It has been a few weeks since I last shared a bit of our wedding day with y’all so today I’m going to share our cocktail hour! After the ceremony ended, our guests traveled to Harvest Ridge Winery, which was about 25 minutes from the church, for the cocktail hour and reception. Ironically, even though we didn’t attend cocktail hour, it was one of my favorite parts to plan! We loved the location — it took place in the courtyard between the tasting and event room and the production barn. The wrap around patio overlooked the beautiful blooming vineyard, so we decided not to focus as much on decor, keeping it simple and focusing more one the food, drinks, and atmosphere.

While Jody and I took our portraits in the vineyard, our guests enjoyed our appetizers (fruit and vegetable trays, Pigs in a Blanket, Crab Dip, Shrimp Cocktail Shooters, Mini Grilled Cheese) and drinks (an assortment of beer, Harvest Ridge’s wine -Blue Hen Blue, Merlot, Pinot Gris and Cabernet Franc, Rebel Seed Hoptimized Cider and our speciality cocktail, The Honeybee). We wanted to create a fun and relaxing atmosphere, just as if we were hosting our friends at our home for a summer soiree! We had corn hole boards available, which many of our friends enjoyed, as well as our guestbook to sign, which was a scrapbook of pictures from our engagement photos. As both of us are music lovers, we loved the idea of having live music, so we were lucky enough to hired to entertain our guests with folk and bluegrass songs for the duration of cocktail hour.

I had also seen a really neat idea of having a “Walk Your Story” display at a wedding before which inspired me to create one for our cocktail hour. I wrote a short blurb of each chapter of me and Jody’s love story and framed it, along with a picture of that part of our story. We had them placed as a centerpiece on the tables along the porch. It was a little too breezy that day for them to stand up, but guests still enjoyed reading each little chapter of our story that led us to our wedding day!