It's time for some recaps! It took longer than expected to get all the photos gathered up. We hired a photographer, but you may have noticed we had a few friends with fancy cameras as well, and I couldn't go on without the whole lot at my finger tips. After sorting thru the 3,500+ photos and having a new found love for mobile me, I'm ready for some sharing!
Chris and I went home a week before our wedding day and the week became a whirlwind of activity and sprinkled with a few hiccups. One of which was the weather forecast, which toyed with me by having conflicting reports of rain, sun, and down pour on each of the three weather apps I downloaded!
We spent the first day and a half settling in, then decided to visit our reception site, a converted barn, one the evening. The first thing we did was throw out our lighting ideas. The barn had been in the process of being remodeled during our previous visits, so this was the first time we were seeing the final product. With all the light and fan fixtures up, there just wasn't much room or many plugs left for any romantic strings of light, or big clusters of paper lanterns. It made me sigh to forgo our lighting ideas, but the string lights that were already lining the roof of the barn would still be a beautiful back drop for our photos. Besides, there was a bigger snaffoo to deal with.
While I told the owner months ago we wouldn't be using his chairs or round tables he owned, and he always responded 'whatever you want', we found he wasn't quite as helpful as he led us to believe. If we didn't want to use his tables and chairs (see photo above) we had to remove them from the space ourself - down two flights of stairs - or pay up big time. This came out of no where. With no time to spend arguing, we had no choice but come back the next day clear out the barn. Luckily two of the men who worked on the farm helped us out with a fork lift (after an hour or two of hauling chairs) so we only lost an afternoon and not the entire day. It was a set back for sure, but, with days to go, we had to do what we had to do!
As though I wasn't having enough heart palpitations already, we also discovered the barn had been.. well.. 'seasonally' decorated with two giant rocking horses to boot. And the decorations didn't stop inside; they spilled onto the entire front lawn. I can't say I ever anticipated having scarecrows at my wedding. I was told they were in the process of cleaning up from a party the owner had the weekend before, so I thought - ok maybe later in the week the decorations will be gone. A day later not one decoration had moved, so I quickly emailed the owner and just flat out asked for it all to be put away, down to the haystacks. After all, we just lost half a day clearing his barn out. On our next visit most of the decor was gone, but some friends did scale a wall to take down a plastic horse that was clearly not budging.
The space was ready for our garden chairs and long banquet tables to arrive and our floor plan had been drawn up and ready for weeks. The candles and mason jars that would decorate the tables were waiting in their boxes. We had set our lighting ideas aside and accepted the space wouldn't be as decorated as we had hoped. The barn was on it's way to becoming something presentable, but would it become a beautiful reception space? I had my doubts.
One good thing that happened - our kitty was the best traveler ever! We brought her home with us and she didn't freak out at the airport when we had to remove her from her carrier and she didn't make a single peep on the plane! When we got her to my family's house she was so curious about her surroundings she explored every inch, and by the time we left she had made friends with my mother's kitty. Phew! One thing was going better than expected!
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