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When Jill and Colin told us what they wanted to do for their wedding ceremony we were all in! It was so intimate, and creative and THEM! But we did have to check in with them. Since they are the first ‘kids’ to get married amongst all of our friends we knew we would have a lot of people wanting to celebrate them…not to mention extended family!
Jill and Colin had a few requests/rules for their reception. No cutting of the cake, no first dance and no receiving line. Basically they did not want to be the center of attention. Of course the long white dress draws it’s own attention, but I could work with those rules! The other rule was that they didn’t want anything that couldn’t be reused at their reception. Flowers were out for sure! (Well, Jill’s bouquet from the wedding was fair game but no real flowers or greens.) I had to get thrifty about how I acquired most things.
Jill let me run with my creativity. I got to pick the theme and decor and together we picked the food. Of course I had to go with a mountain theme. (You know I LOVE a good theme!) They got engaged on one mountain and married on another. How could I not?!
With all that in mind we set out to find a place that would be easy for everybody to get to and would hold the right amount of people. We ended up choosing Pickering Barn and it was perfect for us. Do I wish that it included more than just the bare bones (it included the facility, tables, chairs)? Yes, especially since I really hadn’t done this sort of thing before. Pulling off a wedding reception has a LOT of details. The biggest detail for having the reception at this location is that we couldn’t get in to the facility until 3:30 because they host a farmer’s market every Saturday in the summer. That meant we were only going to have 2.5 hours to get EVERYTHING set up. All of that worked out, though, because we found some GREAT people to come help manage the set up, take down and maintenance during the party.
I’ll be honest, I did break the rules a bit. The fairy lights were one and done. So were the plates and logo napkins. But most other things could be recycled and used again. I sourced candles off Facebook Marketplace (and they are back on there if you are interested!), made all the map trees from free maps I got from AAA. (Finally my membership is paying off!) We also had a fun set of trivia questions about Jill and Colin and polaroids of some of their favorite mountain pictures.
My in laws, Dean and Wanda made ALL the log rounds for the centerpieces and made my dream cake stands also from log rounds. I only had to send an example of what I wanted and they ran with it. Those really set the tone for the adventure wedding theme and we couldn’t have done it without them!
Speaking of help, I also need to give a shout out to Ellie. She used her excellent graphic design skills to design the logo for the wedding, the invitation, and all of the signage for the reception. How many weddings do you know that have a brand story?!?
One other note…the #carpediem and #getjacked were a little shout out to the beloved grandfathers that were not there in person but definitely there in spirit!
Joelle was also a huge help by making our FAVORITE gluten free cakes. We ordered 29 dozen tiny Bundt cakes for most guests but those of us that suffer through eating gluten free actually got the MUCH BETTER cakes made with love by Joelle. (64 of them to be specific!)
I also want to shout out all the family that helped put all the decor out during our lightening round of decorating before family pictures started. No way we could have done it on our own!
Jill and Colin put together a couple of great song playlists. One for dinner and one for dancing…and boy was there dancing! But only after some wonderful toasts. Lynne and her sisters read a poem about Jill and Colin that had us all laughing. Then Mr. Fun stood up and made a PHENOMENAL (a word he did not have written down but used at least 17 times) toast that took longer than the actual ceremony. (We know because good friends timed it and used that knowledge to poke fun…AS THEY SHOULD!) He had most of us in tears by the end and had Colin sobbing. It was so good!
We had always planned to have a second photographer come to the reception to capture all of the family who was attending the reception. THANK GOODNESS we did considering that we had to forgo quite a few pictures up on the mountain due to covid. Christine from Entwined Portraits did a fantastic job of getting through a HUGE checklist (seriously, Jill made it a checklist so it would be easy to keep track.) of family photos and STILL have time to take a few couple pictures and plenty fo detail pictures. I can’t thank her enough because I just didn’t have time to take those pictures myself!
I’m sure I don’t have to say this but PEOPLE! WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHERS ARE WORTH THE INVESTMENT! NOTHING else from the wedding day will last as long except for your pictures and memories! Okay…getting off my soapbox now.
Here are my favorite family pictures from the day. The Marquis crew was able to get their whole family photographed too and I’m so grateful they got the redo on the pictures! (Aside from the one above I’ll let them post their own pictures though!)
All in all the reception was a blur, but I’ve heard from friends and family who had a great time and Jill and Colin were shining. (And it was just because they were hot and sweaty from all their dancing!) That makes all the hard work 100% worth it! It’s kind of like having a baby. So much excitement before, a lot of hard work in the moment, and then you forget all that and enjoy it all. (And I might even be willing to do this again in another year if called upon!).
Here’s hoping the reception was as happy and joyous as we hope Jill and Colin’s marriage will be!