Invitations

Knowing that it's important to send the invitations out pretty early, I prepared them even before we left for our trip to Greece. We still couldn't send them out before the news about the wedding were out, so I had them all addressed and stamped, and hid them in a drawer back home, in order to tell Katarina (Pierre's sister a.k.a. the cat-sitter)
I bought cardboard cards and envelopes in gold, and printed the invitation out on our printer, burnt the edges of the sheet to give them a personal look, and attached the sheet to the cardboard with glue and adorned the whole set with a navy blue ribbon. Presto! I had added a personal touch that corresponded with the colors I had in mind for the reception.
The invitations were sent out on August 24th, with an RSVP for September 10th. 
We invited about 50 people, but unfortunately only half of them could make it. It was a wee bit short notice, plus many had trouble getting away from work earlier in order to come to our party. We wanted to have the party on Saturday, but the club house was already booked that night, so I had to change it to Friday. Pierre's brother and his fiancée, plus three of my best girlfriends from high school, were some of those who didn't come, which was really sad.
Looking back at it; 25 people was just perfect since it didn't make the place too crowded, and we actually had time to go around chatting with every single one.

Click here to see what the invitations looked like

I had booked the club house of the local canoe club; a cozy place with wooden interiors, beautifully overlooking the sea, and also it was close to our house...

Preparations

My dad was helping out with most of the food, and I was going to make the wedding cake on my own. I used an old family recipe to make a delicious chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream, and bought a cake topper that was really cute to go with it. I spent the night before the party sitting up making "place cards" in the same design as the invitations. I wrote everyone's names on small white tags and burned the edged of them and attached a golden ribbon to be tied around the napkins. Next morning I prepared the chocolate sponge cake and headed down to the club house to start making the place look all dandy for our party. 
While I was setting the tables with white tablecloth, navy blue napkins, brass candleholders with navy blue candles and some golden ribbon, Pierre and his friend Nicklas set up a corner for the "DJ booth". I was soon accompanied by my sister Laura who helped me, and goofed around with the video camera. In an adjacent room I set up another table with the photos from Greece (including the wedding pictures), some flowers and a guestbook. I also left an empty spot in case someone brought us any presents. (You can never be sure, especially after getting married the way we did!)

The party was about to begin by 7:30 p.m. and around 4:30 Pierre and Laura forced me to go home to take a shower, and as I returned back, the kitchen staff, i.e. my friend Åsa and her husband Jonas had arrived so we started raving around in the kitchen preparing the food.

Party time

The whole parenting team started dropping in, and I got my mother in law Yvonne to blow balloons and hang them all around the place.
While I was still in the kitchen making guacamole, more and more people arrived and it was time for the toast of welcome. And while Åsa and Jonas were preparing the yummy buffet, we took all the guests to the other room to show them our wedding video.

No one had seen it, so this was my time to be a nervous wreck! Since we had no guests at the wedding ceremony, this was the first time anyone actually saw us get married, and this was probably my "walking down the aisle"-anxiety... It was a very special feeling watching the ceremony with everyone, and there were actually occasional sobs from around the room. Everyone said they loved the video and that the ceremony was so beautiful and "alive" it actually felt like they were there with us...

After tears were wiped, it was time to dig into the buffet. We had a somewhat Greek theme with Moussaka, olives, feta cheese, greek salad, but also tons of other delicious snacks such as my MIL's extraordinary shrimp croustades, olive ciabatta bread, nachos, guacamole, Swedish garlic herring etc. There was a selection of red and white wine plus beer to go with that. And while people were eating, Pierre and I gave a short presentation of everyone there, explaining who were there, and how we were aqcuainted/related to that person.
Everybody loved the food, and my dad got compliments for his amazing Moussaka for weeks afterwards!

People actually had brought us gifts, so in order to allow Åsa and Jonas to clear the tables and get everything in order again, we returned to the other room to open the presents in front of everyone. We got so many beautiful, cool and cherished gifts!!!
I then told everyone to go through the photo albums, sign the guestbook or do whatever they felt like doing, because I had to sneak back into the kitchen to finish the cake!

Once again a table was set, but this time with coffee and cake. Pierre and I did the cutting thing (had no idea how it was done, but luckily we got some advise from some of the already married folks there) and also fed each other with the cake. There was liqueur and later whiskey, and some time during the cake-munching the speeches began. Dad first. I have never been the "target" of a speech before, so it was truly overwhelming! Dad told everyone about when I was born, 2 months premature, during a snow storm with the entire hospital in quarantine due to some epidemic flu. He wasn't allowed inside because of this, so he said that he walked around the entire hospital many times trying to find a window or something where he could see his first-born child. Wow... at this point I cried like crazy!!! I am such a mushy person, and having people do speeches about you sure is tough! :o) Then my mother stood up and gave a wonderful speech about the feelings she had had when she found out we had gotten married. She had sat down in front of the computer to write everything down, after the first strong feelings had settled a bit. Vividly she told everyone about what had happened inside and outside of her after seeing the SMS message we had sent them a couple of hours after the ceremony, and what a chaos of happy thoughts and feelings it had created. More crying.... I bawled like a baby this evening! ;o) Even my sister, who hates speaking in front of other people did this wonderful speech, and I am so proud of them and love them all so much!

Pierre's friend Nicklas began to feel his musical nerves itch, so pretty soon after the coffee and cake had been had, he started the music, and people began either mingling, chatting or dancing. There were constant quarrels about which music to be played; Nicklas had a bunch of party music collection CD's, Pierre had his Prodigy and techno-kind of CD's, my dad had brought some Rolling Stones and blues type records while all Pierre's dad's woman Anita wanted to hear was old Smokie records. So I'm pretty sure everyone got their share of their favorite music... ;oP

I am also pretty sure that everyone enjoyed the party. The first ones to leave were those who had to pick up their kids from the baby-sitter's, or were big time pregnant (Tina). They left way after midnight, though.
Pierre went home for a bottle of whiskey and the party went on... and on... and on.... The last ones to leave headed home by 6 a.m. so I think I dare to say the party was a success!

3 hours later it was time to get up again to go back to the club house to clean up... But that's a whole other story!