our handmade 7/7/07 wedding - OCCASIONS AND HOLIDAYS

[photo album link added, see below]

(I'll add shots to this as I get the pro-pics, by C. Parker McMullen Bushman)

So, our day has come and gone, but it was captured by the Sun Times, for their Sunday paper, see photo gallery:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/460091,CST-NWS-lucky08.article

I was my own wedding planner, we did this wedding on a tiny, tiny budget.

First of all, I wore my Mom's dress from 1962. She altered it for me.

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Here are the two lovely ladies who made this dress to begin with. My Grandma and my Mom. You can see our paper poms and cut out paper bag flowers decorating the old Chicago chain link fence behind us. (and my sunburn....)

We did a canoe processional into the ceremony. My (two) matrons of honour, my mother and even my photographer helped make our bouquets and all the bouts. My sister and I went to the wholesale flower market and picked out & bought all the flowers for the ceremony and the reception.

Here's a good shot of our flowers as we laugh hysterically.

Our "theme" was cherry blossoms. I used this wood sign at the ceremony site, the river prairie, to lead guests to the basket of programs and handfans, and put a welcome message on here.

I will find a picture of the handfans, with "thank you" tags, we made, and the ceremony programs we created, and put it here.
**insert pic**

We decorated each table at the reception with framed photos of our guest's wedding photos. I did it so that people would mingle and ask who was who and people could get to know each other. FYI, people thought they were supposed to sit in front of their photos. Not the case! As I hate assigned seating at weddings. So, that needed to be explained better. ah well.

Here's our "card cage", we just bought one from JoAnn's, I then decorated it with birds, made a sign for it, and placed the Dia De Los Muertes figures my sister brought me back from Mexico for my shower present, in front of it. (My birthday is the same day as the Day of the Dead, and I am a bit obsessed with it.)

Here's a "detail" of the paper poms and small, self-illuminated lanterns. They still look good after a long day of being beaten about by wind! I am not sure how many of these Heather and I made, it was ALOT!

This is how all the fences looked:

A dear friend came out and built wood structures, and hung canvas drop clothes on them to create a cozy atmosphere and to cover some of the junk out on the back concrete slab where we had all the tables. We strung the laterns from fishing line around the outside.

My friends did an arial acrobatic performance for us. It was amazing. She designs and makes her gear. It is amazing. Absolutely stunning performance!

We handpainted the entire gallery for the day. There was a gorgeous blue wash put on the floor, and the walls were painted ice blue with a wash, gold tree branches and pink cherry blossoms. You can see a tiny bit of it in this shot, as my pals Tijuana Hercules play a set for us!

This is a shot of the Swedish Pecan favours all wrapped up and ready to go to the gallery:

Some of our Out of Town baskets and foot baths, ready to go to the hotel:

Presents! Gifts for our bridal party, my honey, parents, etc. We used recycled kraft paper bags, decorated them with stamps, used the same green tissue in each, and most of them I put a bouquet of velvet pink hydrangeas on. The bridesmaids were filled with pink clutches, pashminas, jewelry that I made for both of them, handfans, parasols, lipstick cases with mirrors, chapstick, and essentials.

Our cd favours were a big hit:

And I did fix the "mementos" on this collage, i just never got a new shot of it:

I covered dollar store match books with pretty Graham & Snow cherry blossom paper. These were a big hit too, everyone took them home.

I'll add more as I get them, but this gives you a taste of the crazy day!

Modified to add photo album: http://www.mypublisher.com/bookstore/book_viewer.py?order_id=M379129&sp=x

I made this photo album for my Mom, as a thank you for all her hard work and care. I really have to rave about MyPublisher, because it is a cool program and you can get two books for the price of one! A great deal when you're doing a wedding on a tiny budget, like us. I hope to get an album done for DH and I when we get done with our Michigan reception and get pictures from that too. I am trying to decide on a scrapbooked album or one like I made for my Mom. I don't know, they were so innexpensive, I may just do both. The only thing it really cost me was time (nine hours spent going through photos, uploading, laying them out, etc.), but it was worth it. I did this on line Monday, and I got it in the mail today! Can you believe it?