Decking the Halls...the Cultural Hall

It's Thanksgiving week in America (one of my favorite weeks of the year!), but it's wedding week here on the blog! It's fitting because one of my greatest blessings this year was meeting David, falling in love, and getting married in the temple! It was not on my Bingo card for any of that to happen this year, but it did, and I'm very thankful for those blessings.

After exploring our options, we decided to do an open-house style wedding reception at one of our local church building cultural halls (a.k.a., the church gym!). I asked my talented friend Shelly, who is so creative and highly capable of doing anything and could be a professional event planner, to help me plan it. We did our best to turn the cultural hall into a wedding wonderland! I think it turned out really well, and David and I enjoyed our open house reception a lot. Especially David, who hadn't even wanted to have one!

These pictures were taken by me, David, and a few others. I plan to put my favorites from the photographer's pictures in a separate post.

Shelly, Sharalyn, Beth, Mom, David, and I met at the church the day before the wedding to set up.

First, we did the biggest thing: stringing up the tulle and lights for the homemade canopy to give the space a more intimate, tent-like feel. The tulle was more sheer than we wanted, but it turned out nice. It looked like several very long bridal veils!

I borrowed the bistro lights from two friends and used my own white Christmas lights. The effect turned out really nicely once it was all done and raised up.

And they're up! It worked! And nothing fell down! 😅

While we finished up with the canopy, Beth and Shelly worked on unfurling the fall-themed table runners.

We set out lots of tables and chairs.

And then put on the tablecloths, runners, and candles.

Here we are practicing being photographed under the arch. We looked a lot better at the same time and place the next day!

Shelly returned that night and did the finishing touches. She made everything look beautiful.

Part of the food table, and the backdrop for it (to help cover up the doors behind it).

The favors table. We did cute little honey jars with the honey we harvested together from David's hives.

The rest of these pictures are from the next day—our wedding day—a little while before the open house started. Everything looked so lovely!

Let them eat cake!

The wedding cake was two flavors: lemon with a raspberry filling and carrot. We also had marble and chocolate from two big sheet cakes.

One tier left! We brought that one home, froze it, and are going to have it as one of our Thanksgiving desserts this week!

The gift table

I love this picture that Beth took just before the open house began! It's the bride in her element. 😄

It was all so lovely! There are very few things I would change about it. We were both happy, and I think everyone who attended (around 150 people) enjoyed it!