There were numerous phone calls, texts, pictures, emails, pins on Pinterest between my daughter and myself regarding the wedding. Many decisions to be made, centerpieces, decorations, food,songs, logistics, etc. many decisions to be changed. My daughter wanted to have the wedding in her back yard, She wanted to invite 160 people, many of whom were children. I said, 'if you want it in the back yard we will make it work. Send me a diagram of the yard with your dimensions.'
Gary and I were going to cater the food for the wedding. Some people would say, "Why?' We would answer 'Why not?' This is what we do. Gary loves to cook - we have the necessary equipment and we have catered several weddings, receptions, dinners. Not an issue for us.
So we loaded up the van with all our catering equipment, items for centerpieces and decorations, and a little bit of luggage and left Tulsa. In Freezing Rain/Sleet. We traveled through white-out conditions of blowing blinding snow - more freezing rain - even some freezing fog in New Mexico. After the first day of driving the weather cleared and we made it the rest of the way without any bad weather.
There were many projects still to complete. One project was to color sand to make sand jars with candles to line the driveway directing people to the back yard. I was doing very well with my sand dying until Tarinda decided maybe she should put some paper on the table to protect it. Then I had all kinds of problems! Sand spilt everywhere but we got the sand all colored and ready for her mason jars (which was part of our load from Tulsa).
Yes, my hands came clean. And after mixing the sand all together we had one uniform color to use for the finished project.
We also had to get rose petals separated for the centerpieces, put a wedding arch together, and make up bags for s'mores. And someone had to download the music for the ceremony and reception. Between my daughter and her future husband they have 6 children. It stands to reason that most of their friends are also going to have children. This was going to be a very kid-friendly wedding. My daughter wanted a s'mores bar. She also had glow sticks for all the kids.
She has an amazing group of friends who volunteered to help out. Tables and chairs were set up. Yes, we were able to get 20 tables and 160 chairs in her backyard as well as an arch for the actual ceremony and also we made a pathway to walk down. We used the patio for the food line. She had a photo booth set up on the side of the house and friends were everywhere doing anything that was asked of them. This included that on Thursday evening while we are in the house doing a myriad of projects she says 'someone's in my backyard'. She goes outside to find one of the neighbors on the side of the house hanging lights for the photo booth!
Part of our supplies was the stem ware for the centerpieces. The carnival glass was my mom's. Tarinda wasn't sure she wanted to use it. I took it all along anyway knowing that it was her colors, blue and purple, and the sun would set it off perfectly.
The diagram I made for the table set up worked perfectly. Plenty of room for 20 tables.
Well, needless to say the wedding went off without any problems. It was a beautiful ceremony. Their attendants were their children. And they had the mothers as flower girls.
The twins walked her down the aisle. Don't they look handsome
The 'headband' Tarinda is wearing is a necklace my mother had crocheted. Very fine string of some sort with pearls interwoven in.
Now this wasn't just a wedding weekend. Being Grandma and Grampa we found time to have some fun also. Friday morning we took the kids out for donuts for breakfast. Isn't that what grandparents are supposed to do? Also, Friday evening after the rehearsal I had everyone gather in the front yard. I then dumped out 26 cans of silly string (2 cans for everyone) and we had a silly string fight. This is kind of a tradition for us. We love to have fun. And, anytime grandson Billy asked me if he could have coffee I always said yes.
Just us having fun.
Now if you follow my blog you may remember that back in November of 2013 our youngest daughter got married. If you missed reading about this check my blog posts on 11-15-13, 11-4-13, and 9-27-13. And keep in mind - we have another wedding coming up in May of 2016! More good times ahead.
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