Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Wedding Wednesday: The Details

I think the little details are what makes a wedding or reception special. I'm lucky to have a mother who was a florist, and a very creative family! And almost 100% of the details were partially or completely homemade or handmade. It was a money saver, but certainly took a lot more hands-on work!

Detail #1: The Invitations
We ordered my invitation paper online, but we spent an ENTIRE Sunday after church designing them and figuring out the wording. Then it probably took a total of 8 or 10 hours to print them, stuff them, tie the bows, and write the addresses on the envelopes. With lots of people working different "shifts." I was very proud of them, though, and got so many compliments! All the hard work was well worth it.Detail #2: The Flowers
My mom did all of my flowers for the wedding. My colors were pink and brown. I used lots of pink lilies. My mom made me a cascading bouquet. I'm not joking when I say it was so heavy I could barely hold it up. But all the flowers were beautiful, and she spent lots of time on them!! She had a little help from my Aunt Beth and grandpa.
My ginormous Bouquet :-P (and shoes)
Bridal Party Bouquets
She also did the flowers on stage and the unity candle bouquet
And ALL the flowers at the reception. These are the centerpieces.
Detail #3: The Cake
Luke's grandma made our cake. It was her gift to us. It turned out beautiful! It was pretty simple, and we just decorated it with flowers. I actually was so full and nervous that I didn't get to try a piece! But the top layer is waiting for us in my mom's freezer. We get to eat it in a few weeks on our 1 year anniversary!Also, we made a groom's cake! I baked the cake, and Julie decorated. It was her special little gift to Luke. Unfortunately, somebody just dumped it at the reception because they thought we wouldn't want it. Luke was disappointed that he didn't get to eat it :-P
Detail #4: The card box
It was a joint effort between my mom and Julie to make the card box. I just wanted it to look pink, brown and pretty. And here's what they came up with. Too cute! It's still sitting in my closet, and I wish I had a need for it. I think my mom should charge people to rent it out.
Detail #5: The Reception Decor My reception hall was chosen because it was big enough to hold all of my guests with room to spare, there was a huge dance floor, and the food was phenomenal. It was not the prettiest place in the world, however. My mom kept telling me that it really doesn't matter what a place looks like...with the right touches ANY hall could be beautiful. I have to admit that I was nervous at first, and didn't really believe her. I was proven wrong, though! It ended up being so beautiful! The head chef asked my mom for her card so he could refer her to people. He said he had never seen the place looking so nice before! My mom just laughed and said she did NOT have a card, and that she'd been in the wedding business for a long time when she was a florist, and had no desire to go back. lol. But I'm glad she did my wedding! Here are some random pictures of the hall. When I walked in at the reception, it literally took my breath away. I wish I could relive that night!!

Rachel is standing by the cake table back there. The hall just had that thing hanging from the ceiling, with no tulle or lights hanging down from the corners. Mom did that, and put lights hanging down behind the sheer table cloth. The people that worked there thought it looked great, and asked Mom if they could keep it up :-)
Card/gift tableHead Table it looked so awesome when all the lights were dim at the reception!!
Head Table DetailsClose up of a table
Okay, story time. I paid a lot extra for the chair covers in the hall, because their chairs were so ugly!!! I also wanted to put a simple bow made out of brown tulle one each chair. Well that ended up being a pain. Me, Julie, and JC got that job on Thursday. Julie and JC were quickly throwing the bows together. I was maticulously making sure each bow was exactly the same, and PERFECT. I went around and fixed all of Julie and JC's bows as well as tying half of them myself. My awesome father went out and bought some Diet Coke and mini Reese's Cups (my 2 favorite things!) for me that day, because he could tell I was stressed! lol...the funny thing is, I finally got them all perfect after working alllll day. But by the time the wedding party got to the hall on Saturday after pictures, the guests had been there for awhile and all the bows were crooked and even falling off of the chairs. I would skip the brown bows next time!!!!I tried to sneakily go behind them and fix them when they weren't looking. But I think Julie caught on pretty quickly and took a picture of me in the act :-P
They turned out pretty perftect, though!
I guess all of our hard work paid off...it looks like everyone had a pretty good time!
Join me next week for "Wedding Wednesday: The Catastrophes!"

2 comments:

  1. Someone threw away our groom's cake and all our leftovers, too! And my momma made all our food. It was delish, but no way no how. We didn't even get to taste it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. The details were beautiful at your wedding! I love your invitations.

    ReplyDelete

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