The typical JW wedding reception involves a lot of old ladies hoovering around covered dishes....little girls twirling on the dance floor all by themselves....and the guests mopping floors emptying garbage cans, stacking chairs and folding up the tables at the end...kinda like after the District Assembly. And of course the Announcement about the Bride and Groom not wanting rice to be thrown as if any young couple would have thought to request this.
My wife and I didn't want it to be that way so we had our reception in a hotel ballroom which opened out to a beautiful indoor pool area and Conservatory. We had a live band and a no-host bar, cake and finger foods. There were probably about 600 people there that evening. The bar prophets after a certain point, went toward the rental of the ballroom which ended up only costing us $35.00 because everybody bought their own drinks if they wanted one. The band was awesome. The ligts were low and the music was current. Somehow magically all our JW friends knew the latest dance moves and wasted no time getting out on the dance floor. It was what everyone had been wating for. All these years later people still remember it as the wedding of the century. everyone , danced, ate , drank and behaved themselves. We didn't leave our reception till about 1 am and it was still going in full swing. After our honeymoon my wife came to live at my house which was located on the other side of the State from where the Wedding was. Years later her parents told us they had to deal with a lot of fall out from the Elders about the loud worldly music and the presence of alcohol. Her Dad was an Elder and he didn't see a thing wrong with any of it and told them so.
