Reception: Chilean Style

On Christmas Day my parents, Pablo and I, and some of our AMAZING friends all met up at Pablo's church to set up for my reception. Pablo being the amazing groom that he was had set up help and had rented and gathered all of the materials. Now, just to let you know, Chileans stay up until midnight Christmas Eve and open all their presents. We had gotten home from our Christmas Eve festivities around 2 am. So we were all pretty tired! Some of my friends washed all of the rented dishes, others washed the chairs, we set up tables and decorated and dried dishes and did it all. We would not have made it without my parents and our amazing friends Jennifer, Mauricio, Elias and Betsabe who did so much work.

There is your preface to the acutal reception. Pablo's church is a two-story building. On the first floor are the classrooms, offices, bathrooms, etc. The whole second floor is the chapel and the cultural hall (seen above) It ended up looking very nice--even with Pablo's uncle's hideous and dead flower arrangements...but that's another story in itself.

Pablo and I arrived at our reception just in time for the cocktail that was being served. His dad did all of the food and had chicken wings with special seasonings and canapé. After the cocktail and visiting we sat down to a meal of salads, meat and vegetables and fruit for desert. And then the dancing began!
I think my MIL is trying to do the peace sign or something...but doesn't the groom look oh-so-handsome! I love that guy!Our good friend Elias. It gets pretty crazy at those Mormon parties you know...The cutting of the cake--my cake was a non-traditional Mil Hojas cake. It is my FAVORITE in Chile. Basically it is a cake made of crackery-thin stuff and manjar (it's like dulce de leche--not the Mexican kind, the Argentine kind) Anyways, it was yummy! Pablo's dad also made the cake which saved us tons of money!

It was a great evening and a lot of fun! The most important people from my mission and my time living in Chile, were there and I'm so glad I was able to spend that time with them. It was a really hard decision for me to give up having my "dream" wedding with all of my family and friends but to be sealed to Pablo was worth the sacrifice. So hopefully soon Pablo will be here and we can show him what an American reception is like!