Decoration Detail

Mason has been busy working on some decorations for the wedding. He has done a great job too!

This sign will be put in a pail full of sand and wrapped with burlap.

Chad and I will hang on to these signs so we can pose for a picture for wedding thank yous.

We have more wood to work with so there are more projects in store!

Do It Yourself Decorating

We continue to work on fine tuning our invite list which is ever expanding. I think we have an invite going to just about every post office box in Calmar and beyond! Thank goodness for whitepages.com or I would not be nearly as far along with addresses.

I have been thinking a lot about decorations lately. I really like the rustic themes with the hand crafted touch. I have recruited Mason’s help with a sign project. This is a picture of what I would like him to make on a smaller scale. I just want three directional signs that say food , bar, dance. We will put it in a bucket of sand covered in burlap and block a stairway with it at Jewels. When I told Mason about it he wanted to get right to work. We are still looking for some old wood - let me know if you have any ideas!

I also found this idea and love it. I am hoping to find some styrofoam containers that we can line with burlap and put some hen and chicks in them. And hopefully some of our green thumbed guests will take them home at the end of the evening. Chad’s aunt has hen and chicks that we can use so the project will be hands on and inexpensive. I hope the bridal party is ready to get their hands dirty! Don't get me wrong - we still need the ladies at Party Island too!

I will admit that I felt pretty confident about what local businesses could offer. But I continue to learn. Did you know you can order napkins by the case at Bargain Outlet? They are $2.50/50 napkins and come 600 in a case. They have a nearly endless color supply when you order. I will be going in and ordering a case of brown and a case of green napkins. Way more than we will probably need but I can split the brown napkins with my sister for her June wedding.

We have not seen the engagement pictures yet but I will share as soon as we get them!

More of the Details

Pictures went well and I am anxious to see them! We took pictures in our dress outfits at Vesterheim on the west side of their building. We ran into the Chamber to change and headed out to the quarry for the fun pictures. We took some pictures in a pile of lime which I refer to as a rock pile and Chad laughs at me. We also took some pics against one of the truck, by an old building, and in the bucket of a loader truck. And it snowed the whole time!

Enough about pictures. As I have mentioned we are using Jewels for our reception. The advantages are that we can choose our caterer and control the bar. The disadvantages are that the place is a mess and it requires cleaning and a lot of decorating. We were concerned about the bathrooms and I really hate the thought of having to clean them ourselves. In fact I refuse to. I have been in touch with ServiceMaster to clean the bathrooms. I will gladly pay them to clean it. I figure if I am not willing to clean them myself I should not ask either of our moms to do it either!

We are getting all of our decorations through Party Island. They are very helpful – you can check them out on Facebook. Tammy Brink and Jill Dawley are great to work with and they have a lot of ideas. The majority of our decorating bill was spent on linens and their labor to cover up all the orange shag carpet at Jewels. I am sure it will look beautiful and I am glad that Party Island is available to make the days leading up to the wedding a little less stressful for us. And since I nearly kicked her at our appointment I am glad Tammy is still willing to help!

I want to use burlap down the center of the tables and put the centerpieces on it. I am on a mission to get the burlap in town. My first stop was at Pine Needles Quilt Shop. They don’t carry burlap and don’t have a distributor for it. I made another call and had a very interesting conversation that left me a bit perplexed. They actually told me they don’t get what people mean when they say they want to shop local. They offered to email me some pricing information on flowers and burlap which I never received. Needless to say we are moving on. I plan to talk to some of the landscapers to see if we can get some from them. We are getting the cake from Pinters so I think they will probably be my next call.

All the flowers are coming from The Country Garden. They also have a Facebook page. The price is right and JoEllen is great to work with. We are using white gerbera daisies and roses. The bridesmaids will be carrying just three daisies with a bit of greenery. All boutiners will be a single daisy. My bouquet will have a rose daisy combo. We are hanging pails on the edge of the pews and they will have green hydrangeas in them. I am excited to work with JoEllen on the wedding.

We need more tables than what Jewels has on hand – did you know that Windridge Implement has a trailer full of tables you can rent? Not sure if we have enough yet but we should probably finalize the guest list before we get too crazy!