I’ve saved one of my favorite annual posts for Valentine’s Day. It seemed only right since it’s the 2011 Wedding Register from Mississippi Magazine.
There seemed to be fewer ‘original’ brides than in years past. No mention of chicken-on-a-stick from McPhail’s Chevron in Oxford. No ‘From Dixie with Love’ performed by the Pride of the South. And no groom’s cake with fondant shotgun shells.
For shame.
That’s what makes it wonderful and *fun* — all these couples really enjoying themselves and personalizing it. Av and I had the super-traditional wedding with a cocktail hour and gorgeous seated supper reception. It was formal and fantastic…but there’s a part of me that reads these and thinks “oh we should have done this or this or wouldn’t that be so fun!?”…
Here are the brides who went for something different and made the register so enjoyable.
“The salad bar featured a catfish ice sculpture… The groom’s table, the conversation piece of the reception, was a ten-foot-long aluminum boat that held a four-foot-long red velvet cake in the shape of a motley catfish…”
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“The groom’s room mocked Cafe Du Monde, as chefs wore aprons and hats while serving fresh, hot beignets accompanied by coffee and cold milk.”
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“Favors also included small bags of peanuts tied on old glass Coke bottles.”
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“Guests enjoyed music from St. Paul’s United Methodist Gospel Choir…during a “dinner on the grounds” reception. Long buffet tables were filled with Southern favorites such as fried chicken, squash casserole, green beans, and cornbread, plus a grits and biscuit table and a summer salad station.
The groom’s table was the bride’s grandfather’s 1972 Chevrolet truck bed filled with homemade ice cream, pecan pies, cupcakes, and all the trimmings.”
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“One of the highlights of the evening was the bride, a former Auburn University majorette, and friends performing a baton routine to Auburn’s fight song, ‘War Eagle!'”
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“The groom’s table featured a three-dimensional strawberry cake of a largemouth bass jumping out of a lake and embellished with fondant fishing lures.”
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A Southern bride married a boy from New York “in the historic Cannonball Factory in Hudson, New York” and…
“Before the ceremony, the bride and her mother exorcised the building, built in 1861, with sage to eradicate any remnants of anti-Southern militarism.”