{our wedding: the decor}

When we set out to create all the decor for our wedding, we tried to remind ourselves not to get caught up going overboard with decorations.  This was mostly because we didn't want to take away from the beauty of our venue and partly because it is so easy to get carried away making things that some weddings can end up looking like a craft explosion.   

Chris and I picked a color scheme of grey, white and mint  green with pops of gold, black/white stripe and kraft paper- basically I took all my favorite things and threw them together.  People always try to give wedding color schemes a name (vintage modern, rustic chic, etc)- quite honestly I couldnt tell you what our focus was other than Chris didn't want it to be too girly and we didn't want to absolutely hate our choices in 10 years.  

For the ceremony, we kept the decorations to a minimum since guests would only be in that area for 30 or 40 minutes.  We put all of our effort into a ceremony backdrop since that is where all the focus would be.  We created the strips that make up the backdrop "curtain" out of crepe paper which we fringed- following this tutorial.  Each guest's seat had a program and fan with our custom crest on it since it was going to be solid 90 degrees during the ceremony.  We also asked our caterer to set up a refreshment table so that our guests could stay hydrated in heat.  I made some small labels for each drink dispenser and a dove grey braided garland for the front of the table.

The cocktail hour was held in the back of the estate around the smaller of the two pools.  Lets all just take a second and be honest here- the cocktail hour is really only about the drinking- maybe a little bit of chit chatting with people you haven't seen in a while, gossiping with old friends or debating the bride's dress choice, but mainly it is about getting a cocktail in hand as fast as possible.  With that in mind,  we mostly focused the decor for the cocktail hour on the bar.  

I created a huge bar menu sign to alert guests to their options for the evening (tutorial on how to create that sign coming next week!).  I adorned the bar with multi colored braided fabric garland, festive drink stirrers & custom cocktail napkins.  The cocktail tables sprinkled around the pool each got their own little succulent from our garden.  Alongside the pool we set up a mini croquet course and created another large wood sign to designate the area.  Floating around in the pool were two enormous inflatable swans which I thought served as a great reminder to our guests that we weren't taking our wedding too seriously.

The reception was held in the largest area of the estate next to the enormous main pool; dancing was a concrete circle in the center of it all and dinner was spread across the expansive lawn area covered in palm trees. It is surely not news to anyone that Chris and I love to entertain in our home so the dinner area was very important to us as well as overall vibe of our wedding.   

The Cree Estate technically works best with round tables because of the large lawn area for dinner is uneven, but I really wanted to have the dramatic look of long dinner tables put end on end creating a seemingly endless dinner party.  We set the tables with long runner of kraft paper topped with another thinner runner of black/white striped fabric.  We accented the place settings with custom table number napkins (diy post on those next week too!), gold flatware, a custom menu and gold chargers.

Above the dance floor we hung over 100 feet of triangle fringe garland (tutorial here) and alongside the DJ booth,  we set up the photobooth with another large wooden sign.  Across from the dinner and dancing, there was a private gazebo above the main pool where we set up Chris' cigar and whiskey tasting area.  This area became a very probably place to be late in the evening and since it was complete with several different whiskeys, bourbons and an array of cigars, it isn't hard to see why!

In addition to our traditional wedding cake, we ordered an array of desserts including mini donuts and mini cupcakes.  The dessert table was set up with my ridiculous collection of cake stands and milk glass glass containers to house all the various flavors of dessert.  On the front of the table hung a huge fringed tissue "sweets" sign created by my bridesmaids (tutorial on that one coming next week as well!)

{all images via EPLove}

next up tomorrow: all the little details