Vanessa- figmentfan814 ~ Happily Ever Wedding & 10th Anniversary VR Brunch #1 Added 8-10

Vanessa, those posters are amazing! I bet that idea would work for birthday parties, or my brother's high school graduation party...hmmm...:rolleyes1

As for the decorations...you go, girl! I like how you and Kris went ahead and made them yourselves. I can't believe that you made them for 1/10 of the cost of the ones in teh catalogue! :thumbsup2
 
Viking revenge?!!?!?:lmao: These are hilarious!!! I also love the "out of the darkness one"...its so funny because its supposed to be scary, but then there's a cute little innocent turtle in the middle, no sharks...:rotfl2:

I officially love your hubby...he's such a great help with everything. The cardboard stands look great!:thumbsup2
 
Are you freaking kidding me??? Those posters are outrageous!!! What fun! I still like the one of you two in the AAR the best, but I love the one in front of the city, and the Charlies Angels one, and the one one the beach in front of the WP, and....well really all of them. They are sooooo cool! You by the way are an artist. I sooooo could not have made those cut outs myself and yours look great. I can't wait to see more!

Anna Marie
Thanks for the compliments, but I must admit that web site did most the work for me :thumbsup2 I just provided the photos and came up with the text- titles, etc.

Vanessa, those posters are amazing! I bet that idea would work for birthday parties, or my brother's high school graduation party...hmmm...:rolleyes1

As for the decorations...you go, girl! I like how you and Kris went ahead and made them yourselves. I can't believe that you made them for 1/10 of the cost of the ones in teh catalogue! :thumbsup2
I was really impressed by the posters. I think they would be great for all types of events. I did a lot of searching online before I found that site. Being able to purchase the downloads and print them somewhere locally really cut down on the costs.

I've done a lot of events in my professional career, so I knew despite the costs of some of those items they are made out of really basic stuff, so I figured what the heck we might as well give it at try. I'm really pleased at how they came out, especially the cost savings. In fact, the star arches are still in our basement, hopefully we can get use out of them for something else down the road.

Viking revenge?!!?!?:lmao: These are hilarious!!! I also love the "out of the darkness one"...its so funny because its supposed to be scary, but then there's a cute little innocent turtle in the middle, no sharks...:rotfl2:

I officially love your hubby...he's such a great help with everything. The cardboard stands look great!:thumbsup2
Its funny because I used all the tank shots I could where people weren't standing there smiling and posing. I really wish we would have had some shark shots because they definitely would have been way more menacing than the turtles :rotfl:

Yes, Kris was definitely a huge help. Although, he had just moved back to MI after living in Ohio for 2 years, so I think he was trying to be super helpful since he got out of doing a lot of the prep work for the actual wedding :lmao:
 
WoW Vanessa those posters you did are fantastic and the cutouts were so great! Good job for you and Kris to do those! I can't imagine trying to attempt that.

I finally caught up on your whole honeymoon and the start of your home reception - wow it was a lot! :rotfl:Your trip looked amazing! I am dying to go to Hawaii and go to the Dole plant!
 


I agree "Out of the Darkness" rocks! That looks like one mean turtle lol! he probably just devoured a whole head... or lettuce:lmao: OK, bad jokes over!

Seriously those posters are amazing, I may have to steal that idea as a fun gifts for the folks after the wedding.

Your honeymoon looks like it ended nicely, and you got some yummy pineapple out of it, it looks so delicious! The only thing I am worried about for the honeyoon is how long it takes to get to HI from the east coast... 18 hours is a lot! Oh well, we are thinking we def want to do Oahu and maybe Maui depending on how long we stay. Any suggestions?
 
Some of the other projects that we undertook for the reception included a candy bar/ concession stand and the centerpieces. For the candy bar, we made some of the chocolates and purchased some. After Valentine’s Day I bought a ton of different Hershey kisses (all kinds of flavors) at 90% off at Target. Thankfully, they were dated for the end of the year, plus the colors fit our theme perfectly. Besides these chocolates we wanted to make some Mickey and Minnie chocolates with molds that we had originally bought to make items for the wedding welcome bags, which never happened! Plus, it was a subtle way to add Disney into part of the reception.

Since the molds only made 4 to 6 each and I only had one of each mold this was a project that we worked on for several weeks leading up to the reception. I had bought some foil and some bags with red harts for candy at a party store marked down too, so everything ended up being fairly cost effective.
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We even ended up with some pink and red chocolate too. It all tasted the same, so that was a plus!
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Instead of a guest book I wanted to make a “wish tree” that I had seen in several magazines. Original inspiration:
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I printed off sheets with 8 cards on them using different images from our wedding and then we used our large cutter for scrapbooking to cut them up. Finally, we punched a whole through them and added the ribbon ourselves. These were really cost effective and were fantastic to add to our scrapbook afterwards.

Instead of buying some of the fancy twigs online that they suggest for the trees, I went on the hunt in our yard instead. I found that the ones from my mom’s lilac bush looked about right, so I chopped some off and then spray painted the branches silver. I then used a plastic “popcorn” container similar to ones I ended up using for the centerpieces to place the branches inside. I filled the bottom with sand then secured the branches inside finally tucking tissue paper around to cover the sand up.
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I have to admit mine wasn’t as classy as the ones I have seen in magazines, but it still looked cute and it fit our theme well. I also had gold beads that I could have strung on it, but they were too much once we tried them on it.
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I know I have a better picture where you can see the entire tree with all the cards on it, but I don’t have it uploaded right now.

The signs on the side read:
These cards will be for our wedding book a modern twist
On the standard look.

As we begin our journey, as Mr. and Mrs.
We could surely use your advice and good wishes.

Jot down a memory, a bit of advice for the day.
Draw a doodle or picture if you’re not sure what to say.

Share with us your wisdom about marriage, love, and life,
The secret to being a good husband or a thoughtful, loving wife.

Please don't forget it would be such a shame to hang your card on the tree without signing your name.

Give us words of love or fun, write or draw your own design.
Hang it on the tree once you’re done!


Everything was DIY for this reception and it pretty much came down to my parents, Kris and I to do it all. My dad was in charge of the audio/visual equipment. Through his business he was able to get a projector for us to use and he rigged up a screen for viewing the wedding video in the hall. Here are some shots of him practicing with the equipment at home.
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Video on the wall
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My mom and I worked on getting some of the wedding scrapbooks done too to document the events of the wedding week. We are the best at scrapbooking under pressure and finished 3 albums within a few short weeks.

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Here is our dog Molly, tired out the weekend of the reception after all the last minute work going on around her:

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Up next reception weekend and decorating at the hall!
 
That looked a whole lot like fun and not too much like work woman! I sure wish I could scrapbook. I bought all the stuff to make a wedding one and it is still sitting in a drawer in my craft room! :rotfl: I suck at cute stuff...n-e-ways...you so made me hungry for chocolates after that and I ADORE the little wish tree you made, especially with the popcorn bucket at the bottom! Oh so cute! Keep it coming girl!

Warning girls....off topic here. Vanessa, guess what!?! When I came home yesterday Brad had the cutest thing set out on our bed for me. He took one of the big Mickey shaped towels we "borrowed" from our last Disney trip and set one of my stuffed Mickeys in it. Then he put a Disney planning book on one side and a heart on the other. In Mickey's hands was a reservation for 10 nights at the GRAND for our 2nd anniversary and honeymoon!!! Whoop whoop....I'll be living the dream in 3 weeks!

Anna Marie
 


I love all of your decorations. I am having an at home reception as well and want to make a video showing my Disney pictures. How did yours turn out?
 
Vanessa - just caught up with your TR. I remember that L-O-N-G trip back home too from HI for our honeymoon like it was yesterday. Although we had our delay going to HI instead. Your at home reception looks so cute - love the theme - perfect!
 
I love those movie posters they are sooo cool!
I also like your wish tree it came out really well, even if it isn't 'classy' :thumbsup2
 
WoW Vanessa those posters you did are fantastic and the cutouts were so great! Good job for you and Kris to do those! I can't imagine trying to attempt that.

I finally caught up on your whole honeymoon and the start of your home reception - wow it was a lot! :rotfl:Your trip looked amazing! I am dying to go to Hawaii and go to the Dole plant!
The best part about doing the cutouts was that since we got the materials for free (at least the boxes) it didn't matter if we screwed up which meant we were a little more willing to at least give it a try :goodvibes

I'm so glad you enjoyed our Hawaiian honeymoon. I was so excited when I found out that we could get a Dole Whip in Hawaii, so that is one of the main reasons I planned the visit there ;) It really was neat to see how pineapples are grown too!


I agree "Out of the Darkness" rocks! That looks like one mean turtle lol! he probably just devoured a whole head... or lettuce:lmao: OK, bad jokes over!

Seriously those posters are amazing, I may have to steal that idea as a fun gifts for the folks after the wedding.

Your honeymoon looks like it ended nicely, and you got some yummy pineapple out of it, it looks so delicious! The only thing I am worried about for the honeyoon is how long it takes to get to HI from the east coast... 18 hours is a lot! Oh well, we are thinking we def want to do Oahu and maybe Maui depending on how long we stay. Any suggestions?
I was really excited by the posters. I know a lot of photographers off them, but they are so expensive. Having that site and paying to download them saved us a bundle. Plus, just getting them printed locally was another cost saving tip. My good friend is doing a movie themed party for her son and is making a poster too; its such a fun gift idea too!

I know exactly how you feel about the travel all the way to Hawaii. The flights home were a lot worse than going because we had long layovers. I kind of think that if we go back we'll add a stop in LA to break it up like I mentioned above. We did Oahu and Maui to get a flavor for more of the islands and I'm glad we did it that way. Oahu has a lot more to do than Maui, so I guess a lot of it depends on how you want to focus your vacation. Two days on Maui was enough for us, but we're not into laying on the beach. However, going to Maui was neat because we got to see a lot more of the "real Hawaii" that is not so built up. I almost compare it to I-Drive near Disney compared to going to the Everglades. The everglades are way you get a chance to see the real Florida compared to the tourist destination it has become :) Definitely let me know if you have more specific questions, I would love to help in any way.

That looked a whole lot like fun and not too much like work woman! I sure wish I could scrapbook. I bought all the stuff to make a wedding one and it is still sitting in a drawer in my craft room! :rotfl: I suck at cute stuff...n-e-ways...you so made me hungry for chocolates after that and I ADORE the little wish tree you made, especially with the popcorn bucket at the bottom! Oh so cute! Keep it coming girl!

Warning girls....off topic here. Vanessa, guess what!?! When I came home yesterday Brad had the cutest thing set out on our bed for me. He took one of the big Mickey shaped towels we "borrowed" from our last Disney trip and set one of my stuffed Mickeys in it. Then he put a Disney planning book on one side and a heart on the other. In Mickey's hands was a reservation for 10 nights at the GRAND for our 2nd anniversary and honeymoon!!! Whoop whoop....I'll be living the dream in 3 weeks!

Anna Marie
:yay::woohoo:How exciting!!! I hope you have an amazing trip in a few weeks. What a fantastic surprise!!:dance3:

I have to admit my mom and I are not very artistic at all, but love to scrapbook. It doesn't take much to add the stickers to the pages ;) You should definitely take a class at a scrapbook store or something, they are all usually really helpful.

I love all of your decorations. I am having an at home reception as well and want to make a video showing my Disney pictures. How did yours turn out?
I have to admit I didn't make a slideshow myself. The video that you saw on the wall in this one was actually the regular video from STVS and a friend from work made me one with our pictures and music that we ran the rest of the time. However, I have been making one for my class reunion which is next week and I found that using the "Windows DVD Maker" is really easy. I think you just have to have Windows XP or better (I just got a new laptop and am not sure if it was on my old one.) The maker allows you to make picture slideshows too and even add music. I'm really happy with the results :thumbsup2

Vanessa - just caught up with your TR. I remember that L-O-N-G trip back home too from HI for our honeymoon like it was yesterday. Although we had our delay going to HI instead. Your at home reception looks so cute - love the theme - perfect!
I definitely think if we ever make it back to Hawaii I think it would be nice to do a stayover in California for a night or two to break up the trip some; maybe even to Disneyland :goodvibes That is the furthest I've ever flown, so I can only imagine how it would be flying to certain places in Europe. I'm glad you're enjoying shots from the reception so far. I think I have pretty much everything uploaded, so I intend to finish soon.

I love those movie posters they are sooo cool!
I also like your wish tree it came out really well, even if it isn't 'classy' :thumbsup2
Thanks so much! I know I was happy with the end result too, but I figured it didn't quite compete with the crystals on the other one ~ lol.
 
WoW Vanessa those posters you did are fantastic and the cutouts were so great! Good job for you and Kris to do those! I can't imagine trying to attempt that.

I finally caught up on your whole honeymoon and the start of your home reception - wow it was a lot! :rotfl:Your trip looked amazing! I am dying to go to Hawaii and go to the Dole plant!
The best part about doing the cutouts was that since we got the materials for free (at least the boxes) it didn't matter if we screwed up which meant we were a little more willing to at least give it a try :goodvibes

I'm so glad you enjoyed our Hawaiian honeymoon. I was so excited when I found out that we could get a Dole Whip in Hawaii, so that is one of the main reasons I planned the visit there ;) It really was neat to see how pineapples are grown too!


I agree "Out of the Darkness" rocks! That looks like one mean turtle lol! he probably just devoured a whole head... or lettuce:lmao: OK, bad jokes over!

Seriously those posters are amazing, I may have to steal that idea as a fun gifts for the folks after the wedding.

Your honeymoon looks like it ended nicely, and you got some yummy pineapple out of it, it looks so delicious! The only thing I am worried about for the honeyoon is how long it takes to get to HI from the east coast... 18 hours is a lot! Oh well, we are thinking we def want to do Oahu and maybe Maui depending on how long we stay. Any suggestions?
I was really excited by the posters. I know a lot of photographers off them, but they are so expensive. Having that site and paying to download them saved us a bundle. Plus, just getting them printed locally was another cost saving tip. My good friend is doing a movie themed party for her son and is making a poster too; its such a fun gift idea too!

I know exactly how you feel about the travel all the way to Hawaii. The flights home were a lot worse than going because we had long layovers. I kind of think that if we go back we'll add a stop in LA to break it up like I mentioned above. We did Oahu and Maui to get a flavor for more of the islands and I'm glad we did it that way. Oahu has a lot more to do than Maui, so I guess a lot of it depends on how you want to focus your vacation. Two days on Maui was enough for us, but we're not into laying on the beach. However, going to Maui was neat because we got to see a lot more of the "real Hawaii" that is not so built up. I almost compare it to I-Drive near Disney compared to going to the Everglades. The everglades are way you get a chance to see the real Florida compared to the tourist destination it has become :) Definitely let me know if you have more specific questions, I would love to help in any way.
 
Vanessa,

I finally got caught up again!! I enjoyed reading about the rest of your honeymoon. It sounds like you guys had a great time! I can't wait to go there myself!! Your at home reception looks really awesome!! I LOVE those movie posters and the invitations. Can't wait to hear more. :)
 
Just caught up on your honeymoon report! We're going to Hawaii too so it was so much fun reading about your trip. We're doing one week on Oahu and the second week is still up in the air but we're thinking Kauai or the Big Island. Love the movie posters for your home reception, looks like it was a great time! Thanks for sharing all of this with us!
 
Vanessa,

I finally got caught up again!! I enjoyed reading about the rest of your honeymoon. It sounds like you guys had a great time! I can't wait to go there myself!! Your at home reception looks really awesome!! I LOVE those movie posters and the invitations. Can't wait to hear more. :)
Thanks so much, Maure, I'm glad you were able to catch up. Its also given me some motivation to finally update with some more pictures. Life has been really hectic lately - I've been gone every weekend for the last month and have had tons of travel during the week for work on top of that; last week I drove 1,200 miles in a week and I have been beat when I get home!

Just caught up on your honeymoon report! We're going to Hawaii too so it was so much fun reading about your trip. We're doing one week on Oahu and the second week is still up in the air but we're thinking Kauai or the Big Island. Love the movie posters for your home reception, looks like it was a great time! Thanks for sharing all of this with us!
I'm so glad you enjoyed my section on Hawaii. We just had some friends honeymoon in Kauai and they loved it. They are both outdoor fanatics and had a great time hiking and kayaking. The park on the Big Island with the volcano is suppose to be out of this world! You'll have to share pictures of your trip too.
 
Okay, here are some shots from the preparation at the hall. Our reception was on Sunday, but thankfully we were able to get in on Saturday late afternoon to get things started. We were suppose to have several people available to help, but ended up with a lot unusually things coming up. My one close friend ended up really sick with bronchitis and my bridesmaid was pregnant at the time and had a slight scare and was in the hospital, so it ended up just being Kris and my parents along with me doing the set-up.

Putting the finishing touches on the stars:
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The finished product:
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My dad setting up the screen (he ended up putting up red plastic on the edges, so it looked like a movie screen with the red velvet curtains).
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You can see the final product in this shot while we were dancing:
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The thing that took the longest to do was to drape all the walls around the hall. I bought various backdrops and gossamer to drape over the walls to use as a cover to really transform the entire hall. We also had a lot of Christmas lights up everywhere (which I bought the Christmas before at 90% off!) We were at the hall until 1 am and crashed that night, only to have to go back early the next morning.

The morning of the reception was chaos. We had to bring in some of the food (drinks and cupcakes) then my mom and I ran to get our hair done at the mall.

One of several carts of pop (I know its a MI thing!):
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Unloading cupcakes:
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I had about 6 inches cut off my hair since the wedding had occurred, so I wasn't sure how it would turn out. My normal salon is closed on Sundays, but I think it turned out okay despite these differences. We had it done at a Merle Norman salon, so we could also get our makeup done too.
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We had two long tables set up with all the items from our wedding including the photos, centerpeices, and all of our scrapbooks that we had done in our marathon sessions. One of my matron of honor even brought her dress which we hung up (she would have worn it if she too wasn't pregnant at the time).
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Centerpieces, alternating with each table. I used the movie titles that were in the posters to name the tables. Some had the popocorn boxes and others had the movie themed cascading centerpieces. I won't bore you with all of them :rotfl:
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Centerpiece at the head table:
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To be continued....
 
Vanessa, love the new pics!!! Your at home reception looked amazing! You did a great job. Those cupcakes look so delicious, I'm craving them now!:goodvibes
 
Vanessa, love the new pics!!! Your at home reception looked amazing! You did a great job. Those cupcakes look so delicious, I'm craving them now!:goodvibes
Thanks for sticking around with me :goodvibes I figured I better finish the full report, so when I print off everything as a keepsake it will include all the wedding info. The cupcakes were super yummy and affordable~ we bought them at Sam's Club.
 
Vanessa,

Everything looks really great at the reception!! Your hard work really paid off!! The centerpieces look great, and I agree, the cupcakes look yummy!!!
 
Vanessa,
Your reception looks so amazing. It looks like you put a whole lot of hard work into it and it totally paid off! I love the way your dad set up the photo slide show and the center pieces for the tables were soooooo cute. I can't wait to see some more!

Anna Marie
 

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