Let's Talk Wedding: Seating of the Guests

While the guests were being seated, my mom's friend and church pianist, played hymns. I wanted to do something different to honor our grandparents. I thought about lighting a candle or leaving a seats open with flowers in them for those who couldn't be there. I remember one day thinking about what I wanted played during the seating of the guests. I knew I wanted it to be hymns. I love hymns and I know a lot of churches don't sing them as often anymore. I started thinking about which ones I wanted played...and one idea led to another....and it led to me wanting to play each grandparent's favorite hymn. In Honor Of:
"Blessed Assurance" - Bobbie H (Beth's Grandmother)
"Without Him" - Lavalle W. (Beth's Grandmother)
"Amazing Grace" - Yvonne C. (Ken's Grandmother) and Paul C. (Ken's Grandfather)

In Memory Of:
"Amazing Grace" - Wanda F. (Beth's Grandmother) and Arlene C. (Ken's Grandmother)
"How Great Thou Art" - Charles H. (Beth's Grandfather)
"It Is Well" - Sonny F. (Beth's Grandfather)
The program read: "The hymns being played are in honor of or in memory of Ken's and Beth's grandparents."

Let's Talk Wedding: Church Decorations

Lobby: There weren't a lot of decorations for the lobby, but everything I did was a project (for someone). One of my absolute favorite things was the "Gift Card Box" and the "Card Box". I saw this idea in a magazine and thought it was genius! I not only used it at the wedding and reception, but it was very helpful at the wedding showers so I didn't lose any gift cards. Michelle had all my dark purple fabric b/c she was making shoes for the flower girls and the ring bearer pillows, so I asked if she would mind covering some boxes. Her husband ended up doing it and they were awesome!!!! They worked perfectly too! You can see them below where we had them set up for people to set their gifts.
My major project that I worked on was having a tri-fold stand (like below) to put pictures of Ken and I so people had something to look at while they were waiting to be seated.

I didn't get as many pictures on there as I wanted, but it worked and I think it turned out AMAZING! A friend of the family, Rocky, built the wooded frame. My mom, dad, Ken and I covered the panels with the black fabric and then the criss-crossed purple ribbon. It was a nice touch and we now have it in our guest room with pictures in it too. :) I was also EXCITED about the fall decorations the church had up. I wanted to use pumpkins SOOOO badly b/c I just love them. I was out-numbered by my mom and the florists on this idea....but the church had them up already! YAY!!!!! And, they were cute! :)
This was my final idea. I don't remember where I saw this....probably the Pottery Barn catalog, but I needed something to fill space. This was the perfect thing. The hurricanes were used in my best friend's, Michelle, wedding. We used them again here. Added a little of the dark purple fabric and then a framed engagement picture. They looked pretty cute. We put them on the guest sign in table and the gift table.
Auditorium: Decorating is not my "thing". I love it and can mimic any picture, but I cannot just come up with something in my head and picture what it will look like. I'm so thankful my mom can look at a room and envision exactly what it will look like. I had an idea, but my mom finished it. :) It didn't really go all that smoothly. We had some disagreements, but all in all, she saw my vision and we went with it. I loved how it turned out....even though she secretly told my florist to bring extra things. ha! I really wanted the church to be simple and basic. We would only be there for an hour and then spend the majority of the time at the reception. I wanted to spend most of the budget at the hotel, making it beautiful! Anyway....All I wanted on stage was candles and urns. I found these two pictures to show them what I was thinking. My mom and I (along with Michelle) found my urns in Dallas at Market! We had also ordered the "sticks" to go in them, but they never made it to the US. Up until the wedding, they were stuck on the ocean, somewhere between China and the US. Seriously. It was a little stressful...but God provided. A few weeks before the wedding, my mom found some that were almost identical at Pier 1. We went on a made rush buying all that we could from every Pier 1 in the State of Oklahoma. We got exactly what we needed and they turned out beautifully! We had two urns at the back of the pews, at the middle of the pews and then two on the stage. Along with a candleabra on a table that was draped with black cloth. I didn't want ANY white in the wedding except for my dress and bouquet. However, my mom talked me into putting some white on stage b/c it would really make everything "pop". She said, "just trust me." And, that, I did. I was so happy that I did! I knew she could see something that I couldn't, so I knew it would be beautiful. She added some white hydrangeas to the candleabra we found in Dallas. She also had the florists bring in vases with submerged white flowers. It looked GREAT! We used a bunch of votives that the church let us use to add more light to the stage. I was really happy with how everything looked. The last thing I had to figure out for the auditorium was what was going on the pews. I didn't want typical pew-bows and what I wanted, I didn't want to spend the money on it. I really would have loved to have the lanters on every other pew or big tall vases with water and petals. The church aisle is actually slanted. There is a flat landing half way down and then flattens at the front of the church. Not only were my first two ideas too expensive, they wouldn't have worked either. So, I hunted...and found these. I decided to use black chair sashes and put flowers we were using in the wedding on every other pew. It turned out really well! I was very pleased!

Our First Snow!

Well, we finally got it. It took forever this year!!!!! Last year, we had 2 blizzards behind us at this point! It started snowing around noon...just a few flurries, no big deal. But within 40 minutes you could see if falling out the window from across the house. I love snow as long as I can get off work. :) However, today, I was supposed to be at my best friend's baby shower, which was an hour away. I was bummed that I missed it, but I am a frady cat in driving in this weather. I ran to walmart, which I was planning on doing later this evening, to get everything I needed for the week. Bad weather always cracks me up b/c when I got to walmart, the parking lot was PACKED! I go to the store every Sunday for the following week. That was my plan today. It was CRAZY inside!!!!! People get in this freak-out mode and start loading carts with water, canned goods and anything they can think of. I know the weather is supposed to be bad the next few days, but it just makes me laugh. I can't make fun b/c I don't want to get out in it either, but I wasn't stocking up like we'd be locked in the house for 2 weeks. I guess a lot of us here in OK are more worried about ice storms and getting the power knocked out for weeks....which has happened in the last few years. I also have to give some credit to walmart b/c they were incredibly prepared. They had EVERY SINGLE check-out like OPEN!!!!! I was in line and out of line in less than 15 minutes! That makes me SUPER happy!!!! (Thank you, Walmart!!!!). Anyway---I'm back at home and the snow just gets thicker and heavier. We've had some really pretty HUGE snowflakes! Its still coming and I hear that tomorrow and Tuesday will be worse. Maybe, just maybe, I'll get a day off work this week. :) (These pictures were taken at 2:30pm)

My favorite thing about today??? Burning the wood stove! Toasty!!!! :)

Let's Talk Wedding: Flowers

Are the flowers where you are supposed to "cheap"? Well, this was the stress of all stresses to me. I'm sure our florist was SO ready to be done with me. I was SO mad at how expensive flowers are! ICK! Made me so mad!!!! Anyway----I tried VERY hard to cut corners and save money here. I thought I did an okay job, but I just NEVER in my life thought that flowers and decorations would cost as much as they did. I had more meetings with these ladies than any other vendor. I am NOT a flower person, so pictures definitely came in handy!

However, I will be forever thankful that we didn't have to MAKE everything. And, on a positive note....all the flowers turned out GORGEOUS! So, I am very thankful for that! I had no complaints and I absolutely LOVED everything!!!! It was just perfect (can't wait for you to see the reception...GORGEOUS!)!

Bride - All white. A friend (she's actually a blogger friend, but I knew her husband in high school) of mine had the most beautiful white bouquet and I took a picture of it to my florist.

Sadly, getting married in the fall limited peonies...so we went with hydrangeas which gave a beautiful FULL look to my bouquet, which is how I wanted it to look. The roses gave it some texture and it was just BEAUTIFUL! It was wrapped with white satin. Loved it!!!!Groom - White handkerchief

Bridesmaids - Bouquets with orange and burgundy roses with fall leaves and berries. I wanted their bouquets to be very "fall" looking. The first of the two pictures below is almost identical to what I gave the florists, but I never got the pictures from them back...so this is as close I as could get. They did a great job of making them look like the picture though!

This is a picture of one my bridesmaids' bouquets. This picture was taken at the reception:

From this picture you can see the flowers I used for the bridal party. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the girls' bouquets!!!! They were probably my favorite! And, they were just perfect fall colors! The groomsmen didn't wear any flowers. I like the clean look of just the handkerchief. They all wore dark purple to match the girls, except for Ken who wore white to match me. :)
Jr. Bridesmaids - Smaller version of the bridesmaids bouquet.

Jr. Groomsmen - Single, dark purple calla lily.

Flower Girl - A flower ball made of white carnations and had white ribbon coming out of it. It was so cute!Ring Bearer - Single, dark purple calla lily. Caleb was so excited to wear a "purple flower". I almost got rid of the boutineers all together, but he kept asking if could wear it, that I just left them alone. It was so cute! Looking at the pictures of him and Tyler (Jr. Ring Bearer) just crack me up b/c the flower is almost as big as they are! ha!Jr. Flower Girl - A HUGE long-stemmed flower that matched her dress. We got it from Hobby Lobby. Finley was at that age where she actually liked carrying things around....and if I remember correctly, she was already carrying this big flower around the house, so we just went with it. :)Jr. Ring Bearer - A single, dark purple calla lily. He was SOOOO cute!!!!! I love seeing little kids with flowers!Mother of the Bride - I thought about having my mom carry a bouquet of flowers b/c I don't really like corsages. I don't like that we pay so much money for our dresses and then we stick a pin through it...just not a fan. And, my mom doesn't like the wrist corsages, so we just looked at it an area where we could save some money!

Father of the Bride - Dark purple handkerchief.

Mother and Father of the Groom - I was so thankful that Ken's mom was okay with not having any flowers. Our moms stand out on their own...they didn't need anything to make them stand out or show they are someone "special" in the wedding. Terry wore a dark purple handkerchief.

Grandmothers - I had a similar thought with our grandmothers as I had with our moms. My thought was that they could each carry one long-stem flower, each carrying a different color. After my mom and I talked, we realized it was just one more thing that our grandmothers would have to keep up with, so we decided they wouldn't carry anything.

Ushers - I did want our ushers to stand out, so they each wore a single, dark purple calla lily. If they didn't have something on, they would just look like any other man in a suit at the wedding. It helped the guests distinguish who they were.

Musicians - I didn't have the musicians wear anything. Mainly b/c I don't like pinning things to my nice clothes when I'm in a wedding.Pastor - Boutineer. I wanted our sweet pastor to stand out and wear something that had our wedding colors in it since he would be on stage with us.