The Gamecocks are going to the Championship Series of the College World Series! This guy is happy! TC is like a walking Gamecock athletics history book and he has given me the 4-1-1 on the history of the Gamecocks in Omaha. He’s just thrilled about our team playing against UCLA in the championship series. And mostly thrilled because we beat Clemson.
photo courtesy of The State
Hudson likes to make himself toot– not even sure how he knows to do this– and then laugh! And then look at us to see if we’re laughing. We always laugh– we can’t help it.
He’s 1 going on 15. Seriously, he is 100% boy!
See, in this picture he’s saying, “Hey, Fiona! Pull my finger.” Just kidding, just kidding. I couldn’t resist.
TC and I went to Charleston for my cousin’s wedding on Saturday night. There aren’t many things better than a Charleston wedding. We never do a great job with taking pictures at weddings. And last night we were both so concerned with receiving email and Twitter updates on the Carolina v. Clemson baseball game that we just didn’t take many pictures. We didn’t stay the night in Charleston, unfortunately, so we had to get back to get Hudson. But it was great to see my family and have a fun evening in Charleston.
I tweeted last night that there was about an hour long gap between the ceremony and reception and this led to lots of confusion and Twitter chatter about gaps, Catholic gaps, afternoon receptions versus evening receptions. Have you ever been to a wedding with a gap between the ceremony and reception longer than 30-45 minutes? What was your experience like?
I did a decent job of staying unplugged on Friday and Saturday, for the most part. I finished another book and just enjoyed having some down time to ourselves. I appreciate all of your support and encouragement so much.
TC is playing golf today and Hudson and I are just hanging out at home trying to gear up for this next week. I’ll be spending most of the week building my curriculum for Music Camp at church and will likely be coming to my lovely readers and friends for suggestions.
I have been to a wedding with a MUCH longer gap between wedding and reception. The bride and groom were taking pictures and that went on FOREVER. It was probably a two hour delay. I was very concerned about people waiting around at our wedding, so we went crazy with the appetizers, just to be sure people wouldn’t get restless in case something took longer than we thought!
I’ve been to weddings with 5+ hour gaps in between the ceremony and reception. The bridal party will go around the city and take pictures as they want, and the guests get a chance to return to their hotels/homes and freshen up, take a nap, etc. I actually prefer it that way! Gives my feet a rest from heels. 🙂
We went to one where the wedding was at 2 or 3 and the reception was at 7:00. The invitation said black tie so we wore it to the wedding and most of the people there were wearing their day clothes, not dress up day clothes, but like capri pants and a top as if they had stopped in during errands or after their kids’ baseball games. Our church doesn’t allow flash photography or the photographer to get in front of the congregation except for the bride coming in and this wedding had two photographers and this big video cart right up by the altar. I never saw the pictures, but they better be good after all that. This was an out of town family wedding so I shouldn’t judge, they probably all are like that there but it was awfully strange to me.
I’ve never heard of a wedding gap, to be honest. At my wedding and several weddings I’ve been to recently, the gap was only really travel time to the reception.
Love the dress you’re wearing for the wedding. Purple looks great on you!
Our wedding had a gap in between the ceremony and reception. We had a Catholic wedding at 2pm (because Catholic churches have mass on Saturday evenings you usually have to get married in the afternoon). Our cocktail hour started at 5pm. Our guests had time in between, but most checked into the hotel as it was an out of town wedding.
Every Catholic wedding I’ve been to has had at least a 1.5hr gap. I agree that it’s annoying, but usually a group of us just finds a bar and hangs out for a while!
Hey Erin!
I love the dress you are wearing! Do you mind saying who made/where you found it?
Thanks so much!
I love the picture from the game! Especially since a second cousin of mine is Merrifield 🙂
Just went to a wedding two weekends ago where the ceremony was at 1:30 and the reception was at 6:30! And it was an out of town for 90% of the guests… talk about trying to find ways to kill 4 hours or more of time. We were bored out of our minds in a town we’d never been to and were starving by the time we got to the reception. I wish there was some “wedding rule” about the right time spacing between events… 🙂
PS – love your dress too… where’d you get it?
Love the dress, Erin- you look so pretty!!
Well, we had a Catholic wedding and chose a day reception rather than have a gap. Lots of people don’t understand it, but we had a great time having a reception and then a party later that night!
I can’t believe you had a baby a year ago….you look *SO* great! So great! I was with a friend who has a 2-year-old, and is still struggling to lose the last 20 lbs (poor thing is really struggling:-( ). You look amazing! GO YOU!
I’ve never been to a wedding with a gap. Not sure I would like that waiting around! You look so pretty. Love the picture of you and TC. And Hudson is so funny!! He’s already all boy! Boys are the best, though. I know I love mine so much!! 🙂
We were lucky with our “gap”. The church only had certain times that they would marry us but the reception site allowed us any 5 hours we wanted. So our gap was the 2 min drive from the church to the reception site. The church only doing ceremonies at certain times is usually what causes a gap.
Most weddings I attend in NY and NJ have big gaps because there are a ton of Catholics up there and, as another commenter said, that’s just how things go (you can’t have a 5 p.m. ceremony because there’s usually 5 p.m. Saturday mass going on). Most people go home, go to their hotels, go to a bar, wander around, etc. No big whoop. The wedding I went to in May had a 3-hour gap and we went to a diner for coffee, which I loved. I heart diner coffee. We had a Catholic wedding but we were pretty lucky because our reception venue allowed us to choose any 5-hour reception window we wanted. So our ceremony was at 3:30 p.m. and our reception was from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. We had an after-party after that.
I LOVE the dress you wore to the wedding. You always look so cute!
The “pull my finger, Fiona!” picture is so dang cute!
You look gorgeous and I love your dress!
I don’t know if I have ever heard of a baby that age being able to make themselves toot. That is HYSTERICAL!! I would have to laugh too.
i went to a wedding in australia, and there was a long gap b/t the wedding ceremony and reception. i think the ceremony was around noon, and the reception was at 6:30 pm. just like liz above, i got all dressed up for the ceremony (cocktail dress, full-on make-up w/ fake eyelashes, etc.). the other people were wearing their day clothes. i felt so silly. i didn’t realize that everyone waited until the evening reception to get all dressed up. lol. i thought it was typical of australian weddings, but i guess some in the US have that gap (and change clothes) too.
The gap is tough on your guests… period. We went to a wedding (on Friday, first of all) that started at 3:00 and the reception started at 6:00. Granted, it was an hour drive in Chicago traffic to get to the reception (totally unncessary in my opinion) so we really only had an hour-ish to kill. But still, if you have a gap, expect your guests to have already found somewhere to hit the sauce and maybe be a little tipsy at the start of your reception and have some appetizers, for the love!!
I just think it’s not that considerate of your guests in most cases, whether it was under your control or not. I get the Catholic ceremony vs. mass thing but it’s still a bother for your guests to find things to do. In my experience, it’s never long enough to get to from the ceremony to your hotel (if there even is a hotel) and actually be able to nap or do anything productive.
I love your dress!
super cute pic of you two! love that pic of hudson and fiona! too cute
I went to one with a 1 1/2-2 hour gap… so boring! All they had was a couple little veggie trays that were gone within 10 minutes!
I had about a 1/2 hour gap at ours to do pictures, but we made sure there was lots of food, and stuff going on. =)
I’ve been to lots of weddings with gaps. It’s usually driven by the fact that the church wasn’t available in the evening. My friends and I usually pick a bar or one of our hotel rooms for a few pre-reception cocktails.
Also, is your school the one that for like 2 years a lot of guys whore those white hats that said “COCKS” on them? I know it’s not the school’s fault, but it’s just funny that your school started that trend…
The story about H made me laugh out loud! Love it!!
A good friend of mine was married 2 years ago. On her wedding invite it said that the reception was right after the ceremony. This was true, however the bridal party got there almost 2 hours after! I was in the wedding party, so it wasn’t a big deal to me, but my parents were at the wedding and said it felt like forever! They had some h’dourves, but there wasn’t much to do. I really felt bad for all the people there!
2 weekends ago I was at a wedding where there was a gap between the ceremony and cocktail hour. The gap lasted about an hour and 15 minutes. I thought the purpose of the cocktail hour was to entertain the guests until the reception, but what do I know? My hubby and I hung around in the hotel lobby and waited it out. It was worth the wait to be able to speak to the bride and to enjoy the awesome food!
Little boys are so funny and precious. I should know I have three of them. 🙂
Wedding gaps drive me crazy! I knew I wanted to be married in our Catholic church and my husband knew he wanted a nighttime reception and both of us are against “the gap” . That clearly didn’t leave a lot of options for us. So we moved our wedding to a Friday night. We still had challenges since we were on an nontraditional day and it our ceremony didn’t even start until 7pm, but we eliminated “the gap” and got our nighttime reception.
We did however run into an unplanned situation after our mass before the reception and ran particularly late to the reception (still nothing like those 2 hour waits people mentioned! Ouch!) but our apps were out and the bar was flowing and people later told me they never noticed! I guess in general gaps are tricky whether intentional or not.
I find that so curious about the catholic weddings! I am catholic and the only gap we had was the time it took to get from the church to the reception venue. This is true off all the other catholic weddings I have gone to! Strange!
However, even the protestant weddings I have been to lately have had no large gaps! Maybe it has more to do with the region?
Hudson is such a cute and funny boy! 🙂 Your “pull my finger” caption cracked me up. 🙂