Wedding Day Candy Bar!

So, I know everyone is anxiously awaiting wedding photos, but I need to clear it with the bride, as she hasn't posted any herself. Some things I just think you need permission for, and putting up pictures of someone's special day is one of them! However, I think I can safely share my favorite part of the wedding reception without spoiling anything.

I have done a "candy bar" on a smaller scale at the "Superhero Shower". I love, love the concept-all that candy is playful, it's cheerful, it looks great and it is just generally fun! I had pinned several different versions for ideas onto my Pinterest board for the wedding and I was delighted with the final product!

 I have to say, the first time I saw this display at Party City, it made my heart skip a beat. I really wasn't thinking, or I would have transported candy with me on our trip. However, my sweet, sweet husband, who deals so well with my "eccentricities" sent me several photos, including the one above, and bought candy and carefully transported it via airplane so that I would have perfectly matching aqua candy for my display! The candy came from all kinds of places:

I have to preface with this-the majority of the glass jars and the amazing wooden crates all belong to my mom (a few of the pieces belonged to the church) as well as the red lazy susan in the bottom left corner. She just has the best stuff! Other than those the items came from, by grouping:

1. Left Wooden Crate: ceramic dry erase easel, Hobby Lobby (HL)

Pixy Sticks (we sorted out the colors we needed) Dollar Tree (DT)

Blue candies in square jar-coconut candies from World Market (WM)

Bottom shelf: cherry chocolates-Costco

blue Jelly Bellies, local candy store

all the plastic tongs were purchased at HL

2. Red Lazy Susan: paper bags (hand stamped) HL

assorted red candies (gummy fish, Cherry Sours, etc.) Walmart

blue Sixlets-Party City

metal scoops are from World Market

3. Two-tiered Cake Stand from top down: red and blue gummy bears, PC

raspberry gummies, WM

gummy sharks-the bride's favorite-local candy store

Red Hots-Walmart

4. Sign-Hobby Lobby (stand is my mom's)

cake plate:suckers from PC

5. Wooden Crate right, from top down:

Bob's Peppermint sticks, DT

Laffy Taffy (box of each color) local restaurant supply store

sour cherries, local candy store

 aqua, white and red gumballs, Marshall's

on table:

licorice pinwheels-Walmart

aqua striped cookie sticks, DT

I had SO MUCH FUN putting this together. It was easy to find red candy, the challenge was finding blue. I didn't restrict myself to perfectly matching things, but I did try to stay more towards the aqua/turquoise side of things. Some of my fave finds: the cookie sticks, the gumballs (my sister bought those!) and the gummy sharks. I also loved the tiny paper bags-we stamped them with a simple heart but it added a perfect finishing touch.

The easel read:

"Help yourself, but please be nice,

of other guests, please think twice! Thank you."

 

I got precious few photos of any of the decor, I had to really work with the photos above to lighten them enough that you could see the details! I was so insanely busy putting things together the photos I did get were terrible. I staged everything inside the church, since I was part of the wedding photo, I relied on gracious volunteers to set everything up the morning of. I was glad I got to play around with it and get it just right, though. I snapped this quick photo in case I needed to adjust anything. My sister, Lisa Dawn, made the banners with papers from Hobby Lobby and the little red chalkboard tags were a delightful find at Micheal's.  

 

My sweet flower girl had a hard time deciding how to fill her bag! There were just too many choices. 

I think all the guests had fun. I am glad I got a few photos of it, I am just realizing that there are quite a few things that I missed.:( However, that wasn't the point, it was a celebration of the uniting of two lives, and it was wonderful-with or without photos!

 

I linked up at:

Young and Crafty "Shine on Fridays"

What I've Been Up To

 So, first we did Vacation Bible School. It was craziness, as usual, and I loved every minute of it. We had over 200 kids- a first for our church and a huge praise. We saw over 20 kids come to salvation. Amazing! And because that wasn't enough stress, my sister came down from Tennessee and did VBS...

and then we did this! Two days, five kids, two adults and hundreds of miles to get to Washington for one very important reason:

 this! What's that you say, why are a paint chip, a can of spray paint and a garden gnome so important? Well, they were the color choices for my sister's wedding! What they represent is hours and hours of blood, sweat and tears to put together an absolutely beautiful wedding day for the first of my three younger sisters to get married. Put together a wedding requires:

 text photos of vases from Walmart that you are hoping to gather-you need twenty and the four Walmarts in the area only have six...

 which causes you to drink lots of coffee because you don't drink alcohol-although you may consider doing that more than once! But at least you are in good company (and the Northwest has no shortage of good coffee!) because you have lots more to do than find vases...

which causes you do to plenty of this! List after list-schedules, sizes, stuff, you name it, we had a list for it! But in the end, all of the coffee, lists, and good company produced a memorable, lovely, wedding and many good times were had by all. Let the posts begin!

Hindsight is 20/20

My dear friend Ruth was a very important part of my wedding ceremony, over 5 years ago. Her husband did all the sound and music and also videotaped everything. Well, they were newly married at the time and very busy expecting their first child and my video got set to the side. I actually forgot all about it until they sent it to me in the mail the other day. Wow! What a funny thing, to only have photos and memories and then get a chance to relive everything with sight and sound. First off, I would like to apologize to everyone who attended the ceremony because for some reason unknown to me (or most likely that I just can't remember) everyone was seated and then ended up waiting almost 20 minutes for the ceremony to begin. So very sorry!

However, I got to see some of the neat things all my friends did for me. Someone took care of opening the church. I had a sweet co-worker at the time who took all the pictures. My sister and her friend Heather helped with the decorations. My sister also did my hair and about a million other things. The decorations were just as cute as I remember them being. I can't believe that Jon did all the sound work and video taping free. Then my friend Georgia hosted (and paid!) for the "reception" afterward. Which my sister's mother-in-law hosted in her home! How do you say thank you to all the people that help to make such a special day happen? Why didn't I send them all gift cards?!

However, even though I deserved nothing, they all did what they did without regard as to whether or not it would profit them. I think it is in some ways about paying it forward. I couldn't even find some of those people now if I wanted to thank them. So, I will just have to do my best to return the favor to someone else.

It also showed me that I was as thin as I thought I was-it made me more than a little sad! Josie said I looked like a princess. That is a pretty good compliment from her. I realized my niece was about the same age then that Carson is now. Crazy, huh? Josie actually thought it was her. I also had to laugh when the music I was supposed to walk down the aisle finished as I was mid-way and something else started to play. I am still always late! I had forgotten about that. I also had to laugh when I remembered all the things I did before the ceremony that aren't on the tape. Like shopping with my sister for her dress-nothing like shopping to alleviate stress! Or, going to pick up my flowers at Schnuck's (the grocery store) and Sam's Club. Putting the flowers together for the altar and discovering they didn't fill the vase, and my friend's husband filling a ziploc with water and shoving it in to take up the space-great idea, Jon! Realizing Joel didn't have a boutonniere and giving him the 12th flower from my bouquet of a dozen roses to use. I hope I never get so old that I forget those things. Even with a great video I still have to rely on my own frail memory to remember some things. That's okay because looking back, everything is always prettier, right?