Who knew that Mr A was such a keen assembler of bunting? That Mum was perfect at bringing pompoms back to life that had been sitting in banana boxes for months? That my best friend had such a steady hand when it came to retracing my pencil lines with brush and paint?
I would never have found out had we not decided to take care of all decorations ourselves. We never actually considered hiring a wedding planner and/ or decorator and had basically three locations to take care of: the location of the ceremony, the reception area and the hall where dinner was going to be served and the party was going to happen.
As with all things planning, I threw myself head over heels into the task of searching the internet for ideas (Pinterest and Instagram along with blogs). Doing so, I quickly realised that I would have to make decisions due to the sheer amount of possibilities there are.
I decided on colours, Mr A said they would look stupid. I argued and whinged – and in the end we agreed on a different colour scheme. Who knew I could be so diplomatic?
Once the basics had been discussed, I began drafting the templates for our stationery. Starting with invitations (save-the-date notifications went out via email), then moving on to menu cards, table numbers and so on.
Having a rather big room bare of any decorations except for two chandeliers was a more than welcome challenge. Early we had decided on bunting and I’d bought a whole car full of banana boxes filled with pompoms from another bride. We were very pleased with how it ended up looking.
We wanted the centrepieces to be different and not too big (so that there would be enough room for food on the table). In the end we decided on two vases with flowers, two glass jars with (real) candles and a big Weck jar with fairy lights – along with the table number in the standard IKEA Tolmsby frame (the tables were named after the favourite destinations Mr A and myself have visited together).
As guest favours we had lemon-thyme salt and lavender sugar (thyme and lavender from my parents’ and our neighbour’s gardens) which we placed on the tables.
*** All photos by the uber-talented and lovely Barbara P. Photography ***
