We had a wonderful crew to decorate the Hall for the wedding! Auntie Nae, Noni, Aunt K, Aunt J, Uncle S and Aunt J, F's family, one of the bridesmaids and her mom and brother, and two of the groomsman all came to help! We were SO thankful for all the help because we had a big task in front of us of transforming the Hall into a winter wonderland!
I had been gathering things for months and getting them organized into bins. I had all my plans and lists of things to do when we got there. Then we arrived and brought everything in and it was all piled in the center and I couldn't figure out where to start. :P I finally got it sorted out and was able to give direction and all our happy elves got busy making the vision come to life!
The first order of business was a VBS inspired wall of paper, lights, and fabric as a backdrop to the ceremony. Daddy, Auntie Nae, and Uncle S tackled that with some help from a few others.
Unfortunately I apparently messed up when ordering the fabric because there were supposed to be 18 swoops to the center of the ceiling but only 6 of the fabrics pieces were long enough. It still looked nice and probably ended up working out for the best because I think 18 would have been too much weight for this drop ceiling.
Auntie K brought a wooden chandelier that she and I had made for their old house years ago. They recently moved and didn't have room for it in the new house. She asked if I wanted it and I instantly thought of the wedding! It was the perfect centerpiece for the ceremony spot!
We had a whole crew fluffing trees for over an hour. I think we ended up with 19 Christmas faux trees of various sizes, and 6 wooden ones.
One of my favorite decorations was this arch over the doorway. Auntie Nae brought a whole bin of real evergreen sprigs, and a metal archway to attach them to. She zip tied the branches to the arch and then got called over to help with the ceiling fabric so Aunt K and Auntie J took over and put lights up along with stems and flowers. I loved how it turned out and people kept adding to it so it was fun that it was a group effort!
The Hall has cork board strips on all the walls because they don't want people tacking things up and putting holes in the wall so my friend S and I figured out a way to make them look nice by attaching cheesecloth and flowers. Aunt K helped me put them up.
Meanwhile, while we were decorating, Grandma R, S, and A were all at her house baking up 150 cinnamon rolls! F doesn't like cake so they decided to have cinnamon rolls instead. S made this giant roll to be used in their "cake" cutting. :)
Also elsewhere, Auntie K and Uncle A had taken all the kids to visit Mama and have lunch with her which was SO helpful! They would have been quite busy and disruptive in the midst of all the decorating chaos. :) They had a great time playing together!
And Mama enjoyed the company too!
How often do you get to have lunch with your 5 youngest great grandkids?! :)
They came back at about 1 and we were still working hard so Auntie K and Aunt J started helping and Uncle A was the hero of the day and took the kids to the park and the store, and just generally kept them busy while we finished. SO nice!
I found out that Auntie J had previous experience with keeping large quantities of hot chocolate warm in her cheerleading days so I put her and Uncle S in charge of the hot chocolate bar!
Happy bride!
And happy helpers!
I can't imagine how long it would have taken without all this help!
We stopped for a quick pizza break at lunch and then it was right back to work!
T brought his rolling scaffolding to make install quicker. It would have taken so much longer if we'd had to use ladders!
It was so fun to see it start to come together!
Mrs. C made stickers with K and F on them to put on the hot chocolate cups so Aunt J, Auntie Nae, and a few others stuck them on all 200 cups!
The happy couple!
Once we had all the decorations in place we were able to set up the tables and chairs. I think we set up 138 chairs and even though we only had 105 RSVP, the next day every chair was full and we had to overflow into the reception area!
We actually ended up fitting in three more tables than I was anticipating, but we had enough decorations and ended up needing every seat so it worked out perfectly!
There is no way to say thank you for all the help, but I will say it anyway...thank you thank you thank you to everyone who worked so hard and helped us make a beautiful wedding for K and F! We truly could not have done it without you and are SO SO thankful for such a wonderful and supportive family!!!
Next up: rehearsal dinner!
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