A Slovak Philippine Wedding: Party (Part 3)

So we come to the final and most fun part of the wedding, the wedding reception! After the initial nervousness that comes with the extensive wedding day morning preparation (or, in my case, breakfast, TV, and a bit of freshening up), and the full-length wedding ceremony, the wedding reception is by far the most fun out of the three. It’s the part where you breathe a sigh of relief, down a few glasses of champagne, and dance to Gangnam Style. But more on that later.

Photographs and Poses

After we arrived from the church, the rain finally stopped, so we had plenty of sunshine for our photos. There were many photos, since we had to pose with our family, friends, bridesmaids, groomsmen, and Peter’s parents. We were probably submitted to over 50 different poses (you’d be amazed how many times Peter’s feet weren’t in the “right” position; the photographers definitely moved us around!).

We had pictures on a small bridge that connected the country club building to the golf course. That was one of the prettiest photos from our wedding, some of which you can see here.

It took about an hour to get all the photos (we later learned there were over 1,000 photos taken!), and we were finally ready to get out of the humidity (it was a bloody hot day) and make our grand entrance to The Meadows country club ballroom.

The Slovak Traditions

Since Peter was born and raised in Slovakia, we did a few Slovak traditions during the wedding. I will briefly describe each below.

Plate Break/Sweep – As per custom, the bride breaks a full-sized plate on the floor, and the groom then must grab a broom and sweep all the pieces up, to show that the bride is in charge of the marriage. Ruby tried to break it the first time, but the plate bounced off the floor, so she had to throw it harder, and then it finally broke. Peter was given a small broom and swept all the pieces up like a good boy!

Dollar Dance – Not sure if this is a truly Slovak tradition, per se, but basically, anyone who wishes to dance with the bride must pay one dollar for the privilege. A few people did so initially, but then someone paid a dollar to dance with Peter as well, so it kind of got mixed up, but it was still a fun thing to experience.

The Dancing

Our video is available for all to see online, so you can see for yourself who proved themselves on the dance floor! The music was varied: it ranged from boy bands (Ruby loves the Backstreet Boys) to pop (we did a fun rendition of Michael Jackson’s Thriller) to Korean pop (Gangnam Style) to Slovak folk music (it was mostly the Slovaks who danced to these!).

The D.J. did a good job of mixing it up, and then as the night wore on and people got more liquid courage in them, they went up to him and started requesting songs. That’s when it got real interesting, because there were snippets of rap, Sinatra, Pitbull, Prince, and who knows what else!

And yes, everyone danced, all the age groups.  Actually, I’d say that the older generation danced more than the younger one!

The Food & Cake

Guests had the option of fish or chicken for the dinner entrée, as well as a vegetarian dish. All options, from what we’ve heard, were delicious, and plentiful, so we were happy about that.  If anything, the food was too plentiful, since we ate appetizers, bread, salad, entrée, dessert, and then still had to eat a slice of wedding cake! Only at a wedding is a cake not served as desert.

The cake was a nice, pinkish vanilla cake with buttercream.  We tasted several different varieties of vanilla and chose the one you see in the photo above.  Ruby doesn’t like chocolate cake, so it had to be vanilla.

An Incredible Experience

The party lasted from 4pm until nearly midnight, so when evening turned to night, and night went past all of our bedtimes, there was a little bit less frenetic dancing and more slow/romantic dancing.  I think everyone had a great time, and we certainly did as well, even though we were tired at the end.  It was a day, and night, that we will never forget.

We want to take this moment to thank everyone who helped us prepare the pre-wedding catering, wedding day and reception.  A lot of people were involved over the course of several months to make sure that the day went perfectly, and it certainly did.  Thank you again, and keep following our upcoming adventures!