A Woodside Wedding: After Party Awesomeness!

Once we arrived back at the hotel after sneaking out of our reception, we had to rush, since we only had a half hour head start on our guests! Mr. Cola helped unlace my dress, we changed, emptied both of the ice machines on our floor, and scrambled to clean up the bridal suite for our after party.

Luckily one of my bridesmaids was texting me with updates as to how close the charter bus with everyone was, so by the time they arrived, Mr. Cola and I were ready to continue the party!

Our after party outfits were so typical of us--I was all dressed up in a nice dress and he was wearing a tuxedo t-shirt (which I bought for him, and he was very excited about) and shorts. I was even wearing 4 inch heels, while he went barefoot for most of the evening!

(I'd meant to shorten this dress to above my knees, but ran out of time. Oh well, after enjoying our open bar all night, I doubt anyone noticed it was too long!)

One of my friends, who owns his own bar and restaurant, started mixing drinks for everyone, and we got down to partying.

(We had a counter full of liquor and mixers, plus several buckets on the floor full of beer and ice. I still can't believe how many half gallons of booze we emptied that night!)

Early in the evening Mr. Cola broke out his "beer robot." It's actually just a remote controlled cooler that I got him for his birthday last year. But it was a hit....until the batteries ran out after about a minute of beer delivering action!

Then our late night snack of pizza, wings and bread sticks was delivered, and enjoyed by all.

(I took this last photo from the second story of our suite, oh, 10 minutes after the pizza was delivered. It sure didn't last long!)

And of course, after being fortified with some greasy pizza, some shots were in order with our wedding party!

We spent the rest of the night just hanging out with our friends, drinking, reminiscing, and just enjoying getting to hang out with a lot of people we love, but don't get to see very often. These photos pretty much sum up the rest of our after party!

(I totally love that my bridesmaids put back on their "getting ready" purple hoodies I'd decorated for them!)

(Showing off our new bling.)

(My sister swiped some of the mustaches from our fauxtobooth). And yes, it was so hot with all the drinking people in our suite that we turned the temperature down to 63 degrees so the AC would blast!)

(One of my favorite photos from our after party, since my sis and I never got a chance to pose together in our fauxtobooth.)

At around 2:30 in the morning it was time to call it a night, which I'm sure our neighbors in the hotel appreciated. Everyone trickled back to their own rooms (some, I suspect, continued partying for a while), and Mr. Cola and I could finally retire upstairs in our suite and rest our feet. And spend a good 45 minutes trying to untangle my hair and get all the bobby pins out (over 50 of them!).

This picture was taken towards the end of our after party, you can see that my curls were still going strong. What you can't see is that the under-layer of my hair was a giant tangled mat. I was SO tired, but couldn't go to bed that night until all the tangles were out!

Are you planning to continue your wedding night with an after party? I highly recommend it--it was the only time all evening that we got to spend with some of our closest friends!

Next up, my final wedding event recap (so sad!), our Sunday luncheon.


Miss any wedding week details? Catch up here:

- I packed an emergency bag that saved my dress
- We had a crazy 4 days prepping for house guests and stuffing favors
- Shopping for a ton of wedding flowers to arrange ourselves
- Mr. Cola drinks a 40 and I have a night out on the town for our low-key bach parties
- A day of DIY'ing flower arrangements
- I kicked off our official recaps with my #1 wedding tip
- We began the weekend festivities with a sunset cruise for our wedding party
- We rehearsed our quick and easy ceremony
- I panicked, but we got our rehearsal dinner decorations set up just in time
- Our families met for the first time at our rehearsal dinner under the trees
- What went wrong on our wedding day, and my tips for future brides
- My bridesmaids and I got our hair and makeup done in the hotel suite
- I put on my wedding dress and became a bride
- The guys watched the World Cup, then got ready in 10 minutes
- Traffic delayed our decorations getting to the venue, and I almost ruined our first look
- We got to see each other for the first time on our wedding day at our first look
- We took some time for bride and groom pictures in the park
- I gave you a behind the scenes look at our family, friends and DOC setting up our venue
- Arriving at our venue and getting ready for the ceremony to start
- Everyone walked down the aisle
- Excerpts from our ceremony, and reading the vows we wrote for each other
- I interrupted our officiant, we exchanged rings, and with a kiss we were officially married!
- Wedding party and family portraits, and my thoughts on missing pictures
- Our guests enjoyed cocktail hour while we took a few more photos
- Everyone ate a delicious dinner, and our siblings gave beautiful toasts
- We didn't practice, but we had a very special and wonderful first dance as husband and wife
- I showed you some disposable camera pictures, which were totally worth it to include on our tables!
- I found a target and tossed my bouquet at her
- Mr. Cola finally managed to find my garter under my dress and tossed it
- We fed each other cupcakes, and our guests swarmed our 6ft tall cupcake tower
- We stole some private moments together that our photographers documented
- All our guests had some fun taking pictures in our DIY fauxtobooth
- We enjoyed the rest of the evening with our guests
- I showcased all the pretty details from our wedding, part 1 and part 2
- We snuck out of our reception and away into the night

(All photos in this post are personal, taken on either my camera or Bridesmaid H's camera)

Dresses and More Dresses: My After Party Dress and Shoe Options

Since I didn't want to have to wear my wedding dress all night, especially during the debauchery that's sure to go down at our after party (and it's an excuse to buy yet another cute outfit!), I decided I'd do a change after the wedding reception.

Our after party will be taking place in adjoining Loft Suites back at the San Mateo Marriott (I'll post more extensively about the after party later). It will probably be about 25 of our closest friends and family members, who, uh, like to drink. We're shelling out a huge load of money for an open bar at the reception, but as the hosts, I don't feel like we can really take advantage of it. So we're opting for a small-ish gathering after the big event, where we can get down and PAR-TAY!

So, I needed a comfortable, but still cute and wedding-ish dress, and here is the beauty I bought, for $138 from Nordstrom.

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It's a bit more formal than Mr. Cola's after party outfit, but I love that it is light gold, with some sparkle to the material, and think it will be a great follow up to my beautiful wedding dress. Now the problem is just finding the right shoes.

I ordered, but returned these shoes from Endless.com. The color of the bow on the back of the heel just wasn't the right color for the dress. It actually looked MUCH darker/more orange in person than it does in this picture.
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Next, I decided to do a survey on Weddingbee, to help me narrow down my selection from these five that I was considering (click the link on any of these for the source/product page):

Chinese Laundry Women's Mezanine Sandal:

Nine West Women's Mushu Dress Sandal:

Touch Ups Women's Alana Sandal:

Touch Ups Women's Jillian Sandal:

Touch Ups Women's Kendall Sandal:

In the Weddingbee survey, the Alana (3rd pair) won, followed by the second pair, and the first pair came in third. I'm thinking I might just order all three, to see which color really goes best with my dress in real life. Also, comfort will be a factor, because by the end of the day I'm sure my feet will be pretty tired.

What do you think, which of these shoes do you like best with my after party dress? Got any suggestions for even cuter shoes?