Friday, August 6, 2010

You Make My Dreams Come True: Decorating on Friday

We were up bright and early on Friday morning and met my parents, MIL, David's brother (best man) J and his wife L, Jr BM K, and MOH A and her boyfriend at the church. J and L brought donuts, milk, and juice for everyone which was so smart. I hadn't even thought of it. Since we had already set up the stage and decorated for the rehearsal dinner when we did the walk through, we basically just needed to decorate the aisle and set everything out in the foyer.


I didn't want to lay the aisle runner down until after the rehearsal, so we worked on attaching the shepherd hooks to the chairs, hanging the pomanders, and swagging the tulle down the aisle. Before you go and buy $20 shepherd hooks with stands for an indoor ceremony, try our trick first - We had chairs, so we were able to use black zip ties to connect the hook to the chair in 2 different places. You couldn't see them against the black frame of the chair and the black hook and I was able to use my dollar tree shepherd hooks!


We set the bin (found on sale at Michaels months before the wedding - you might recognize it from the dancing shoes post!) with programs right by the door along with the tears of joy packets and set up the 'guestbook' nearby. We set a table out that guests would see right as they walked in the door with the memorial candles and card box and that I also put the bubbles on so our bridesmaids could grab them right after the ceremony and hand them out. It kind of turned into the gift table too since I had kind of forgotten to find a place for gifts.

The artificial flowers were switched out with leftover roses from the bouquets as seen below.

Credit: Lola Jo Photo Design
(More pictures coming in the detail post!)

I checked on the room for the rehearsal dinner to make sure everything was set up and then it was time to head to the reception hall which was much more detailed. David, J, L, and MOH A's boyfriend had gone over about 20 minutes before we were ready to leave which ended up being really smart - Of course none of the tables or chairs were set up even though they were originally supossed to be. This was the least of our worries with them, though (if you don't know why, you must have missed this post.)

I wish I had done a better job of labeling things with what they were and where they needed to go, but I didn't. So I tried to give a quick rundown of what I wanted the tables to look like and we all got to work. I knew we had a lot of details, but decorating took even longer than I thought I would. And in the middle of it someone had to go get fishing wire to hang the paper lanterns (because I forgot even though it had been on my list for months), my dad had to go pick up the sheet cakes and balloons (to tie to the sign in front of the banquet hall), I had to drive across town to get David's grooms cake and then pick up some last minute details (handkerchiefs for the moms, flower girl gifts, etc.) from a shop in town. Of course one of the picture frames for the flower girls had her name spelled wrong, but the owner was able to fix it and I was able to stop by, run in, and grab it on our way to the rehearsal. Long story short, it was an insane afternoon. 

But in the end, everything was perfect. Tablecloths were laid and centerpieces were set up:




The kids table was arranged:


The family wedding pictures were set up:


The bathroom baskets were placed:


A coaster and 'favor' were placed at each table setting:


The bar was filled:


And the paper lanterns were painstakingly hung (by MOH A's boyfriend - I know, she needs to marry that guy!). The room was ready to go.


*I apologize for the quality of the pictures - I took them quickly thinking I'd have pro pics of everything to show you guys, but we didn't get pictures of a lot of the details in this post. We haven't seen pictures from our friend who took pictures at the reception, so fingers crossed that she has some.*

By the time we were finished it was 4:20 and our rehearsal started at 5:30. David and I were able to run home and get changed (I didn't even get to shower) and were there on time, but poor J and L stayed until the last minute with us and then had to drive 20 minutes home to get ready before driving all the way across town to the church. Our rehearsal started a little late, but it was worth the peace of mind knowing that our reception was set up the way I wanted it.

Did you spend the day before your wedding decorating? How did everything turn out?

Tip #2: If at all possible, decorate the day before so you're able to see how things look. And try to have all of your decor as organized as possible so that people will know what it is/what it's for without having to ask you questions every few minutes. It'll make everything run much more smoothly! 

Need to catch up?

We started on Thursday.

10 comments:

  1. Wow, sounded like you all were very busy :) Everything turned out great though so it all paid off!

    As of now, it's undetermined if we'll be able to decorate our reception area the night before due to the possiblity of an event the night before our wedding... I sure hope it works out and we are able to :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. All this work scares the crap out of me!! I have so much to do and keep thinking that yes, I am going to forget something. You did a great job of putting everything together!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Holy. Crap. I'm tired just reading this post!! I didn't do any decorating for our wedding and I know I'd be a crazy person if I had.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for linking up at Fabulous Fridays :) I can't believe I didn't have you on my "blog roll"... just added you!! Can't wait to catch up! WHAT A GORGEOUS TURN OUT!!!!!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. You all did a great job, everything looked wonderful. You really thought of every detail!! It's nice you were able to setup the night before.

    We weren't able to technically get into our venue for setup until 4pm the day of the wedding however my DOC's talked the lady into letting them arrive at 3pm. They were rushing like mad to get everything ready by the 6pm ceremony but they did an amazing job. Obviously I wasn't able to help since I was already dressed by that point.

    ReplyDelete
  6. looks great! really reminds me of my own wedding (black, white & damask!)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Just found your blog and can't wait to hear all about your adventures as newlyweds! Your honeymoon looked amazing, Cancun is awesome!

    Hello to your sweet little dog Paisley- we're now following you guys!

    Lucy's Human
    http://lucyshuman.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hey nice work i like keep it on ...thanks for sharing
    patio furniture umbrellas

    ReplyDelete
  9. You worked so hard on every detail of your wedding... and it shows.

    ReplyDelete
  10. We are actually decorating on Thursday so that way we have Friday to relax/finish any last minute things!

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...