar was good, also).
Lots of music and dancing. Crowd thinned out gradually over the evening, but time flew by. They had to vacate the hall by midnight and then lock the gates behind them. Fun evening and we were among the last to leave at midnight. Went back to Michelle's, but needless to say, we didn't last long.
Sunday morning, Da Girls (minus Melinda again) and Karen went out for breakfast and again a fun morning. In the afternoon, Michelle and Melissa were going to the gift-opening and the rest of us went out to a local brewery for a taste of the local brews. We had Adrian and Jeff with us and then Michelle and Melissa joined us for dinner. We had to eat earlier than them because of Tim's flight (more on that later). Also, Karen and Sharon (Vi's cousin whom we hadn't seen in over forty-five years joined us. They're coming down to the lake tomorrow so we'll get a chance to talk with Sharon more.
We left to take Tim to the airport. His flight had numerous changes, some earlier and some later - but the upshot was that he didn't get off until almost two hours later. We didn't find that until later and still need to find out some of those details. After leaving the airport, we headed down to Melanie and Ken's cabin at the lake in Minnesota. Nice drive through the farmland and lake country. They have an awesome place on East Lost Lake, but more about that in the next post.
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