T-9 Hours: 300 Pounds of Fabric

The Stone House, our wedding venue, is lovely. It is also, however, being a recently refurbished stone and wood structure, a little drab. Since gray, brown, and slate weren't our wedding colors it needed a bit of sprucing up. Since poppy, fiesta, and mango instead were our colors, it required quite a bit of sprucing up. This was accomplished primarily through pounds and pounds of technicolor fabric, most of which was all then conjoined together. Here's a list of some of our more prominent decorative items:

Garlands - I think this was initially supposed to just be one strand of our three primary colors of reasonable length. By the time all was said and done it had morphed into three strands of a gradually transitioning three-color-ombre approximately forty feet long a piece. Although I have no idea how the objective changed so much, the result of mission creep was in the end my favorite part of the decor. Most importantly the federal cat inspector, Lettuce, gave it her paws up of approval after multiple rounds of inspection. (As an aside, I am grateful we were able to get the garlands inspected in Sacramento as the Davis cat inspector, our own Planty, typically insists on multiple taste tests. Pagey and Dorian Gray were happy just to sit on it.)

[So, we originally thought the fabric garland would be a cheaper alternative to floral aisle decor. In the end, after multiple fabric shopping trips and dozens of hours, mostly by my mom, cutting strips of fabric, removing strings, and tying the fabric to the garland... nope. It took more money and time than anticipated. We used 16 shades of Kona cotton solid colors as the base, and then added 1-3 "fancy" fabric (shiny, glittery, tulle, satin, chiffon, organza, etc.) for each base color. They turned out gorgeous, but we're not entirely sure what to do with them now.

There was one strand on each side of the aisle, and the third strand was a late addition and a different style. See, the venue originally told me that the patio would be modified so that the parking lot would not be visible, but it soon became clear that they were done modifying and the parking lot was very visible, which greatly displeased me. I started brainstorming visual barriers, which was a challenging and long process with false starts, but in the end we went for draped canvas and, at my mom's urging, another fabric garland with long hanging strips. This created even more work but helped us plug an unsightly gap on the patio and looks great in photos. Also my coworkers enjoyed playing in it.]

Lights - Next to the garlands -- and of course the floral arrangements -- the additional lighting we installed and arranged for the reception were probably the next biggest investment of time and effort. Every pillar, arch, unadorned wall, and sleeping hobo had to have some sort of illumination attached. This was in part due to the fact that bottom floor of the Stone House is usually a dance floor with limited baseline illumination, but also because fairy lights make everything better [and it worked]. We would have light wrapped the Ring Beagle too, but she has a penchant for eating small plastic objects and emergency room visits for swallowed batteries was not written into the wedding program.

Vetrap Gauze - Every table needs stuff put on it -- this is why potpourri exists -- and in the case of weddings, it's table runners and candles the table gods demand. The tables at the Stone House were actually a beautiful natural wood which we really wanted to leave largely unadorned, but nevertheless sacrifices were called for, so sacrifices were made [well, Scooter doesn't realize that table runners and candles are wedding imperatives... but the beautiful wood spared us from needing tableclothes, hallelujah]. Given our science-y / medicine-y / campy-y theme we went with white and brown gauze for table runners and vetrap bows for votive candles. The gauze was complicated a bit by the fact that it turns out gauze manufacturers don't invest a great deal of effort in being consistent with their colors and the vetrap was similarly complicated due to limitations in selection and supply. Like so many of the minor details in decor, though, I'm sure few people noticed, and of those that noticed fewer cared, and of those that cared fewer remember today. And to those remaining few who noticed, cared, and still remember, well thank you for thinking so much about our wedding!

Jello Petri Dishes - Pretty much as they sound. Petri dishes full of jello. Not jello shots 'cause that's just silly, and not Penicillium, 'cause we couldn't find any. Color titration complements of Liz's mom.

Photo Booth - What does one do with over forty feet of multicolored cloth garland? Well, you repurpose it for a photo booth of course. Since photo booths are inexplicably expensive and we had veteran photo booth industrialists in the family, we were able to have others do it on the cheap. The perfect way. Space was limited, though, so in the end the booth got stuck in an awkward corner in the bar. This was further complicated by a somewhat lengthy distance between the camera itself and the video monitor people used to take the photos, and perhaps a bit too much wine on some individuals' parts, such that the picture quality wasn't always great. But, hey, it was one of the few things that didn't go over budget. And that's even counting the 24 karat gold-plated PVC pipes holding the whole structure up.