Wedding budget break down

When we first got engaged, Mike and I determined our budget to be $2,000. My dad and stepmom provided all of the beverages and most of the food, and a few others contributed food as well. We borrowed as much as we could, and bought cheap on everything else. We also decided to include our [...]

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Wedding recap: the reception, v.1

Immediately after the ceremony, we went into reception mode. The wedding was at 4, and the “reception-only” guests were invited to arrive at 5, so we had to hustle. Luckily we had a team of amazing people on our side. While Mike and I mingled, our families moved chairs and tables, set out a few [...]

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Wedding recap: the morning of

The  morning of our wedding, we woke up knowing we were getting married, but I can’t say it felt much different than any other day. Just a saturday, hanging out with the fam at dad’s, and oh yeah, we’re getting married. We got going around 9, picked up some Starbucks, picked up Erica, the photographer, [...]

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Photo booth success!

One of my favorite things we did at our reception was the Photo Booth (aka the guest book). We set up my camera in front of a log pile with some props, and people had a blast. My sisters were superstars and made sure every single guest took a turn, so we’ve got photos of [...]

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Rehearsal… or whatever

I took the Friday before the wedding off, but Mike had to work in the morning. While he did that, I went grocery shopping with Des, my stepmom. We bought WAY too much food, as Mike has already detailed. By the time we got back to the house, Mike arrived with a bunch of borrowed [...]

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Gift table area type thingy

Most of the festivities at our wedding and reception were outside (hallelujah for cooperative weather!), but we had a few things to look at inside, too. After the ceremony, we displayed the Unity Quilt inside (more on the later), and we also set up a little gift table area type thingy. One of the best [...]

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More decor

I’m sure my dear friend from Photography by Arika Reed will have some good shots of all the little details, but in the meantime, here are a few of the things we put together the Friday before the wedding. These are what we were calling the centerpieces, even though we really just put them on [...]

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How to make paper pinwheels

As part of our wedding reception decor, I thought it would be fun to make pinwheels. Originally I thought I might carry a pinwheel instead of a bouquet of flowers, but in the end decided to carry nothing at all. But the pinwheel idea stuck with me, so we made several to use in our [...]

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How to make tissue paper poms

This is an extremely inexpensive project that makes a pretty decent decoration. You’ll need lots of tissue paper in the color(s) of your choosing, floral wire, string, and perhaps nails, tacks, staples or some other way of hanging them. I used colorful tissue paper because I like color. You’ll need at least 8 sheets for [...]

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Signs and a Photo Booth

SIGNS I created three signs for the wedding. I failed to get photos of two of them before bringing them to my dad’s (where I’ve been storing a lot of wedding stuff lately). One says “Shannon & Mike’s Wedding” and another says “Candy Please Take One.” The one I do have photos of is for [...]

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