Ceremony decor and details

All photos by Edmund Moon of Daily Thousand Words Photography

From the beginning I was set that our ceremony have lots of candles and rose petals lining the aisle. I went back and forth about having other flowers. My thought was unless the arrangements were going to be recycled later on for the reception there was no point in investing a huge amount from the budget on large ceremony arrangements. So we went with a very simple decor which was fine since the room at the Four Seasons had an elaborate chandelier and the rich wall treatments.

To save money I sourced all the candle and glass online and spent  a lot of time researching which vendor had the best price. Ultimately I sourced all the pillar candles from Dining by Candlelight and got the best deal on their chamber pillars, which are slightly thinner than regular pillars but give the same overall look at a lower price. The glass I sourced from HJK Imports a glass wholesaler based in California. Since the glass was so inexpensive there were inconsistencies in the quality and thickness so  I was lucky to have ordered more glass containers then we actually used. However, there prices was so unbelievable that I still realized a huge cost saving over renting the glass from my florist. For votives and tea lights I sourced them from IKEA , Michaels, and ebay. Ikea by far has the best price on votive and tea light glass holders. 

On the alter of candles we had a sheer runner and a cross that Roosevelt inherited from his grandmother. The cross was one more way we could incorporate something from our grandparents into the wedding.

My aisle runner as talked about in an earlier post was from Bell Creation.

In each chair we laid out the programs. I slaved for two weeks on the programs and I think I made them more overly complicated than they needed to be. In looking back I would have gone with a simpler, less time intensive program. But guests did tell me they loved them. I got inspiration from a picture on Project Wedding and when I could not find the enclosure I had in my mind I decided to make it. Cutting, scoring, and folding the enclosures was the longest part of the process.

I tied in our mantra of "Love is Simple, Love is kind" onto the belly band on the program.

Photo by me.

The pages which were printed on text weight shimmer paper were held in the enclosure with a pink ribbon. We had a simple program which had the wedding party, order of ceremony, words of gratitude, in remembrance, and an excerpt from the Velveteen Rabbit.

Here is our word of gratitude:

Your presence here adds greatly to our joy and happiness on this day.  We thank you for the many gestures and words of support and encouragement that you have extended to us over the course of our Engagement. We ask that God bless and enrich your lives with joy and love as much as you have enriched ours with your friendship and generosity.

Here is the excerpt from the Velveteen Rabbit we used :

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, Because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."