Our Wedding: Decorations and Entertainment

We had the most difficult time figuring out the color scheme and how we wanted to decorate. Well, reel it back a notch. After we got engaged (after dating for 10 years and living together for 9) we literally did not discuss a wedding for almost a year. When we finally did the conversation went something like this:

Me: We should probably get on this wedding thing. Aaron: Yeah. Me: Ok well where do you want to go? I mean what kind of wedding do you want? Aaron: I don’t know. You know. A wedding. Me: You mean like a wedding wedding? With a dress and stuff like that? Aaron: Yeah. Like that. Me: Are you sure you don’t want to go to Vegas?

Now, I knew how this planning thing was going to go and basically not getting a lot of feedback from him about colors and decorations and such, I just made the call. I was attempting to go for halfway between glam (that’s me) and rustic (that’d be him) for the decor. You’ll have to let me know if I hit the target.

I decided to go with Navy blue and rose gold for the color, with fall accents because the wedding was in September.

Tables

The majority of the table linens were purchased from eFavormart. I highly recommend them, they generally had the best prices and very nice quality.

The utensils, chargers, plates, and salt and pepper shakers were ordered from Webstaurant (along with many sundry items such as bus tubs and serving spoons). I know that many people choose to rent the dishes and silverware, and it would have been slightly less expensive to do so. However, the tent rental company wanted the dishes cleaned and returned within 2 days. No way were we up for that, so we opted to buy and re-sell after the wedding.

The vases were ordered from Vase Market, they were the best price I could find.

We weren’t going to do favors, but we had gallons of maple syrup that we had boiled down from our trees in the spring. So we decided to do bottles of maple syrup. Some of the kids really enjoyed drinking it straight out of the bottle. Ay yi yi.

And then there’s the flowers.

So many flowers

They were literally everywhere

I looked into renting wine barrels but opted instead to purchase some from Amazon. I also purchased a live slab of wood off of Ebay. This worked out very well because we’re putting them in the man cave, and lent them to another couple that got married two weeks before we did, and the total cost was less than renting.

But back to the flowers.

I ordered the flowers from Global Rose. I highly recommend them. For just a bit over 800 dollars, I literally had beautiful flowers everywhere. I hired a woman off of Nextdoor.com to make the arrangements for me. I literally would not have changed a thing about the flowers.

I also made all of the signs which was a huge cost savings. I purchased used frames with interesting patterns from the St. Vincent’s thrift shop (most were 20 dollars or less for even the very large signs). I removed all but the glass and spray painted the frames, and made the lettering with my Silhouette Cameo. Totally fun and I was very happy with how they turned out.

Sundry other decorations

We got married under a gazebo we already had in the yard with some simple decorations.

I could not have been happier that we got the tent looking just the way we wanted it to. I had some great friends who really helped me out at the last minute when I realized that I had bitten off more than I could chew!

Cigar tent. Yes that’s what I said.

Now here’s where it starts to get crazy.

Me: I want to have a cigar tent at our wedding. Aaron: You’re crazy. Me: Probably but I’m doing it anyway.

The cigar tent was the hit of the reception. We looked into renting furniture for the cigar tent, but it was ridiculously expensive. I purchased a used chair and some other sundry pieces of furniture from Amazon. I had a room in the basement that had no furniture, so my intention was to use it down there after the wedding, which worked out quite nicely.

The cow hides were also purchased off of Amazon. It gave the room the most amazing leather aroma, and really added to the atmosphere.

People at the end of the night commented we should have sold tickets to the “VIP tent”.

5 Card Studs

And then it just got crazier. We had originally hired some DJs, thinking a band would be out of scope. Then, shortly before Summerfest (which happens around the start of July) , I was looking at the lineup to see when they were playing. I then for some silly reason decided to check out their whole schedule just on some whim that they might be available. Some stars aligned and they had almost literally one Saturday night available through the end of the year…and it was our night. Thinking it must be some mistake, we called and by some miracle they were available (in spite of our poor planning).

We really liked the DJs and wanted some professionals to do the intros and first dances so we kept the DJs and that actually worked out very well. One thing we did with the first dances that I would highly recommend was after about 20 seconds into the songs we had the DJs call up the married couples to dance with us, and the mothers to dance with sons, and then fathers to dance with daughters. I really loved that (and I felt like others did too) because I find it awkward when there’s 20 minutes of watching other people dance at weddings. I feel like it got people warmed up too.

The band we got was the 5 Card Studs, and they are absolutely amazing, and a huge hit with the wedding guests. Everybody was dancing their booty off all night long!

They played so loud the cops came. I told them that I had warned (and invited) all the neighbors and the kind officer explained that the call came from about a mile away…

All in all I would call that an epic success!