Down the Yellow Brick Road Part XII: Cake and Family

"Kiss Me, new wife!"
"Yes, but you're pulling my veil out with the roots of my hair..."
(This happened a lot. A long veil is not a good thing when a lot of people want to hug you.)

Mr Ruby Slippers and I decided we wanted to serve the cake in the garden after the ceremony, instead of at the reception. Why? Well, firstly, it gives everyone a nice snack if they're peckish after the ceremony. Secondly, the photos turn out prettier if they're outside in a leafy garden instead of inside a dark hall. Thirdly, no one eats the cake if it's served with dessert, because there's enough dessert there without cake too!

I might have mentioned before that the cake toppers were actually our first wedding purchase (aside from booking the venue). I couldn't be more pleased with how awesome they were! Everyone loved them!


They even made our ugly cake look good...um...okayish.

Quick kiss before we cut the cake. We kissed a LOT that day. Which is as it should be!


Apparently this cake-cutting thing was quite hysterical. I have no idea why! But I found a lot of things really fun on that day that I wouldn't normally...


Om nom nom...Bridezilla eat Groom's face!


I will say that the cake didn't taste as bad as it looked. We decided on two layers: on top, a vanilla layer with lemon curd filling, and a standard chocolate for the bottom. I specifically wanted the light-coloured layer to be the one I had to eat, in case any bits got stuck in my teeth! Haha.


I don't know what Mr RS was whispering to me, but clearly he was being a very naughty boy:

A naughty boy that I wanted to kiss again, though:


Time to show off some more Ruby Slippers!


Bring on the family photos! First Mr Slippers and I posed with his parents:

Then we added his sister:

Then we posed with my parents:


And added MY sister:


Are we seeing a pattern here? Now, put it all together, AND:

(I totally just started singing: "When you know the notes to sing, you can sing most anything!" Damn Julie Andrews).

Mr Ruby Slippers and I do not have big families. Between us we should have eight grandparents, but every one of them died more than ten years ago. MIL Ruby Slippers is an only child, and my Mom's only brother died in 1987. FIL Ruby Slippers has one sister who died a few years ago, and the other one decided twelve days before the wedding that she would rather go on holiday than come to the wedding she had RSVP'd to. I was pretty damn angry. Finally, my Dad came through and produced the only parental-sibling at the wedding - my Aunt Ethel and her husband (who, by the way, nearly didn't make it back from Italy, where they were organising my uncle's pension, in time). Her two children (sounds odd, since they're in their thirties, but they ARE) couldn't make it because the one didn't want to travel from the UK with her small baby, and the other one is an important doctor type who had conferences and other things booked in Europe, dahling. So despite the meagre family showing, I decided to take a photo with everyone related to me. This is it:

From left to right: My Uncle Robert and Aunt Ethel (my Dad's sister), my great-aunt Maureen, who was married to my Gran's brother, and is the only living representative of my grandparents' generation (probably because she was much younger than my great-uncle), My Mom's cousin Pam (whom you saw in earlier pics), my mom, Mr & Mrs Ruby Slippers, my Dad (such a kidder), my sister and her husband.

Mr Ruby Slippers had a photo with all his work colleagues. Computer nerds never looked so good:

I organised a picture with my two oldest friends, Monica and Priya. I realise that the fact that we met in our first year of high school (that's 8th grade to my US readers...our high school has five years, whereas as far as I can gather yours has four) isn't as exciting as being friends since we were three years old, like some people's wedding recaps seem to contain, but still, it was great to have them there.


When I think about how geeky the three of us used to be, I'm surprised we all turned out looking so good! If I had ever scanned in any of those pics, I might feel like sharing them. But luckily I haven't. Let's just say thick glasses (Priya and me) and weird short hairdos (Priya and Monica) were the order of the day.

Finally, since we had discovered some time earlier (thanks, Facebook!) that my friend Henni (whose sister was the florist) was old friends with my landlady and makeup friendor, Mel, we had a picture with them:

From left to right: Henni, The Ruby Slippers', Stan (Henni's business partner - they own a dvd rental shop), Mel and her partner (and our landlord) Graeme. I swear Henni is not a giant - we must have been standing on a slope!

And that's it for the group pics! I really wish we'd gotten a huge picture of everyone there, but in the hurly-burly of the wedding excitement, I forgot all about it. Oh well...

Previously:

Part I: The Night Before
Part II: Salon, Supermarket & Judy Garland
Part III: Setting Up
Part IV: Prettifying
Part V: All Bridalled Up
Part VI: For the Boys
Part VII: Going to the Chapel and We're...
Part VIII: Meanwhile, Back at the Chapel...
Part IX: Down the Aisle
Part X: Readings, Vows & Tasty Treats
Part XI: Man and Wife