A Classy Party

After our pool party in Oklahoma City, we rushed back to Tulsa to attend a wedding reception for one of my co-workers. Fitting all of this into one day was a bit of a squeeze, so we were running a little behind. We arrived at about 6:10 and the invitation said 6:00. Since they were serving dinner, I'd imagined walking in to find everyone already seated for dinner, but that wasn't the case. (in fact, we could have shown up an hour late and it wouldn't have been a big deal)

The actual wedding was in Bermuda, so I'm sure this reception was for all their family and friends that couldn't attend the wedding due to it's location. This was the nicest and classiest party that me or my wife had ever attended and there was probably about 400 people there. It was held at the Philbrook Museum of Art. When we pulled in our first surprise was the valet parking. I had my camera in the car with us and took it inside more because I was afraid to leave it with the valet when we went in. (even though I had it, I didn't snap a single picture) We walked through the museum and out onto a balcony that overlooked the grounds of the museum where they were serving champagne, wine and hors d'oeuvres. The view from the balcony was incredible. The grounds of the museum are immaculate and very picturesque. Since I didn't take any pictures, I found this picture online of the view from the balcony.

The only down side to this was the heat. This was August in Oklahoma and even though there was a slight breeze, it was still pretty darn hot. After a few minutes, we went back inside to look at some of the art in the museum where there was air conditioning. After about an hour, everyone moved to the room that had been set up for the dinner.

The dinner was incredible too. I told my wife that this was exactly the type of party those guys in the movie "Wedding Crashers" would have been looking for. The buffet line had an amazing selection of fresh fruit and cheeses. There was a mashed potato bar with sour cream, chives, bacon, etc. to go with it. At the end of the line they had servers slicing roast beef. There were two tables to the sides of the buffet line with seafood and sushi. The highlight of these were ice sculptures that included bowls for holding shrimp and crab claws. The crab claws were cut open, so you just took out the meat and ate it. And the shrimp were not what you typically see, these were the really big ones that were already peeled and ready to eat. All the food was superb and waiter kept everybody with an assortment of wine and rasbery iced tea to drink.

After the dinner, they went downstairs to cut their cake. It was about 4 feet tall and very well decorated. I saw people standing on their toes removing some of the upper layers. They sliced it up, put it on plates and delivered it to all the tables downstairs and up. There was a live band and a dance floor downstairs as well as frozen drink machines with pina coladas and strawberry daqueris and a full bar. I had one pina colada, but cut myself off there, since I had to drive home. On the way out there was a chocolate bar with an assortment of candies and chocolates to take with you. They had cellophane bags with stickers containing their names so everyone could take the candy home with them as a party favor. They had pink and white m&ms, white chocolate peanut butter cups, mint meltaways, jordan almonds, pretzels dipped in almond bark, hersheys kisses, just to name a few.

The party was first class all the way, and we really enjoyed ourselves.