reception - farewell!

Time to say goodbye :( The whole day & night went by so fast, a total blur. I couldn't believe it was time to go already! At least we had sparklers - I was very adamant about having sparklers to send us off!



My mom wanted to be the last person I said goodbye to:


Well...that's about it folks! It took us a year to finish, but I think it was worth the wait. It was fun remembering everything :) As we celebrate our 1 year anniversary today, we look back on 8/29/09 with such joy and love. Thank you for celebrating with us!

reception - singing, tossing, dancing

As the evening drew to a close, we had a few more festivities to enjoy. My Alpha Gamma Delta sisters surrounded me with a song. It was a special moment that I will always remember. These girls mean so much to me, and my sorority played a huge role in making the woman I am today.



Bouquet toss!

Do NOT mess with the West girls. They take bouquet tosses very, very seriously! I will say that all three caught it and got a good chunk of it :)


Garter toss!

First time Ryan threw, it went into some foliage behind all the guys. Second time, one of Ryan's groomsmen, Jon, caught it.


The last dances of the evening :)

reception - cake & toast

The first time I saw the cake, I thought, perfect! Exactly what I wanted.

And then we cut into it...

Thankfully, Lauren didn't catch any pictures of surprise. Our cake was the wrong flavor!!! Of course, on the scale of bad things that could have happened, this doesn't compare to having the swine flu. But, I had wanted a chocolate wedding cake ever since I can remember...yes, even as a little girl! So, I was disappointed. I had ordered chocolate & strawberry and got vanilla. Oh well. It was pretty and I heard that it was tasty. After Ryan & I fed each other a bite, we didn't eat any more so I'm not really sure! I will save the story for what we did with the top layer for another day :)

Around this time, we also had toasts from Matt & Holly. Holly prepared something short & sweet, basically congratulating me on finding my prince :)

Then Matt toasted and had some hilarious stories to tell. He talked about Ryan hitting him with a golf club and having him hold onto a moving garage door growing up. You know, brotherly love and all that. My favorite part is when he said Ryan was marrying me for my Braves tickets. We enjoyed his toast!

reception - dances

If you know me, you know I LOVE to dance. One of my coworkers is getting married soon and she's smartly seating us right next to the dance floor. Hooray!

Ryan and I danced our first dance to Pat Green's "Lucky Ones." Early in our relationship, we went to a Pat Green concert and we both love this song! One thing I wish we had done beforehand was practice dancing to it or even learn a dance. At first we just laughed and talked, but then when we really got into the song we just kinda moved around. I don't know if that was boring to watch or what, but oh well! We had fun :)




The lucky ones for a moment or two get to fall in love with somebody like you

Daddy-daughter dance: Cinderella by Steven Curtis Chapman
What can I say about this song...Cinderella has been a favorite of mine since I was a toddler basically! When I first heard this song on the radio, I said, that's it. Daddy-daughter dance. Like it was written for me! :) Again, you will see how much my Dad LOVES high fives!




Mother-daughter dance: I Am Your Child by Barry Manilow





Anniversary dance: When I Fall in Love by Nat King Cole
I love this dance...married couples out on the dance floor according to how long they'd be married. First out - Mary Lou & Lenny Fischer. They'd been married over 50 years! Sadly, this is one of the last times we saw Lenny. He passed away in July. But we still look at this picture with so much joy in remembering their amazing marriage and his life.


I hope everyone had as good a time as I did dancing!

reception - grand entrance

Time for us to enter the reception! We came in through a back entrance and I was SO excited! One of our voiceover talents recorded a little something special to introduce everyone over the tune of "I got a feeling" by Black Eyed Peas. Our wedding party put their own special spin on walking in.

Jonathan & Ashley started us off - and funnily enough, they have the exact same wedding anniversary (married to different people of course! and Ryan was a groomsman for Jonathan and I was a bridesmaid for Ashley).

Danny & Lindsay

Matt & Meg

Jon with Beckie bringing some sass

Lauren reeling in Russell the flying fish

Matt & Holly


But of course, no one could really match the sheer joy we had at being introduced as Mr. & Mrs. Ryan Duckworth:

family portrait

When the ceremony was over, it was time to take some family portraits! I loved doing this because we had just created our own new family. It was also so much fun being surrounded by all our loved ones right after the ceremony and just rejoicing with everyone. Huge sighs of relief! We made it!

Here's our favorites :)

My family

Ryan's family

my Aunt Debbie

my Aunt Sherry & Uncle Bub & cousins Nick & Jesse


Ryan's MeMe

Ryan's Uncle Don

Emily & Catherine


My dad has a thing for high fives



I just love this photo of Meme. I hope when I'm her age, I'm as gorgeous as she is!

reception - details

Ah! Finally married...time to party! Our reception was held at Enterprise Mill. We decided to use the inside, outside gazebo and a tent (from All Star in Aiken). Here's how everything looked before we arrived!


My mom found these awesome lanterns...I want to say at the dollar store?

I thought the centerpieces turned out great - pink roses with the kiwis that my dad cut. They weren't big & flashy, just simple and pretty and entirely reflective of me, since my sister nicknamed me Kiwi so many years ago!



Leah West made programs/menus for each table, along with CDs with some of our wedding/reception songs. They turned out so great, and I still have people mention to me how much they love listening to it.

Remember these?