A Saturday Wedding - Part 2

My friend was getting married, a small service and a big party and she asked me if I would dress the venue for her.......of course! I'd love to!

It wasn't to be a difficult task as she had spent most of the year collecting and making things so it was just a case of pinning it all up. Her theme was her Nana and it was to have lots of things for the children to do as it was mostly families that had been invited.
We prayed for a sunny day.

We broke the whole experience down into parts. A while ago we visited the venue which when booked was in a sore state but was undergoing renovations - but not really the room she had booked. We looked on the bright side and made a plan of action and stuck to it.

Further meetings we looked at pictures and got a feel for the theme and looked lovingly at all the bits that she had collected and finally last week we went down to an un renovated venue and made a plan of where everything was to go.

Luckily for us African Theme Night had been cancelled on the Friday night so the bride, her friend and I were able to get in there with our cleaning products (really I am not kidding!) our drawing pins and blue tack and set forth changing shit into gold.

No formal wedding cake required here thank you

Cake Stall

The groom ironed EVERYTHING but he is a smart Essex boy so I'd expect nothing less.

Small children used these as weapons on the day

Friends made cakes and buns galore!

P blows through these like she is hyperventilating!

If it didn't move it was on a doily

Home made bunting

Balls for outdoor play

What a beauty in her big fat knitted gown

All finished the night before

I came in the morning with my yard broom and swept outside and made sure that the bits to go in the public area were put out and noticed that none of the staff had bothered to lock the fire escape so the whole place had been open to vandalism the whole night. We were very lucky it was all still in one piece in the morning.

I thought that it looked lovely.

Lessons learned.
Try and book your venue the day before - less stress - there was no way I could have done this on my own on the day of the wedding.
I will never offer to do this again. This was the least stressful situation but looking back on it I feel terrified but maybe that is the delayed reaction.


Stay tuned for what it looked like after guests and children arrived!
CM