Saturday

Like I said in my last post, we went to a wedding this weekend. Mark's cousin Katie got married and it was Such. A. Sweet. Wedding. I'll talk more about the details in a minute. In between the ceremony and the reception, both of which were held downtown, we needed something to entertain us. The church just so happened to be right next door to Anheuser Busch, so we took ourselves on a little tour to pass the time.

 

The Mash Room was may favorite of the brewery. It's designed in white and gold with accents of navy. The architecture is all "scrolly" and fancy. 

Mark's favorite part was the assembly line and canning room. I admit, it was rather interesting. While I was the typical "girl", whose interests veer towards "the pretty things", Mark was mostly interested in how the factory functioned. 

 

You can see the "Lazy River of Beer" in this picture. It takes the bottles to their crates before they are shipped out. 

 The cans go into this huge clear cylinder thing. It was really loud in there, so I have no idea what happens once the cans are in there. I know they are filled and capped, but for the life of me I do not know how.

 

Neither Mark or I drink alcohol, but it was fun and interesting just the same. It's one of those "Saint Louis" things to do... kind of like those people who have lived here forever and yet never been up the Arch. I did not particularly enjoy the smells... but the building was fun. After the 7-block long tour, the diet pepsi and pretzels in the hospitality room was much appreciated! Then, it was on to the wedding reception!

Katie and Dan found this sweet little loft downtown to host their reception. I never thought I would be into the whole loft reception thing, but... IT WAS FABULOUS! The room itself was very raw - exposed brick walls, old cement floor, exposed ceiling, huge old windows that looked out into the city. 

Everything was decorated very simple, which just so happens to also be very "Katie". Everything just looked very sweet and Spring-like. They had sweet little metal signs that they propped up against the windows all along the room. Here's my favorite:

Isn't that sweet?!

Mark thought it would be fun if we used the little shot glasses he bought for us at the brewery for when it came time to toast the bride and groom. (Those shot glasses probably will never get used, but they'll look fun in our bar and it's just a little sweet reminder of our tour.) Mark went and got us some diet coke and we poured it into our glasses. His brother kindly took a photo of us:

It really was the simplicity of the decor that made this reception so cute. It wasn't simple in the I-don't-want-to-spend-a-lot-of-money kind of way. Katie and Dan obviously put tons of thought into what they wanted. Each centerpiece was uniquely created by a friend of Katie's, and their guest book was The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein - which just so happens to be the absolute most perfect wedding guest book I have ever seen. 

After the toasts (I totally cried when Mark's cousin Marla gave the maid-of-honor toast, it was the sweetest ever.) and the meal (Italian! strange for a Polish-Irish wedding, but Yummy!) came the dancing. As we discovered at my brother's wedding a few months back, we really really really enjoy dancing. However, we do not know the Polka, though we gave it a good go. Marla's daughter Lizzie is 18 months old and was the absolute highlight of the dance floor. All eyes seemed to be on her, and for good reason... she's quite the dancer!

By the end of the evening we were completely exhausted and ready to fall into bed, which I did... literally.