Reception Rembered- Chuppah

If you aren't Jewish, you are likely asking me, what the hoopa is a chuppah? Well, it is the canopy that a couple gets married under during the ceremony. One year ago I knew the full meaning, but now I seem to only remember something about symbolizing a new roof being raised as a new couple  and  surrounded by family.... I guess it is time for a rewatch of Fiddler on the Roof.  A traditional chuppah looks like this ---->




While scouring pinterest I came across this beautiful ribbon canopy and I fell in love!! It was everything I wanted to make a romantic statement at my reception.

See? This is breathtaking. Who wouldn't want this? I guess the real question is who would be INSANE enough to try to build this? Oh, AND make it free-standing so that we can use it to decorate receptions in separate states? I guess I was. Idiot.




This project took a whole army of brain power and effort.  My dad, brother and Carl Hurst were working on the design- they built the frame out of PVC pipe and used re-bar in the grass to stand it up. I was scouring DI for colorful sheets (light material that would hang) and then my mom, Lorraine and Janae Denney helped cut strips and sew strips of cloth for hours!! We used random fabric, sparkly Christmas tablecloths, Little Mermaid bedsheets, other sheets and left over tablecloth fabric to make the strips. My sweet mom sewed sleeves to fit over the PVC pipe out of the material. It took my mom and I hours to untangle and arrange set it up and then some of the strips started shedding and we went though and cut all the little fabric hairs off the flowing fabric. It was a never ending nightmare. I called Ashlee, Martha and KR in early to help set things up and they cut fabric hairs off and draped shiny bead strands for another hour. After all, it turned out BEAUTIFUL!!  Wedding guests waited beneath the canopy chuppah to get to the receiving line.  We even took the beautiful disaster to our California open house and set it up in the front yard as the entry to the house for guests. It was SO much work!!! But it was so memorable for me, for all of our family. Even though we didn't get married beneath it, I will still call it a chuppah because it was indeed my family raising a beautiful roof to for the start of our new life. We are so lucky to have such supportive families!

Remembering Our Wedding Reception- NAILED IT!

Since we are coming up on our year anniversary I thought I would work on a project that I've been meaning to do for a while. Nobody probably cares about this but I would like it for my own indulgence and might provide a laugh for those who helped me create a DIY wedding on a small wedding budget. Sort of in the spirit of "nailed it' diy pinterest gems. Some things I loved and some things I could've done without and most things our children will mock us for even considering.  Here we go. . .

COLORS:
We couldn't decide on wedding colors, the ones I picked out at age 15 didn't seem to fit me anymore. So I went with multiple colors because it would be colorful and I thought it would make it easier to match things with multiple options. Ultimately, I was inspired by this book from the DI and it became the color palette.

We chose not to have bridesmaids or groomsmen and we had each of our siblings' families pick a color and dress/accessorize in their color. I like what it added to our family photos.
 

Cherece's family wore light purple, Marlon's dark green, Marci's and Kia's dark purple and Sherri & Bob wore orange.

Bobby's family wore pink, Nathan's red, Cindi dark blue, Hilmans and Ed & Marie wore light blue.

TABLES:  I wanted colorful tables, insipred by this pinterest photo, I ordered colors and patterned fabric to put on top of white tablecloths from fabric.com, mostly amy butler prints. My mother thought I was crazy, but I think it turned out well. We got plain white hydrangeas from sams club for the table flowers and we put some things that reflect our interests and photos with flowers as centerpieces.  Now I have throw pillows on my couch from the fabric and some yards still left for more projects.

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BACKDROPS: Our reception was in the Hurst's backyard- it was SO beautiful! It really didn't need any decorating- in retrospect I did too much. But because it was a backyard there were some places that needed a little extra touch. . like the vegetable garden turned backdrop, the really hot cement pad best suited for dinner and the basement stairs. In the end the weather cooled down and the backyard bloomed like the Garden of Eden- i didn't have to worry about a thing.  Here are some pinterest inspirations and my interpretations:

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My mom made these signs of reclaimed wood (freshly reclaimed from the barn dad tore down the week before) to fancy up the vegetable garden they exceeded my expectations! And we still have the Grow Old one to put in our house or garden someday. 

Here is what we did to attempt to shade the hot cement pad where the tables were placed. I bought sheets from IKEA and my sister Marci and my dad dyed them gray and red. Dad draped these from the roof to the fence wt It was such a relief when my parents and sister arrived to help with wedding preparations- THANK YOU!!

 

I was looking for a way to display photographs and cover up the outside stairwell you pass from the serving area to get to the tables. We zip tied a 2x4 to the railing and then strung twine from the 2x4 to the pillar at the top of the stairs, from the top line we hung crepe paper and then ran the length of the crepe paper streamer behind the twine and clipped our photographs with clothespins to the twine. We had decided to not do this due to time but I decided the night before that I wanted to do it. Conveniently, Jeff got locked out of where he was staying the night before the wedding so I had help and we stayed up late cutting and taping streamers.  Ashlee, Monica, KR and Martha went after the wedding ceremony and printed the photos and then assembled this steamer photo wall in the sun at the hottest time of the day right before the reception. I absolutely LOVED this feature in our wedding!

GUESTBOOK:  I didnt want a guest book we'd never look at so we borrowed this idea from pinterest, found a great template on shutterfly and used our favorite pictures from our engagement photo session.  We love this book and I think it was a good way to entertain our guests while they were waiting for the receiving line.