I can't believe it has been 2 months since I have done a blog post. Seriously my life has been 24/7 wedding. Thinking about my daughters wedding, working on things for the wedding, and praying that everything turns out just perfect for her. I have to admit I worried about it so much I almost made myself sick, and now am just elated at how it turned out. The perfect backyard garden wedding...it was like a fairytale.
This post is going to mostly show the decorating...as the pictures come back from the photographer I realize there is way too many for one post and this post is meant to be inspiring. It can be done! I may have been a doubter at times myself but you can have an amazing wedding in a small backyard. My daughter had a vision and she made it come true.
Those of you that are familiar with Janae and her decorating know that she does a beautiful job with a lot of mirrors and chandeliers. We brought carloads of her mirrors and chandeliers from her house to our house to use in the wedding. My husband took some vacation time off work and hung all the mirrors and rewired the chandeliers to be able to use them at the wedding. It was worth all the work.
Janae found quotes and things and had me make some chalkboards to set around the wedding. I have to say they looked great!
You can see that there are no candles in the candles holders--that is because it was 97 degrees when we had the ceremony and all the candles melted! Though it was so hot during the ceremony we had water bottles placed everywhere and it wasn't so bad because as soon as the sun went down the temperature was perfect!
Janae and Chantel took all the labels off the water bottles and replaced them with lace tape and jute ties. It looked so pretty!
I was pretty proud of the card holder I made out of a vintage suitcase.
I also was happy with this signing board I made...all of these ideas are things that Janae found on Pinterest.
When Janae came home with a whole lot of flowers she special ordered from Costco I have to admit I may have had a slight panic attack...
But after many hours of arranging them into Ball jars (some painted, some blue, and some wrapped in pretty burlap covers) they were so pretty and everywhere in our house and outside, it smelled like flowers!
The cake was another special part of the wedding decore--made by Janae's cousin, Victoria.
We have so much creative talent in our family...it makes me proud!
Notice the cake topper with 4 Poms on it? Janae had that made through Etsy. I think Victoria could go on one of those cake decorating contest shows--she made those flowers!
The rehearsal was on the thursday night before the wedding on Saturday. That worked out really well because we were really busy on Friday cooking, arranging flowers and generally going nuts trying to get ready. We were lucky the rental company brought all the tables and chairs and so we were able to set up for the rehearsal, other than the flowers, so we really knew how it was going to look. I think it was at this point that we all breathed a little sigh of relief. It was all going to fit and it looked beautiful!
We were able to seat 100 people in our small backyard...yay!
The rehearsal went really well. We then knew Janae's dream wedding was being realized.
Jaxon and Sidney's little niece and Jaxon made the most adorable little ones pulling the dogs down the aisle announcing the bride was coming.
The dogs themselves, who are Janae and Sidney's children, even sat well in the wagon. We had been practicing.
I was so proud of all the kids, human and canine.
After practicing the ceremony we practiced changing the backyard from ceremony to reception seating. I told Janae if we had the guests go in the front for 10 to 15 minutes and go through the receiving line that a small "team" we put together could change it over. I think Janae doubted me. But guess what? We did it!
I painted the chairs at the head table for Janae and Sidney. They sat at the front looking like a King and Queen looking over their kingdom. :) They decided to let their wedding party sit with whoever they wanted too. The dogs were kept in a crib up front, they were the "dogs of honor".
As soon as the photographer (my lovely and talented sister in law, Stacey--I told you our family is so creative!) sends us more pictures I will be posting the wonderful day itself. So stay tuned! In the meantime I will give you a sneak peek of how gorgeous Janae looked on her perfect day.
Thanks for visiting!
