Marrying McAfee | First Dance & Cutting the Cake

When planning the wedding day's events, I so desperately wanted everything to go smoothly of course, but also cohesively. It was really important to me to make sure my guests felt engaged and involved, and to minimize the amount of wait time if possible. There's always some wait time of course, but having a structured cocktail hour alleviated some of that.

Our picture session as a couple coincided with the cocktail hour, where guests enjoyed fruit, cheese and crackers as well as our signature drinks: pink cotton candy and champagne for me, and a Tom Collins for him! Once we were done with pictures, we had the grand announcement of our wedding party by our awesome DJ, followed immediately by our first dance to Shania Twain's "From this Moment" and the cake cutting to Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion."

Christopher and I did not do the cake smash...getting messy is never my style. Our cake was a delicious wedding cake with raspberry preserves in the middle and buttercream icing. As soon as the cake was cut and the traditional toast was done, we began feeding the guests so they could fuel up before the party truly began!

The funniest moment of the cake cutting definitely came with Niki, my matron of honor, went to pop the champagne for us, which for some reason had never been iced down. I had specifically picked a special bottle of Piper-Heidsieck champagne for us to enjoy on the day of in our monogrammed ice bucket. When she pulled the cork, it exploded all over the place due to the heat of the day. I love the expression on our faces from that moment! 

Photos by Ari Merrit Photography