The Creative Element: The Reception

Saturday night Davis and Linda threw a party at the Texas Tech stadium. The groom (from the Mexico wedding) graduated from Tech and is a big, big fan. Lubbock is Linda's hometown (for the last 30 years) and Tech is where her brothers played football; so it was the perfect venue for a wedding reception. It was a unique experience to have the stadium to yourself.

When you first arrive the grandeur takes your breath away. The architecture is stunning and intimidating, as I guess it should be. We felt tiny and very special at the same time. The fact that we had access to this beautiful facility was quite special.

When we exited the elevator onto the floor where the reception was, we were met with a spectacular wall of windows that give an unencumbered view of the entire field, stadium and scoreboard.

There were stadium seats inside the venue that became the kids play area. Lucy went to the bar and got a water (on the rocks) and took it to the stadium seat with her very own cup holder. Then proceeded to play in and out of the seats all through the night.

There was some k-i-s-s-i-n-g (looks like Kieran is not enjoying this)

The room was decked out in black and red, as you would expect. But my father-in-law, being the gracious host wore a Texas Longhorn tie as a subtle tribute to his alma mater.

The room was decorated beautifully. Davis had pictures printed from the Mexico wedding and framed them and put them on the tables. There was an open bar and hors d'oeuvres. The cuisine for the night was Mexican and the appetizers were adorable! And simply awesome!

After all the guests arrived and had a few bites and brews, Granna welcomed everyone to the party. She made introductions and thanked everyone for coming. Davis said the blessing for dinner and introduced the video.

The video was a photo slideshow from birth to their wedding day in Mexico. I put it together with Davis' help. He scanned in all the photos and took a great many of the photos in Mexico at the wedding. He is such a handy father-in-law… When I found out that the video was going to be shown on the big screen on the scoreboard, I felt a lot of pressure to make it really good. I have made a number of videos in the last 12 years, but none that were going to be shown in a stadium on a jumbotron! There were flat screen TV's all over the room that would be showing the video as well. So from anywhere in the room you could see the monitors or the scoreboard. Since we had arrived all monitors, including the scoreboard had been showing the menu screen for the movie.

I came up earlier in the day to meet with the AV technician for Tech…the Tech tech. (hee hee) I got to see the inner workings of the Texas Tech television and video broadcast center. It is in a completely different building from the football stadium. I was geeking out over all the audio/video gear. My little DVD was going to be played from here.

And shown here!

What a moment. To have something you have worked so hard on be played in such a spectacular way. I told the Tech tech earlier in the day that my payoff is bringing my audience to tears. That makes all the hours of work worth it. I got my payday. And all the people in the video got a huge kick out of seeing their face on the jumbotron! The video played twice with music and then the audio went silent but the video continued to loop on all the monitors and the stadium scoreboard for the rest of the evening. I watched people watching it again and again. And as we were pulling out of the stadium on University drive late that night, I looked over my shoulder to see my girls photo flash by. It was still looping on the scoreboard at 11:00 at night! I wonder how many people could see it.

Emma Jane took over as the family photographer for about half of the evening. She has quite an eye for composition. And everyone smiles when a pretty little 9-year-old girl walks up with a camera that weighs as much as her head and asks you to say cheese. I am going to have to start giving her photo credits on the blog. (these pictures were used with permission from the photographer)

And when you have your daughter snapping pictures you get to be in a few.

Dinner was chicken and/or brisket tacos. The brisket was out of this world tender and I smothered mine in peppers and onions and guacamole. Delish. Absolutely delicious.

And now for the cake....holy lemon dream cake...

The cake was made by a social worker at Linda's hospital and is the best cake I have ever eaten. Ever. Oh, and it was beautiful.