Sewn Together: At-Home Reception Part 1

I never found a real guideline for how to plan a second reception (though Mrs. Pretzel helped me figure it out, retrospectively). I guess it's more a regular party than an expected set of traditions like it's more formal cousin, the wedding reception. And I think that's what our at-home reception was - a chaotic party (revolving mostly around food).

It was raining buckets, Saturday October the 22nd in Santa Clara. We arrived at China Stix with an hour of set-up time, only to find some of our guests were already there. Clearly not everyone was running on "Asian-time" as I had hoped. The early guests apparently wanted to help setup though, so they pestered me on what to do as I tried to wrap my head around the situation. I had brought loose seating charts with me, but had no prior knowledge to how the room would be laid out, so it was a challenge.

Penga-Sis: DOC.

My brother and cousins set up our photobooth while my aunts, grandmother and mom worked their magic on the dessert table.

I laid out a tea tray for guests to sign in silver Sharpie. Also on the table were some photo albums from the wedding for guests to look at.

The tea tray about half-way signed. It's quite pretty in all it's silvery glory now!

And the tables were minimally set with favors, buttons (this time professionally printed and with less wedding and more Zelda, Ewoks and Mario Boo's) and double happiness tealight holders with table names taped to the back. We went with Japanese cities, and each held a picture of us at the respective place.

My sister greeted people at the front door, handing out Pocky escort cards.

Checking out the favors!

Then my uncle prayed over the food, and we ate.

And ate.

And ate.

And ate. (Our wedding pictures and movie played in the background.)

That's curry, in a pumpkin! Definitely one of the favorites of the night.

And we cut up the lechon gifted to us by family friends, to eat some more.

There was so much food (about 11 dishes in all!), the servers didn't even bring out rice or tea or water (unless the table asked for it) because there was no room. I didn't even make it to the last two dishes for feeling stuffed!

We drank fantastic blood-orange soda and sparkling apple cider.

Some tables drank a whole lot of the blood-orange soda, actually.

You can find it at some Costcos. We checked about 10 of them for the stuff.

It was delicious. And the leftovers were so very tasty over the next few days. Most of the guests took their leftovers home too, so there was very little waste!

I must say, the best part of having a party close to home is that you can go back for the food more often! Yum!

(All photos by family members)

Our wedding in review:

• We took care of some last minute DIY details, and officialized everything.
• We vacationed with our out-of-towners, and threw a yummy welcome beach brunch.
• Sak saluted an angry dragon during our wedding rehearsal, and we sniffed at our dinner.
• Wal-Mart crashed my bachelorette.
• The women magically transformed, and Sak tied me into our dress.
• There was a windy photoshoot on the beach, and then we hung out at the chapel in flat shoes.
• We marched to the altar and got married.
• Everyone was camera-happy.
• Reception time! A bustle for our first dance, and then it was time to eat.
• I wore a kimono, and then fed some lions.
• We tried a bouquet pull, which didn't go as planned. Coincidentally, neither did our cake feeding.
• Everyone yelled banzai before Rick-rolling on the dance floor.
• Details: ceremony and reception
• Our wedding movie!
• Honeymoon in Japan: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4