Setting the Stage

There was not a lot of DIY in our wedding but there were a lot of cool details that I was wishing I could blog about before, but didn’t want to ruin the experience for our guests. So I stayed silent.  Now I’m left with a whole bunch of detail information that seems silly to share but since I know there are those out there following along looking for detail help – I’m doing it.

I didn’t want to go crazy with the crafting. Which I don’t think I did.  But I did want those personal touches – of course, everyone does, that turn the wedding into our wedding.  It started with the colour scheme, Orange and Gray as picked by The Boy.  We got so many complements on that choice and I would like it to be on the record that I gave him full credit every time. I may not be big on the crafty crafty ideas but I do LOVE typography, so I included a lot of that, which I wasn’t sure people would notice, but apparently they did.

Again, trying to figure out the most logical way to present this, I think I’ll take you on a virtual tour of our venue.

The yarn balls – unfortunately in the 1000+ photos we have, I don’t have one of the front entrance where they were hung, but imagine them in two bunches flanking either side here.

As guests came in they were greeted by our two lovely bridesmaids, BFFs Kristyn and Kate, and encouraged to drop any cards in the orange bird cage, and “leaf” their print on the guest tree.  We had our bridal party and all those at our rehearsal dinner preprint using red for VIPs everyone else had their choice of orange, yellow or green.  I loved how this turned out btw, it is awesome! Instant art that we will love forever. I have visions of it hanging in a kids room one day – you know, kind of a product of all of this love kind of thing. I got it from Bleu de Toi on Etsy, Love love love. For now it hangs in our living room – the Boy says he likes that it will help him remember our anniversary.

Now, I had made the decision about the tree, and Sista and I decided that guests shouldn’t sign their print because if they did that’s all you would see when looking at it – black scribbles everywhere = boo. And while the Boy agreed, he was pretty adamant that guests have something to sign like a traditional guest book.  I hate traditional guestbooks. I don’t think you ever really look at them again and if he was going to insist I wanted something cool.

Enter The Lover’s Dictionary.  This was a book Sista found at Anthropologie that is a novel, but written as dictionary entries.  Each entry if read on it’s own is a quirky definition of love.  Awesome right?  Well, almost.  It turns out that because we bussed most people in from the hotel, having two things to do in the line was confusing and causing quite the backlog.  So most people skipped the book.  Some did sign it and we love the messages they left.  I’m considering carrying the book around with me for the next year and getting people to sign it as we see them.  Love the book in theory, and in practice the messages that we did get are really sweet.

While I stationed Kristyn and Kate at the guest book/tree table I knew that some might skip it and come back to it later, so I wrote a little poem about how the whole thing worked.  I don’t actually think that many people read it but nonetheless here it is.

From the front entrance people I presume made their way directly to the bar where they were greeted by our wonderful bar staff and a complete list of all that was available for their enjoyment.

And given the length of time they spent in line and the beautiful weather outside, many (I’m sure) headed directly to the bathroom to freshen up.  There they found baskets with various odds and sods to help them on their way, as well as more poetry.

Drink and appetizer (didn’t get any but heard they were delicious) in hand guests were encouraged to head on in and find their seats.  An alphabetical list of names and corresponding tables was at the end of the guest table, as well as a seating map, (Sorry no picture of the map – I was overzealous in my throwing away post-wedding and didn’t think to take a picture of it first!)

The tables were named after all things the Boy and I love (besides each other of course – barf). I may have stolen the idea from my cousin Stacey’s wedding but ours were less lovey, zen and peaceful (like her) and more alcohol, sports and knitting related (like us)!

Can you tell which tables belonged to whom?

• Kiki and Denba
• Lucky Cans
• Steamwhistle
• Toronto Maple Leafs
• Anthropologie
• Sugar Maple
• Richmill Farm
• Urban Farmers
• Western Mustangs
• The Twenties Roar
• Birdie
• The Color Purple
• Come Here Often?
• Hand Dyed Yarn
• Muscle Beach

Inside was a whole lot more orange and gray… we’ll get there, next week.