The Making of a Wedding Part V ...slideshow and how to's - so you too can create a wedding day to remember

This is Part V of The Making of a Wedding which took place in 2013 and which we as a family made completely including all the food, flowers, bouquets, invitations,tables, benches, ceremony platform just everything and I am showing you some of the items we made and how we made them over 6 months 

My Husband cut pieces of discarded PVC pipe and I sprayed them bright white to use as 'pillars' to sit large Boston Ferns on to decorate the Ceremony Platform and either side of there front porch steps where the buffet will be served ..to make sure they didn't fall down each one was filled with dirt to the top 

I found these gorgeous gift tag downloads on Pinterest and printed them out then glued them on to stock card , punched a hole, clipped each corner with decorative scissors and we tied each one with green victorian curly ribbon around the rims of the drinking mason jar glasses so that each guest could identify their glass by the design on the tag 

I had this old window in the basement for years so I spray painted it the wedding chosen colors of green and wrote in white 'All because two people fell in love" then glued on some of the limelight hydrangeas we had dried ...this was to hold photo's of the engagement of the couple and would be put next to the refreshments that were being served from the back of our 1951 Ford Pick Up Truck 

I used nearly 100 yards of this 'Hug Snug' seam binding ..purchased on eBay.com and to crinkle it you just slightly spray it with water then scrunch it up in your hands and your fingers squeezing it hard and repeating a few times as it dries ..it looks like Victorian ribbon ..we used it on these favor bags and we wrapped the silverware (cutlery) with it once we had wrapped them in French Paper Doilies ...
We also attached the gift tags mentioned above around the rims of the mason jar drinking glasses 

We made all of the cutlery (silverware) up and ready to put on the tables a few months before and then carefully packed them in boxes and sealed it so that they stayed nice and clean

We bought pound and pounds of mixed lightly salted nuts and as you can see here, Jaime gave them a good mix then we filled up mini mason jars with them and labeled them with our own specially designed and printed labels saying ' We're nuts about each other' and these were added to the other favors in the guests favor bags 

As we were going to serve four different kinds of Homemade chili's and 6 flavors of Homemade Cornbread from the 'Chili Station' ..Jaime ordered from Etsy.com some bibs that had their names on and said 'Marriage is Messy' on them ..these also went in the guest's favor bags 

Jaime made up this very cute basket of items to put in the guest bathroom just incase they needed something ...she put so much thought in to it and it looked wonderful and welcoming along with flowers and a lovely soy candle burning 

Here are just some of the labels I designed, printed and a used for the buffet ...I glued these food labels to 12" bamboo sticks (that are available at your craft store or online) and they could be stuck in to the food or in upturned apples, oranges etc to mark what is what in the foods for your guests 

Glass cookie jars that lay on their sides for me to put in my homemade Wedding Cookies and Oreo Balls 

Home made 'reserved' signs to attach to the side of the first two rows of benches in the ceremony area for immediate family and the wedding party to sit down 

Next time I will give you the menu and some of the recipes for the cook ahead and freeze food (all homemade from 2 months before ) for a number of approximately 80 guests

Only the Pork loins in cream sauce had to be cooked on the day and they were put in to two large crock pots at 6am and cooked on their own till needed at 2pm for the wedding reception ..

The chill's were previously frozen then taken out on the morning of the wedding and put in to huge chili pots (Pasta Pots) and put on 4 electric element's that we had purchased on a very low heat so they were thawed and wonderfully hot for the reception

It all worked to perfection and tasted wonderful ...we did commondeer our neighbors refrigerator for the big day