Rehearsal Dinner

We are used to cooking for many folks ~ from our limited kitchen facilities in Honduras to our church dinners for 125 or more folks.

Cooking for our son's rehearsal dinner for 75 friends and family on top of the weddings schedule was a bit taxing.  We started cooking on Thursday morning.

Greg smoked the pork (yummy),  I got the chicken barbequing in the roaster ovens, and Mom & Will started peeling potatoes and cooking them for the potato salad.  About 1/2 way through the afternoon, I checked on the chicken ~ yikes...it wasn't cooking well.  Turned up the temperature and kept going ~ this made me thrilled I cooked it on Thursday and didn't wait till Friday ~ that would have been a disaster.  I've always started the chicken while frozen and its been fine but these were 10lb. bags of chicken and 2 of the bags went into each roaster ~ so it took alot longer.  It was finished cooking about 10 Thurs. night.  Greg and I stayed up to shred 40 pounds of chicken for the dinner.  And he used my food processor to shred the pork ~ worked well!  Then we put all in gallon bags cleaned the kitchen (again) and fell into the bed about 12:30 Friday morning.

Amy baked and baked and baked and baked ~ ALL day on Thursday.  We ended up with 90+ cupcakes ~ chocolate with chocolate icing, spice with cream cheese icing, and vanilla with vanilla icing.  She made piped icing decorations for the chocolate cupcakes and then decorated with edible candy "pearls" for the rest.  And she baked her lemon bars recipe x 6.  We borrowed our friend Rosana's white cake plates for the dessert table and took our clear cake pedestals also.  The table was gorgeous.  All the compliments made her day!  By Thursday night she was sick with her allergies, but she hung in there and even was making icing on Friday morning at 6:45 am.  In her words ~ it was her cupcake reputation on the line and she had to finish!

Friday morning I woke up at 5 (just 4 1/2 hours after I went to bed ~ argh!).  But that gave me plenty of time to pray for the day and all the festivities and for everyone that was traveling for the weekend to attend the wedding.

We had to pack just about everything but the kitchen sink to haul over to the place for the dinner.  The venue had appliances ~ nothing else we could use.  So measuring spoons, cups, serving utensils, pans, etc. all had to go, plus all the serving stuff for the dinner, tablecloths, centerpieces, flowers, etc.

My van was packed from the back door to right behind the drivers seat.  Mom's Yukon was packed with room for the driver and 2 passengers.  Then all had to be unloaded and sorted & the set up had to start.  All the groomsmen were there so they did all the tables.  Amy iced cupcakes, Mom arranged all the flowers in the centerpieces, Will and Greg smoked 2 hams, made tea, etc.  I started cutting the vegies and we just worked till we got it done.  One of the groomsmen came into the kitchen and volunteered to wash dishes for us (thanks Maloy) and then he cleaned all the celery and started cutting up vegies. My kitchen angel helpers came about 4:30 ~ many thanks to Angel T., Emmalyn, Amber, and Dawn ~ y'all are the best and I owe you big time!

In the midst of all the cooking, setting up frenzy~ Jennifer & Allen got there (& they ran a few errands for us), Katie, Bryant & Robert got there (yippee baby love), and Greg's parents got there (his mom sewed the ribbons on the quilt block "wreaths" for me).

Dinner was a huge success.  We fed about 75 folks ~ but probably had enough food for 100.

Here are the pictures.....

Amy ~ our Cupcake Queen

AWESOME dessert table!

Raw Vegies in cups with Ranch dressing ~ thanks pinterest for this idea!

Angel, Amber, Emmalyn & Dawn

Yummy meat by the Grillmaster Greg!

Yummy potato salad by Granny!

Yummy!

Greg & I

The bride & groom ~ with their redneck stemware & mason jar centerpieces (pinterest)

Grandma & Robert had some bonding time over cereal and fruit!

And we get to do it again in Sept.!  

Our next child getting married is Sept. 14!!!!!