And now to the details! We had a little bit of a challenge to face; there would be a small amount of money to work with and even less time for planning. (And it is worth pointing out now that I am not sure our scenario would really work for anyone else. It was unique, to say the least. So, don’t go taking notes! Just enjoy the story.) Both The Hub and I are grad students.
Weddings are hellacious. HELLACIOUS. I tried to do enough research in the brief time I had to know what I needed without getting sucked into the Great Machine of Endless Wedding Detail Manufacture. Given the potential for doom, I am still utterly flabbergasted by how wonderfully balanced and romantic the whole thing turned out to be.
The biggest challenge was to find a location that would essentially cost nothing. (Having a pack of ministers in the family is handy for all sorts of reasons.) My father offered his church, which is a very nice facility. Since we knew that there would be a very small amount of people attending, using the sanctuary didn’t make a lot of sense to me. It would require more decorations and would make things less than intimate, due to its size. What we decided on instead was to use another room in the church whose space we could better control. My Mom offered up a canopy whose frame proved to be useful in doing just that. My Mom, Steph (my sister-in-law) and I sketched out loosely what we had in mind, then made a trip to the fabric store.
By the time that trip was over, not only had we apparently dodged a snow storm, but we discovered that when it comes to hunting down the best deal for buying mass quantities of tulle, the three of us are coupon BEASTS. (Seriously, JoAnn fabrics had to practically give us those heaps of tulle!) After much complicated mid-aisle computations, Mom and Steph arrived at a yardage requirement to cover three sides of the canopy. (I stayed out of that swirl of numbers, trust me.) The idea was that once we had hard numbers to work with, we could tweak what kind of fabric we used where and what effect we wanted.
It wasn’t really until we made that trip that a real image of the canopy all decked out started to take shape in my mind. Once that kicked in, with the benefit of the formidable combined creativity of the Stuckey Female Collective, ideas really started flying. We settled on a light, flowy, silvery satiny fabric for the base of the back drop, followed by cascading strings of lights, topped off with a layer of silver tulle that practically RAINED GLITTER anytime anyone breathed nearby. All of us, including the Goth girl behind the counter who cut fabric, were covered in glitter.
With the “help” of my ever-precocious nephew, my (then) fiancee, Mom and Steph and I did a trial run 5 days before the wedding. Steph kept the many layers of tulle separate while Mom cut the panels at the appropriate length. The (now) Hub and I hung lights. My nephew, who somehow acquired his grandpa’s tape measure, “helped” by pulling it out as far as it would go, then dancing madly around it as the tape measure snapped back and spun on the carpet.
So, we had a clear plan in mind. But what we didn’t know we were missing was what I now call The Magical Marilyn factor. (Marilyn is a friend of my parents who does all kinds of great things. She works as a florist and does all kinds of wedding and decorating stuff. She is also an incredibly sweet woman with a very creative family.) With Marilyn’s help, we added more lights, fresh flowers, elegant table cloths and dishes for using during the reception.
I’ll continue with more details in Wedding Post #3.
Stuckerella 