We were married in a beautiful
historic building in downtown Vancouver. Even though The Academy is
beautiful on its own, I still wanted to add some "Wack touches". My mom,
sisters, and I spent a lot of time planning the decorations for the
ceremony, measuring the altar, measuring the length of the aisle,
counting candles...you name it, we talked about or planned for it.
I
thought I would share some photos taken of our wedding day site, many
of these photos are from friends and family members as I didn't think to
ask our professional photographer to take pictures of the decor.
The
aisle was lined with fall leaves on vines and at every other pew was a
lantern with a battery operated candle inside. Loose leaves were also
scattered along the entire aisle. I found all the leaves on Craigslist
for $20! The gal I bought them from also used them for her wedding.
On
either side of the sanctuary are two alcoves where typically "rental
arrangements" are used by brides. We tried to come up with our own
"window display", so we wouldn't have to rent arrangements from The
Academy. We came up with a fall display using lanterns, vases, tree
branches from Mom and Dad's yard, and fall leaves. A couple of the
stands for the lanterns were indoor plant containers turned upside down.
In the end, we spent a little more than if we had rented, but we get to
keep everything!
I was very happy with the way the bouquets turned out. The arrangements were more burgundy, than what the picture above shows, and each bouquet was tied with a light pink ribbon.
My wrist corsage was made by my friend Ali's mom. She made my two wrist
corsages for my high school junior and senior proms, so it was special
to have her make my wedding corsage.
Here is a picture after the ceremony with my bridesmaids and their bouquets. Don't they look great?!
Look
at all those programs my family and bridesmaids were lucky enough to
help me fold and tie a ribbon around! Kelsey really was the brains
behind the program, she took my vision and made it happen on the
computer.
A
special touch was added to the altar, by my mom, without me knowing it.
She placed special stones with words like Hope, Trust, Love on them,
around the base of the Unity candle (candle seen above in the center of
picture). I noticed them as soon as we lit the Unity candle during the
ceremony, it was so sweet of her to do that!
The
stones are now mixed in with decorative rocks which surround candles
placed inside a round plate that is displayed in our home throughout the
year.
While planning the ceremony decor, I didn't want to keep the look and feel just inside the sanctuary. We broke a rule by placing decorations on the stairs leading up to the sanctuary! We placed Mason jars on every other stair. A fall leaf and a fall foliage piece were tied to each jar with raffia. Inside was another fake candle.
I just wish I had a picture of how the stairs looked; I only have a small snippet of it on video!
Also as guests came up the stairs, they saw a small display inside an alcove. My guess is this space used to be windows, but have since been closed off. We placed a photo of Evan and I from a few months before the wedding along with a bronze believe sign, fall leaves, and a lantern.
Close-up
of some of the candles afterward, you can see they were all placed on a
brown runner made especially for the altar. Another believe sign was
placed among the candles, it was given to me as a shower gift.
There
was so much to set up in the few hours we had, that we couldn't have
done it without our fantastic family members and friends.