The BIG Day

madison, in

makeup -- Nikki Moore

florist -- Jo Ann Gripshover

ceremony -- Lanier Mansion

reception -- Livery Stable

DJs -- Bill Eccles and Josh Scroggins

cake -- Marzi Pan Bakery

rehearsal dinner food -- Dave Thomas

rehearsal dinner location -- Old Feed Mill

wedding party entrance -- "All About Tonight" -Blake Shelton

bride & groom entrance -- "At Last" -Etta James

first dance -- "Moondance" -Michael Buble

father/daughter -- "I Still Believe In You" -Steven Curtis Chapman

mother/son -- "Little Wing" -Jimi Hendrix

Rehearsal Dinner

As tradition, we are having a rehearsal and dinner the night before the ceremony. We will meet at the Lanier Mansion and go through the ceremony. I am leery because my dad is the minister and a dear friend of ours, Mike L., is helping out. They are in cahoots with each other and have something in the works. As long as I do not bawl during my wedding, I am cool with their plan.

We are hosting the rehearsal dinner at the historic Feed Mill owned by another good friend.

Our former co-workers at Hanover, Dave and Carol are taking care of the meal. My mom made the table centerpieces.

She got the idea from a wedding she went to about a month ago. It consists of foam box covered with paper and monogramed with a "G". There are crazy sticks stuck in the foam with paper and pictures attached to the ends.

Candles - Memorial & Unity

If you haven't caught on, I have DIY-ed everything I could. I used the internet and research unity candles - pre-made packages as well as DIY. I found that pre-made Unity candles were quite pricey and I was not willing to dish out that much money for something that will be used for such a short time period.

I decided to buy a pillar candle and two tapered candles as well as candle holders. Since we are having an outdoor ceremony, I needed to figure out a method to keep the candles lit.

I went to a wedding a few weeks ago and loved the monogram design on their unity candle so I decided to use the same monogram as our programs for the unity candle. Online I had seen many sites about attaching the monogram using straight pins.....that is easier said than done. It is difficult to push pins through wax as well as to keep them straight or in some sort of pattern.

Therefore I decided to simply keep it as a simple square and attach the monogram with scrapbook tape and beautify it with ribbon.

In regards to the Memorial Candle, I really wanted to order a personalized vase but then I was unsure what would become of that vase after the wedding. I knew one of our mothers would have taken it, but then who do you decide gets to take it!?! So I decided to buy a generic vase to protect the candle and created an image to attach to the candle.

I found a memorial candle template online that I really liked and modified to include our relatives and their dates. I would imagine Nate and I will keep it for our home and burn in. I am going to have a friend move it from the ceremony site to the reception site and place it on the same table as the guest book.

I was pretty proud of my accomplishments, though as a man, Nate was unimpressed!

Wedding Programs

The intention of this blog was to share what I was doing and get some feedback. Intentions are like elbows, everyone has them. I got busy with work and wedding things, so I am posting after the fact.

Being a DIY-er, I made the wedding programs with the assistance of my dear friend JoJo. I ordered more paper from http://www.paperandmore.com/, ordering a metallic pearl lightweight paper and brown cardstock. Again, my mom and I married ideas together for the program. It consists of the brown cardstock background and five pages of information - a title page, memory page, thank you page, order of ceremony, and wedding party.

I printed everything at home and cut it using my handy scrapbook cutter. I then used a single hole puncher and punched two holes at the top of each page, doing my best to line up the holes. (If you ask JoJo, I didnt a horrible job.) We then assembled the pages together and fed a ribbon through the holes and neatly tied it together.

We ended up making about 110 programs, using both brown and blue ribbon.