Without further ado, I present to you guest photos of our cocktail hour and a lengthy narrative to accompany them!

Mmm, don’t those hors d’ouevres look scrumptious? It looks like one of our guests set up this plate just for a photo! (Notice the suspiciously well-placed garnish…)

Food for the cocktail hour, as well as for the reception, was catered by the Polebridge saloon. All of the fruits and veggies (including the tapenade) were fresh, local and organic. The bread was baked earlier that day by the Polebridge Mercantile bakery!

You can see one of our bottled Mexican cokes in the background of that shot. Those were a big hit, though we did end up taking a few cases home. My guess is that they would have gone farther if it had been warmer outside.

Now, you may already have noticed, but there weren’t many tuxes or cocktail dresses at this cocktail party. Our wedding was very informal and many of the guests wore jeans, fleeces, and casual footwear. We advised this, and for good reason. It was to their benefit to stay warm, comfortable, and free of twisted ankles. Similarly, it was to our benefit to have them happy and cozy so that they’d stay the entire night!

While we didn’t have tuxes, we did have tails! Lots of the Polebridge critter crowd came to socialize.

I am very surprised that this kitty came to visit. She was sweet but seemed a little shy when I met her. I guess I was wrong… she was more of a social butterfly than I was!

Many of the Polebridge pups came out to say hello during the evening as well. I think they were hoping for handouts (and probably got some), but they are very, very used to large crowds of people in their town (for music events) and are extremely well-socialized. They pretty much don’t care to interact with strangers except to place themselves in appropriate proximity when there is food. This puffy, orange pup did come say hello to our flower girl…

I think mama is saying “Do you want to pet the doggy?”

Look what else came out while people were drinking and socializing! The peaks that had been shadowed in clouds during the ceremony were revealed with a beautiful, new dusting of snow.

We took many portraits with this as our backdrop.

While we were workin’ it hard for the camera, our guests were OM NOM NOMMING it up over by the main stage where the food and drink were set up.

Look at that line! They must’ve been hungry…

Our homemade vodka infusions were very, very popular. Unfortunately, most people ignored the cocktail menu we had prepared, and since there was no bartender there to make drinks for them (I guess our friend misunderstood that we wanted him to bartend in addition to making the infusions), they just drank the stuff like juice. What can I say… it did TASTE like juice. I heard it said many, MANY times over the course of the evening, “Man, you have GOT to try the purple stuff! It’s great!” The ‘purple stuff’ was blackberry-infused vodka.

At least they had somewhere to SIT DOWN and soak it up. The soft-seating was very popular, both during cocktail hour and later, during dancing. It’s tiered, so it made for some fun photo ops. I wish we’d taken more advantage of them!

Of course, because we were doing portraits, Justin and I missed out on pretty much the entirety of cocktail hour. By the time we were nearly finished, I was starving and had to pee pretty bad. On the way to experiment with my wedding dress in the single-stall bathroom for the first time, I managed to snag some bread and tapenade. Ever-so-helpful, my coworker was there to get the food off my face before it made its way onto my dress…

You can’t really tell from the photograph, but there is pretty much nothing left of the appetizers. Hungry guests just couldn’t wait til dinner…

By the time I’d finished navigating the bathroom (I had to hoist my skirts and back in like a semi-truck – and YES I made the beep-beep-beep noise) and we’d finished our wedding party portraits, it was time to eat. Fresh trout, grilled buffalo, organic veggies, roasted potatoes, and much more… when we return!

Filed under: Food & Drink, Photos, Recap on November 21st, 2008