The Dance
The dance began with the most memorable first dance I've ever seen at a reception, let alone our own Irene (a.k.a. Madam Starr Number Two) had a "special event" planned for us. We were to put on a CD, and let her do the rest. Well, why not? I tell you, whenever I'm feeling a little frisky before bed, I think of that dance of fertility...

The Carousel Horse Fiasco: One of the events of the evening was "The Crapple", otherwise known as the crap raffle. The way it worked: for a dollar, you could nominate someone else to win this ugly beast. If you were nominated, you buy yourself back out of the draw for another dollar.

You may recognise this horse from the Crappy Gift Exchange. Cliff and Laurel won this horse back in 2001 and have been trying to get rid of it ever since. Well, the moment they donated it to the Carnival, Katie, their son's girlfriend, said "That would be so great for the baby's room!" So, Cliff and Laurel tried to win it back.

Surprise surprise, it never occurred to us that people at the party might actually WANT a six foot American themed Carousel Horse lamp. So, when it was won by Mike Robinson, a 30 year old bachelor with absolutely no use for it, it almost turned into a fist fight. After much deliberation, Mike announced that he would give the horse to the winner of a dance contest. As you'll see, the results of that contest are below, and everyone went home happy.

And then there was the cake. The cake was supposed to be two joined hearts, and we told them to draw more hearts where they usually write the message. Well, they didn't draw the heart, and the two hearts looked kind of like a big ass, so nobody had a problem when Aimee's face was shoved into it. Sadly, she was shoved into the chocolate side.


The rain was threatening to come down all day long, and at 11:30, the floodgates finally broke. And how! But the gang just kept on dancing and dancing and dancing, until Mike, owner of the stereo equipment, tapped us on the shoulder and said, "Uh, guys? Speakers are expensive."

We packed up quickly (thankfully, Mike, the sensible soul that he is, thought to put a couple of tarps over the equipment), and moved upstairs. We sat under the gazebo until 2:30 talking about George Bush and eating leftover persians, then when the rain let up we moved inside and sang ACDC songs until 5.

That's a far cry from our ACTUAL wedding reception, which was cut off at 10:30 because the bongo player was too loud and the hotel manager was worried about the firedancer. (No joke!)