The Wedding - Part Seven

I'm back after a little sojourn up north for my new mother-in-law's 80th birthday. (Guys, I have a mother-in-law. How strange is that!?) My wonderful Husband and new sister-in-law (!!) absolutely outdid themselves with thoughtful gifts and a small surprise party lunch, which went over beautifully. It was a very fun weekend.

But back to the subject at hand! I am nearing the end of the wedding posts, if only to give you all a breather before we get our professional photos back, because then I will definitely be inundating you all again.

Anyway, here's a post about the little details. I had a couple of past brides warn me not to spend too much time on the small details, because they found that they went unnoticed by the majority of the guests. I guess their sage advice went in one ear and out the other, because I did worry about the details. Although I enjoyed worrying about them!

The first project at hand was our escort card board:



The Husband found the frame at a flea market this summer for $5 when we were up north being hosted at a friend's gorgeous cottage. Then we chose the fabric and ribbon and I enlisted my very crafty friend to help me turn it all into something useful and pretty. I love the way it turned out! (It looked even better when it was full of the escort cards.)

Next up, the centrepieces:



As much as the Husband and I both LOVE flowers, I wanted to do something a little different on the tables. You see, part of my goal at the wedding was to make sure the guests didn't feel like wallpaper. Since it was a relatively small wedding, I really wanted everyone to feel like they were there for a reason! Because they are a part of our lives. So I found these photo holders (and I got a GREAT deal on them) and then went through the process of finding (and copying) photos of all of our guests to fill them. So each table had pictures of the guests sitting at that table - old pics, new pics, all kinds! I have to say, these took FOREVER to put together. I questioned my sanity repeatedly, but I'm really glad with how they turned out.

Next, our ring box:



Back in the late summer, I started to think about what I wanted for the rings. I was positive that a lacy little pillow was not the way to go, so I turned to my favourite place for crafty inspiration: Etsy! Lo and behold, I saw some nice little bark boxes. So I sent an email to my friend with the cottage I mentioned earlier (She was also the MC at the wedding!), asking her what she thought and did she think we could make one. Now, she comes from a very artsy, crafty (FANTASTIC) family, so her reply was just, "I'm on it!" In fact, her beautiful mom painstakingly made us a box from birch bark that she collected around their cottage. Apparently it took a couple of tries and many hours of effort! Also, to pay homage to the Husband and his love of comic books, she lined the box in Spiderman comics. It's so lovely.
Our talented floral designer friend put the finishing touches in of the moss, leaves and ribbons. It was perfect and suited the wedding perfectly!

And finally, quiz and favours:



In order to encourage people to interact with guests that they perhaps hadn't met or didn't know well, we concocted a quiz all about the Husband and I. It was inadvertently very hard (and several people got incredibly...creative with their answers), but there was a prize! And one of my college friends won!

The favours, hidden inside those little paper bags, were my homemade chocolate chip cookies. I'm a wee bit famous for them and they went over very well. While I baked them well in advance and stashed them in the freezer for awhile (all 12 dozen of them), my mom and I spent an afternoon wrapping them in plastic wrap, putting them in the bags and then threading the twine through and tying on a little ticket. It seemed like it was going to be an awful, tedious job, but four hand made fast work of it! Thanks Mom!!

And in case you're wondering what those little tickets say: