"You're seeing slide shows now, where a photographer will put up a slide show at the wedding reception with photos that were taken at the ceremony, " he says.

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He supported his idol Louis Armstrong in 1968 during his last European tour and played at the wedding reception for the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1981.

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The inquest at Portsmouth heard he had been drinking heavily with his brother at the reception for the wedding of their sister Sam Hilton.

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Thanks to Iressa, the mother wrote, she made the wedding and felt well enough to dance at the reception.

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This is how I whiled away one long summer night at a wedding reception on the Baltic coast of Sweden: hearing toasts, crooning local drinking songs and draining a profusion of little nips bottles of something called snaps (which is pronounced "schnahps, " but is very different from dessert-like schnapps).

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Mr Cooksey, 54, and Ms Smith, 46, from Rodsley, Derbyshire, are still set to get married on Saturday, at Callow Hall in nearby Ashbourne, which offered to host the wedding and a drinks reception at short notice.

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The second, "white wedding" -- with a guest list at the reception potentially running into the thousands -- could follow days or even months later.

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The wedding reception is just a party, and an expensive one at that.

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