Wedded bliss

My sister Rachel got married on Saturday to the love of her life: James Bond.  

The priest made copious 007 jokes during his homily.

It was a glorious wedding.  I did a great deal of the photography, which was easy.  Shooting beautiful pictures of my sister and her groom was a bit like shooting fish in a barrel.

Now that the bride and groom have a disc of proofs, the mother of the bride has seen the pics, and the mother of the groom has a disc of pics on the way to her, I feel free to share a few with you lovely people.

Rachel and James are two of the most prayer filled people I know.  They worked hard to fill their wedding with prayer and thanksgiving, meaning, and beauty.  They succeeded marvelously.

I'm just a little bit proud of Rachel's bouquet, since I made it and got it to cascade every bit as much as she'd been hoping for. Here's a closer picture:

Around the ribbon, we put a rosary and a medal of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of marriages.  There was another St. Nicholas medal inserted into James's boutteniere. The medals were a gift from Tammy Hemmerle, who also did a smashing job with the choral solos.

Rachel had 19 different musicians and singers singing parts and/or playing piano, violin, flute, bohdran, and bagpipes.  I hope I'm not forgetting an instrument.  It was beautiful, despite several of the musicians having just met each other that morning for practice.

Rachel had a small horde of flower girls.  Half of them helped with her chapel length veil, and the other half scattered rose petals before her.  However, their main task was to look ridiculously adorable.

They did this with enthusiasm and panache.

My favorite part of this picture is the little flower girl who is hugging Rachel's train.  She's keeping it from getting dirty trailing on the ground, but you can tell how much she adores it.  The little girls loved Rachel's outfit, particularly the veil which I think they regarded as a particularly beautiful toy.

A couple more pictures of flower girl cuteness:

She's listening attentively to Rachel and James singing a duet.  They sang "Set Me As a Seal" to each other, and to dedicate their marriage to the Holy Family.  I cried behind my camera.  It was just so beautiful.  It was James's idea, which is a little surprising, as it's such a Rachel-ish thing to do.

I love it when guys are so in love, they simply can't hold their beloved's hand with just one hand.  Only holding with both hands will do.

The wedding party looked pretty smashing too.

and, of course, a good time was had by all.

Wedding sneak peek

My sister is getting married the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
Due to a volunteering spirit and a love of large scale craft projects, I have been, am, or will be, the invitation designer, centerpiece creator, project coordinator, florist, prop maker, and official photographer, not to mention little odds and ends projects, like the cake topper, hairpins for the flower girls, and a spot of sewing on the dress itself when the seamstress went temporarily insane and did everything to my sisters dress except what she wanted done.

I bit off just enough to make myself completely crazy trying to get it all done.

However, it's worth it.  My sister is more precious to me than words, and the projects are finally coming together in a beautiful, memorable, and meaningful way.

Today, we decorated the reception hall.  It's really, really good to see large projects come together, like the "Picture Wall".

A total of nine people have put in hours of their time to make this set piece for the reception.  It's a large wall, with holes cut into it, so that people can pose behind it for a "framed" portrait.

The cream on cream "wall paper" is actually a repetitive stencil pattern that took way too long, but looks beautiful anyway.

We made it in two 4x8' sections with removable triangle legs, to make it easy to transport and store.  The frames around the portrait holes and the baseboard are glued on with liquid nails.

We only glued the frames on last night, so I've never seen it completely together until today.

After we got the picture wall together, we hung the wedding portraits of parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and one great-great-grandmother.

I love that we can take pictures of our current family and friends, surrounded by so much history and love.  I also love that all of the couples pictures were/are married for 25 years or more.  In this family, "till death do us part" has been both a fact and a promise.

The picture wall wasn't the only way we got creative with frames.

This is the bride helping assemble a backdrop made of frames that we installed behind the sweetheart table.

We bought wooden thrift-store frames, took out the glass, then stretched fabric in them the same way you stretch a canvas.

Then we hung them using twine and eye screws.

I love the clean blocks of color.  They look so modern, but at the same time have the perfect vintage charm the bride loves.

Here's what the centerpieces look like:

I love the red of the sumac.  It's so deep and rich.

One last pic:

I debated about including this, but it's just too darn cute.

Sometime soon, I'll post a tutorial both for the picture wall, which was darn hard, and for this kind of readymade cake topper, which is sinfully easy.

The fruits are prickly pears.  We couldn't find any real pears that were the right (small) size, so we got these because they're hilarious.  And they kind of look like Mr. and Mrs. Potato-head.

PS. Happy Thanksgiving!