Our friends Bethann and Gary Martin’s only daughter was married Saturday. We were helping with the set up at Wheeler Farms in the morning while the family was at the temple and I started to see the creative brainchild this reception was going to be. It was reminiscent of a County Fair- Farmer’s Market. There was so much activity going on, so many wonderful foods to taste and it was a fun carnival atmosphere too!
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| Elissa and Tobin….the bride and groom… |
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| The bishop was giving a little talk here…. |
Look at all the greenery in the background….dotted with yellow roses…so pretty!
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| The wedding party…well the Martin half of them…. |
It started at 4:00 when the bride and groom came onto the scene in a horse drawn carriage ride while a choir (our ward choir) of about 12 people sang “If You Will Seek the Lord”. Then Bishop Ragsdale spoke, then the bride and groom exchanged rings and talked to the guests about why they chose a temple marriage that would last forever. I thought it was super sweet the things the groom said about his bride. It brought tears to my eyes! So cute!
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| My husband took a close up shot of me and my home girls singing in the choir…. |
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| Lorraine our choir director for at least 13 years now…leading us in 2 songs…. |
I ran and asked John to go get my camera out of my purse in the car. He was so nice to do that for me and then the choir sang another number at the end before the prayer. It was kind of a spiritual little segment before all the hoopla, food and dancing and fun. I snapped a few pictures of them up in front of us all. And they were a beautiful couple, to say the least!
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| ring ceremony…and a little bit of kissing went on…. 😀 |
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| The mother and father of the bride look too young to have a married daughter! |
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| Groom’s parents…The Story family are very handsome people too… |
Then the guests were invited to go and eat. John and I started at the lemonade booth. As you can see there were fruit smoothies, fresh lemonade and ice water. Then we went over to watch the lawn games for a minute. There was badminton, croquet, Frisbees and lots of the little kids were enjoying that. Then we wandered over to a caricature artist who was doing 3 kids in my ward. What fun!
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| My dashing husband hangin out by the fresh lemonade….mmmm..refreshing! Weather was perfect! |
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| The caricature booth….we should have done it too! |
The mom of the bride decorated the chairs by dyeing cheesecloth yellow and knotting a strip on the backs of all these cute white chairs. She had drop cloths with vintage tablecloths over them for the picnic area of 10 tables. It was all supposed to keep with the country fair theme. So cute!
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| Wedding of the year if you ask me! |
We were hungry so we walked over to see what was cooking. They had Randy Haycock and his son Tanner doing the BBQ and they had all kinds of fish and chicken on kabobs with all kinds of zesty sauces to try. Oh my everything there was superb! Then we walked next door to the bread and cheese booth. I had never tasted fresh mozzarella before and I chose some nutty bread to spread it on. They also had hot artichoke dip in a fry pan. Oh heavens was that ever good! The girls in charge did a beautiful job.
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| Hi Tanner! He and Nathan Richards helped set up all day..what troopers! |
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| This hot artichoke dip is to DIE FOR! The jellies were so sweet too! |
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| Hi girls…these are 2 of the most special girls around…love them! |
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| Baguettes and breads of every kind…. |
Then we wandered over to the next booth which had salads of every imaginable kind. Wendy O and her daughter ran that booth. I loved that broccoli and raisin and bacon salad. It is one of my favorites. John liked the pasta salads best. Then we got thirsty again and went to see the next booth.
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| Hi Wendy! You look like one of the teenagers! |
Oh my! It had Italian iced drinks of any flavor you can imagine. they mix it with 7-up and whip cream and these fruity flavorings in bottles and they were delicious. They topped them with cute striped straws. I loved peach. John tried guava. Everybody said strawberry was really yummy too. We hung out with Robert and Linda Burton for awhile and we were both reminded of the Renaissance Fair about 4 years ago that we did with Aimee Ferre when we were Y.W. Presidency and how we made almost $7,000 bucks in one fundraiser. But this party was even more unique. No comparison!
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| Flavored Italian Ice drinks…they were so yummy! |
Then we went over to see the place where you sign in (we do things backwards) and there next to it was a photo booth! How much fun is that? So we both crammed ourselves inside and took some funny pictures with all the props they had placed in a box there in front of us. We look like total geeks. I loved laughing at those insane pics of us though. Fun times. We had 2 made; 1 for us and 1 for the bride and groom. Then we glued our pics on a page of their scrapbook and wrote them out some thoughts of congratulations. I told Elissa that hers was the best reception I’d ever been too. No lie!
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| The party was very well attended, but there was so much room for everyone! It wasn’t crowded! |
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| This was a lot of fun…I got into dressing up… |
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| They had boas, hats, glasses, iron man masks, you name it. |
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| This wasn’t ours…I snapped this while we were waiting….see ours at the end of this post! We left one copy in the scrapbook with our advice on life…..not much as you can imagine! |
Then we went over to the pastry and dessert booths. I wanted to try my own lemon bars I’d made when I got home from helping set up. But man were there lots of things to choose from! Cream puffs,Key Lime pies, 7 layer bars, all kinds of grandma’s special fruit bars and nutty cookies. Mmmmm!
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| I’ve gotta get me one of those cool pie cutters! |
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| delicious treats everywhere! |
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| There’s MY BARS! To the left! And cute Savannah..she used to live 2 doors down from us! Don’t you think she looks kinda like Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol? Just a Tad? |
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| Primary kids dancing to the maypole… |
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| Weren’t their hats and aprons so cute? Bethann made everything by hand! |
Well about then they announced the music for the maypole dancers who are cute little primary kids I know in the ward.. John and I talked with Aimee and Matt Ferre whose maypole we had just returned from borrowing for our first grade musical THURSDAY! Then these girls practiced that night and were performing Saturday. I changed out the ribbon colors from 6 color to yellow and white.
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| This cute girl is vegan…so a natural choice for fruit booth….hehe… |
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| I loved all the cute vintage cloths everywhere clothespinned on…. |
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| Jazzie is one of the nicest girls around….if you know of a cute and nice guy..let’s do a set up! |
Then we just HAD to go visit the candy booth. OH YAY! They had all sorts of things in glass tall jars and you just asked for a scoop of this or that. Super fun. We both took home a little party favor bag of candies.
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| There are lots of pretty old vintage buildings around Wheeler Farm…I liked this old farmhouse…. |
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| My friend Kristin was manning the CANDY booth…she’s a great substitute teacher…if ya ever need one! |
The next thing we came to was a picture wall of ribbons and trophies the couple had won over the years.
Elissa is a great horsewoman. Tobin was an athlete. Lots of cool pics and ribbons.
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| Cute picture wall they had set up with all of their accomplishments through the years… |
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| Baseball is my favorite sport…so I like this about Tobin…..he’s the man! |
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| Great form…I’d give her a 10…..but you can’t dance to it…. |
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| Man Look at all those ribbons! Way to go girl! |
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| Being a teacher myself I can appreciate an academic! Woo Hoo! |
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| Hi dudes…your sound is cool! ROCK ON! |
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| Brother of the bride, Connor Martin doin’ his thang on vocals & guitar… |
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| This was before they brought in the yellow bow tied chairs in white….they were very pretty too! |
And then we went to see the inside of the “barn” reception hall where they were going to cut the cake and dance. We listened to Wayne Day and Jody Thompson sing to the oldies (or 70s? or something) and they were awesome of course.
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| Beautiful Elissa…. |
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| The inside of the barn is stunning…the rafter joists are very cool and soooo high! |
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| More pics of the cute couple… |
The place was so sparkly with all the white lights hanging down from the balcony. I loved everything about this reception. It was a super fun day.
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| They were just moving the gifts around…this is only a small sampling… |
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| This was before the cake lady added all the yellow and white roses on top…but I ran out of memory b4 she got back! |
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| More lovey dovey pics… |
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| What a cute couple! |
The last thing we saw when we came out of the big reception barn was the sign in table. We do things waaaaaay backwards don’t we? I thought this was such a cute touch. In keeping with the farmer’s market fair theme, they had engraved their initials in an old tree trunk. It sat on the table with flowers and the sign in scrapbook. So cute! I loved it.
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| We finally signed in at the end….when there was no “sign in” line…hehe…we are so tricky! |
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| Tobin and Elissa sittin in a tree…. |
I got a sunburn helping in the morning for 3 hours so my feet were sore and my arms were burnt but it was fun seeing everyone from my ward and some people from my stake. We sat and ate with Pres. and Maryann Back. It was also fun to visit with all the young women again. Marilyn Butterfield was in charge of the decorating while everybody was gone to the temple. She is amazing. That’s all I can say. It was so beautiful!
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| The weather and sun were perfect…people really enjoyed it a lot! |
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| lawn games….isn’t that the cutest thing? So clever! All the kids were playing quietly in the background so parents could sit and talk! |
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| Just to the right of this area were 10 large picnic tables for eating yummy stuff…. |
Elissa was always one of my favorites. I think she got a great husband too, so I’m super happy for her. Congrats to the Martin family! We sure love you guys! And thanks for inviting us to the Sandy Wedding of the Year. The Brits got nothin on us!
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| Johnny and me being weird..check out his IRON MAN…..it was such fun! |
Loved that reception – a real celebration!
Oops I'm signed in as Emily — Candice