WFW: Father-Daughter Dance and Cutting the Cake

Once the toasts were done and everyone in the room was done falling in love with Ross, it was time for the Father-Daughter dance.  I'd given my dad the choice of two songs for this dance, but he never managed to make the call so I made an executive decision to go with "Isn't She Lovely".  I know it's become a standard over the years, but that's only because it's so perfect.  I mean a song written by a father about how much he loves his daughter?  Come on.  I also figured the fun and upbeat nature of the song would fit my relationship with my dad better than something more saccharine or slow.  I even talked to the band leader and got him to change one of the lyrics to be more personalized.  There's a line where Stevie uses his daughter, Aisha's name.  I had them substitute "Redbird", the nickname that my dad uses most often for me.

Now my dad is not a dancer, so the fact that I got him to dance at all was a huge win!  I don't think I'd ever seen him dance before!

I was worried that people would get bored just watching another dance, so Ross and I had decided that at some midpoint of the song, he would ask my mom to dance.  After a suitable amount of time, he'd then cut in on my dad and me and mom and dad could dance together.

On the actual night, I caught Ross' eye and motioned with my face that it was time to ask my mom to dance.  He looked at me like he had no idea what I was talking about.  So I was forced to make even more pronounced expressions and possibly hiss instructions at him.  He's a good and obedient boy and got right on it.  Soon afterwards, we made the switch.  I now present to you the only picture of my parents dancing together.  Ever.  Aren't they sweet?

After the song was over, the band really kicked into high gear and our guests got dancing!  Meanwhile, Ross and I headed over to the cakes for some pictures.  I loved our cakes!  We were incredibly lucky to find our baker Joyce of Bake Rejoyce! just as she was setting up shop on her own.  She'd previously been the head designer at well-known Dallas bakery, so we got someone who had great talent and experience, but at a lower price.

Joyce did a beautiful job on the wedding cake which was champagne with chambord filling.

We went with a simple clear acrylic W as our cake topper.  

Joyce was totally excited to play along with our quirky idea to have a duck-shaped groom's cake.  She helped us add to our vision by coming up with the bathtub idea.  Traditionally, groom's cakes are chocolate-based, but Ross isn't the biggest fan.  He chose almond cake with orange icing and was very proud of the fact that lots of people commented on how tasty it was.

 I've never really understood the allure of watching the cake cutting.  I mean, I know it's a wedding tradition, but I just don't get why all the guests want to crowd around and jockey for position to watch people cut a cake.  I didn't make a big deal of the fact that we were going to cut the cake and people were horrified and came rushing over to watch!

Then we took the obligatory hooked arms, drinking champagne photos.

And finally, we were done with all the structured parts of the evening and were able to just kick back and party!

As always, photos in the post are by the talented Shari Hunt.