Wedding Recap: Reception Entertainment

It’s Wedding Wednesday!  If this is your first visit to the blog, each week I spotlight a different subject about Our Wedding Day.  Today, we finally get to the P-A-R-T-Y!

*All photos used in this and all wedding related posts are from Elegant Imagery.

Reception Entertainment

Our wedding reception was quite entertaining, or at least we thought so.

Our guests had no idea what to expect, and the night was full of surprises.

Lets start at the beginning.

If you have been keeping up with the Wedding Recaps, you know we spent quite a bit of time making our wedding day unique.  A lot of thought and planning went into our ceremony, catering, cake, cocktail hour and reception traditions.

Now it was really time to celebrate!

After dinner, Scott and I quietly excused ourselves from the reception and put Streat Breakz up to the challenge of entertaining our guests so no one would notice.  Shout out to our DJ, Les from Soundwave Entertainment, for letting them take over the mics!

The leader of the group, Al Fuentes, is a personal friend of ours and the group started performing at Universal Studios ten years ago.  Street Breakz puts on a high energy, interactive acrobatic show and really got our guests into the performance.

Some of the stunts they pulled out were insane.

I didn’t get to see the entire show, but I could tell by the cheering that our guests were impressed.

As were we!

During their performance, I took this opportunity to change into my reception dress and sneakers.  I had my bridesmaids come back with me to hand off a pair of black sparkly high top sneakers to wear for the remainder of the night, courtesy of my fellow Orlando Magic Dancers <- thanks again, girls!

Towards the end of the Street Breakz performance, everyone was on their feet.  Scott and I crept up to the back curtain and watched guests and even family members bust a move.

Get it, Kirk (Scott’s dad!)

Awesome.

Surprise Bridal Party Dance

From the beginning of our Engagement, Scott and I knew we really wanted to pull out something special at our wedding reception.  We had seen surprise Bride and Groom dances, couples change songs in the middle of their first dance song, and several episodes of Rock the Reception on TLC.

We knew whatever we did had to surprise our guests and rock our reception.

When asking my bridesmaids and Scott’s groomsmen to be a part of our bridal party, they knew something crazy was attached to the job.  A choreographed dance for Scott and I was expected, but a surprise wedding dance with the entire bridal party was not…

A few months before the wedding, Scott and I met with choreographer and friend, Chris “Casper” Lupis to learn a routine.  I created a private YouTube account and taught the entire dance in a few breakdown videos for our bridal party to learn online.

Since most of the groomsmen and a few of my bridesmaids live out of state, this was the only way to give them enough time to learn and feel comfortable performing the routine.

We had two rehearsals the week of the wedding: one for anyone wanting an in-person run through, and one for everyone after rehearsal dinner.  This is when each pair choreographed their own moves down the introduction soul train line.

My Matron of Honor (and sister) Trish, and Scott’s Best Man, Joseph, did the Irish jig, which made me literally laugh out loud.

Other dances were quite comical.

I’ll stop typing and let you enjoy it for yourselves…

I still can’t THANK each and every one of you for sticking around, working hard and killing it!  THANK YOU again, Casper, for the choreography and for making us do this:

You guys all ROCK!

Unexpected Performances

While most of our reception entertainment was planned, there were a few pleasant surprises.  Unknown to me, Scott invited a friend and talented drummer, Xavier Peterson, to play alongside our DJ and violinist.

I didn’t know this until looking back at the pictures, but at some point during the reception our groomsman, Marc, showed us his drumming skills.

Towards the end of the reception, I saw flashes of light coming from the dance floor.  Our friend Carissa overseas a charity called Hoola for Happiness, and randomly busted out these light up hoola hoops.

Her hooping skills were serious and our guests weren’t sure if she was hired to perform or not.  She wasn’t, but we appreciated the entertainment!

I’m sure everyone says it, but we had a blast at our wedding reception.  We wanted the ceremony to be meaningful and the reception to be a party, and I can look back confident that we achieved our goal.

Thank you again to all of our wonderful families, friends, vendors, and entertainers for helping us ROCK our wedding reception!

It couldn’t have gone better.

To be continued next (and last) Wedding Wednesday…

In the mean time, see what recap is coming next on the Wedding Page!