The Utah Open House

Because the wedding and reception were in California, the bride and groom wanted to have an open house here so they could greet friends and relatives who didn't make it to the wedding.

I decided to do it at our house. We moved out most of the furniture on the main floor the night before and then spent the day decorating. Our attendance wasn't as good as the summer garden open house we had for my oldest son but we still had a good amount of people. Hopefully they enjoyed themselves! I actually didn't feel well that day and my husband did a lot of the work, but by the evening I was feeling better.

My brother and sister-in-law who live in Kansas came with their family for the weekend. We enjoyed having them here!

Mindy decided to read some Harry Potter when things got a little boring.

My brother from Kansas is on the left, my sister-in-law who lives nearby is in the middle, and my sister from Idaho is on the right.

My neighbors are pictured here. The woman in the maroon blouse helped me a lot with set-up and serving.

My sister-in-law helped in the kitchen too.

For refreshments, we served some vegetables, fruit, some Hawaiian roll sliders, and some chocolate and white cake along with lemon water. We had a lot of leftovers since we had planned for more people but we shared the cake at church with the youth and ate a lot of vegetables that week. We're still working on the sandwiches.

These were the centerpieces for each table.

We put one of these quotes on each table.

We also put a small picture of the happy couple on each table.

I ordered a bunch of really inexpensive chair covers and sashes for the event.

I also transcribed some violin/cello duets for my daughter and son to provide some chamber music. I can't say the rehearsals were as friendly as we might have liked, but the end result was good.

My mother-in-law came down from SLC.

My aunt and uncle from Provo are pictured on the right.

It's hard to see but we lined our front walk with tiki torches. They had trouble staying lighted thanks to the light snowfall that started up midway through the evening.