The Reception

Photography by Cassandra Sutton

Our wedding was a family affair where everyone got involved and lent a hand, from those that collected coffee jars throughout the year for the table lights, to the ones who made sausage rolls and did all of the electrical wiring for our lighting set up. The reception was in part to thank everyone who worked hard to make the wedding happen, and a respite from what was a long day full of rushing around with hardly a moment to eat. With everyone so hungry, the food came out very quickly and everyone dug in right away so there are no photos as food started to come out while our photographer was taking some final portraits of Hugh and I in the quickly fading evening light.

It was important to us that our wedding reception had the feeling of a fun low key family barbecue with simple, unpretentious wholesome food. We had a variety of home cooked food as well as a huge roast brought in by a catering company. And we ordered pizza, simple plain old pizza from Dominos. Because who doesn't love pizza? It was not the sort of affair where guests were presented with a riddle of forks for various mollusks, and although champagne was served guests were encouraged to drink it from the bottle.

Our wedding cake was home made because wedding cakes are such a headache. After much frustration dealing with various wedding cake businesses and explaining that I detest fruit cake and fondant, I had my mother in law bake our wedding cake. It was a delicious and very rich caramel mud cake.

There were speeches, wheel barrows full of beer and even some cheeky fireworks provided by a mischievous uncle. Unlike the wedding ceremony which was very serious, the reception was very informal with guests helping themselves to food and alcohol and everyone spreading out in their groups to play cards and chat. There were certainly some guests that were worse for wear the next morning!

We were lucky with weather that weekend and although we had bought a large marquee there was no need for it and we were able to enjoy sitting under the canopy of the beautiful fig tree. Later on in the night it did get a little chilly since it was spring and guests were provided with blankets.

Looking back now I am so pleased with how everything worked out and I don't think there is anything I would have wanted to do any differently. That is not to say that the lead up to the wedding wasn't without it's obstacles and bumps in the road, or nights spent crying over Pinterest, but all of this was overcome.