Wedding details

[lulumaryjo]

Well ladies (and gentlemen?), I am finally able to sit and catch you up on all the wedding news. As I posted at some point this winter, DS#2 and his special young lady were engaged at the first part of February. They wanted to have the wedding before he started med school mid-August, so we had a six month planning period. Her mother does not live around here and does not speak english, so I helped whenever they asked me to. I feel very blessed to have been included and even luckier that they seemed to want me there for soooo much :).

We found a charming wedding venue with a beautiful glass and wood beam chapel and full service reception rooms. The location was about halfway between her hometown and ours and is in the same city as the condo they closed on (about 10 days before the ceremony). Her colors were green and white - easy to work with. There was no "theme" to start out with, but as they made their choices on invitations, wedding favors, florals, etc... it turned out to be very sweet, simple, organic, garden-y.

Their invitations were printed on handmade paper embedded with leaves and wrapped in raffia. We assembled them ourselves to save on the cost, so we had our own little "sweatshop" (am I allowed to say that?) set up in the dining room for a bit. We all had our most least favorite task to do on that one and worked on what we could stand the longest. I am sorry to say that I did not get pictures of us working on that.

The wedding favors were so cute! She works at the farm store at their college and she ordered these cute, square honey jars that you seal up with corks. She bought bulk honey from the store and filled the jars herself. We found shimmery ivory and honey colored ribbon to tie on tags that she printed on shimmery ivory cardstock. The tags were stamped with a gold bee and said their names and date and "meant to bee". This project resulted in another assembly line at the dining table. And, I am sorry to say that I did not get pictures of us working on that either.

I will continue on another post - I am not sure how much I can fit on one and do not have the energy to type any of this again.

[lulumaryjo]

When I was helping the bride and groom estimate costs, I used the FTD online site and chose a wedding arrangement that had some of the flowers that I imagined they might use because of the green and white color scheme. I was using the arrangements for cost estimating only, but the longer they looked at them, the more they liked them. I will try to post a link to show them, but they were in clear glass vases with curly willow floating around the stems in the water. We ordered half in 10" round vases that looked like goldfish bowls and half in tall urn shaped vases. We shopped the floral warehouses ourselves and found the round ones for $2.50 each. Yes, I said $2.50 each!!!!

We found pictures online for the brides bouquet and the florist helped with designing the rest of what we needed. We used the arrangements in the chapel during the ceremony and the florist and reception staff moved them to the tables before the guests were allowed in.

Sorry, I haven't been able to pull up the pics of the flowers. I'll try again later...

[KLD1019]

that all sounds so wonderful! usually the most simple weddings/wedding plans are the most beautiful IMO

[lulumaryjo]

The bride wore a very sweet and kind of traditional style dress, except it was strapless. Is that traditional? Anyway, she looked beautiful. The bridesmaids wore long dresses in a green called clover from Davids Bridal. The gentlemen wore black tuxs. Her mom wore a very lovely brown dress and I wore a steely blue satin dress. I have to laugh because DIL (first time use!) asked my kids if they had ever seen me with my hair up or curled and they could not ever remember either! I don't own a curling iron or hot rollers. And I never put my hair up, not even a pony tail.

Well, DIL arranged for all of the ladies in the wedding to have their hair styled. I told her I would do whatever she thought would look good. She left it to the stylist who was the same age as me and who talked to me a little and looked at a picture of the dress to help match the style to me and the event. I watched as she curled and sprayed and pinned and oh, my...is that a little too bouffant for my age? The back was curly, the sides pinned up and the top just a little pouffy and just the right amount of bangs. I thought I liked it, but I was a little nervous. I never do anything like this. Well, bride loved it daughter loved it and I had lots of compliments at the shop so I kept it like it was. Actually, it really grew on me as I went through the rest of the day.

DD was one of the bridesmaids and her waist length hair was all curled and piled up on top of her head and she looked oh-so-beautiful! I know we are not allowed to look prettier than the bride, but I'm so glad she had someone help us ;).

[lulumaryjo]

Now I'm on a roll! I have been too tired to post for months. All the while we have been working on the wedding we have had our usual, busier than all-get-out schedules going on.
Four out of the five family birthdays were in this period, plus the brides'. DD had her last high school spring break and we have taken her to New York every year for this and did not want to skip this last one. She graduated from high school, the groom graduated from college and we had a big celebration at the house. Both the bride and groom lost their college housing and since they were looking for a condo they didn't want to rent two different places short term, so they moved into both of the guest rooms here. DS moved back in when a career move didn't turn out the way it was supposed to and decided to return to our area.

Since we were investing in this condo with the kids, and they were busy with school, I was going out with the realtor to preview homes for them. And I'm sure I'm leaving something out. Anyway, I was really tired!

[lulumaryjo]

Lets see, invitations, floral, favors, wardrobe...

Oh, remember I mentioned a while back that I wanted to cut up my wedding dress and make ring bearers pillows for my three children? Well, I gave my dress to my dear, sweet MIL and let her go to work on it. She used the lining and lace for the pillow, ribbon from the bridal store in the exact same color as the bridesmaids dress and accented it with a rhinestone and pearl pin the had belonged to DH grandmother. This grandmother had a special place in her heart for my DH as a child. I have heard that he was quite and handful and DS that was the groom tends to favor him.

MIL mailed the pillow to me and when I opened it up, I thought it was soooo sweet and perfect and I was crying so hard I couldn't call her and thank her. Every time I thought I had a hold of myself and would start to dial the phone I would just start crying again. When I finally was able to talk to her and told her how perfect and sweet and wonderful the pillow was and that she was she started crying too. She said that the hardest part was cutting up my dress! She is just too sweet.
She embroidered the names and date on the back of the pillow. I hope the bride and groom realize they are now in the possession of a handmade family heirloom!

[lulumaryjo]

So, we have the stage set -

The wedding was beautiful! The priest that baptized DS married them. DS#1 was best man, DD was a bridesmaid. There were tears and blessings. The guests were ushered into a garden area for drinks and snacks while the bridal party took pictures. The tables were perfect with the florals and favors and placecards with the little bee stamp. The food was good, the dancing fun (we had both a father/daughter dance and a mother/son dance) and the bride and groom beamed the whole night.

I am the kind of perfectionist that can ruin an event for myself, so I told that side of me that there would be no picking at the little things. I made myself promise not to even mention them if no one else noticed and if they did, just to pass right over it. Well, no one mentioned the couple of nitpicky little things that weren't just right. And everyone enjoyed themselves. So I would consider the night a success.

Now, I get to enjoy the peace and quiet. The thing with wedding planning is that you don't get to do it often. Once you do, you have all this good information and nothing to do with it. If any of you would like to benefit from a wedding planning veteran, you know where to find me ;).

[callalily]

lulumaryjo - I am so glad all of your hard in such a short time paid off with a beautiful wedding. It sounds picture perfect. I can visualize the entire event.

You deserve to kick up your feel and relax now... or maybe you can start your own business in wedding coordination. You shouldn't waste all that valuable information and helpful hints!!

[MindaAnn]

Thank you lulumaryjo for sharing that wedding with us. It sounds absolutely beautiful!! I know it must have been hard work getting everything "just right" while life continued as usual....we've been through that twice....but thats it for us! Both 'children' happily married.

I hope you get a chance to relax.....and of course, visit with us!

Great job!

[mcdevcane]

lulumaryjo--your account of this wedding is so detailed,I can visualize every detail !!!!
sounds beautiful and perfect in every way !!!DS and DIL are so blessed to have you !!!

[happytobehere]

Lulu, thank you for sharing the wedding details with us and I know it was beautiful. Are you going to post any pics? :)

[lulumaryjo]

If you all can stand one more post, here is the link to the floral arrangements that were our inspiration. We went really heavy on the white hydrangeas and the varigated ivy (the one with green and white), and the dark green leaves. We requested no filler like baby's breath, so that the whole arrangement was high contrast between the green and white. We used the low arrangements on half the tables and the tall arrangements on the other half. I don't know if I will be posting pics - I still don't know how and DD seems awfully busy these days - maybe too busy to show me how :(

http://www.ftd.com/5970/catalog/product.epl?product_id=W25-4280&index_id=

[DebC]

Lulu
Sounds very beautiful, hope you can post pictures

Deb

[Lex87]

Sounds like a beautiful wedding!! I'm just starting to put my wedding invitations (http://www.weddinginvitationstudio.com/) together now. Weddings are soooo much work your family sounds really lucky to haev you there to help and support them.

Cheers
Lexy

[brianna]

Sounds like a beautiful wedding!! I'm just starting to put my wedding invitations (http://www.weddinginvitationstudio.com/) together now. Weddings are soooo much work your family sounds really lucky to haev you there to help and support them.

Cheers
Lexy

Lex, is this your first or second wedding? I think in early September you were getting ready for a wedding in "two more months?" ;)

[Sandra C]

Maybe ole Lexy used a different "destination wedding photographer" for the other wedding! :rolleyes:

[maryc]

Lex, is this your first or second wedding? I think in early September you were getting ready for a wedding in "two more months?" ;)


I was hoping lulu was back and had posted pictures. Sharp eye, Bri!:D