First the bride’s sisters and her mother met weekly to put together a fabulous wedding shower for her.
As soon as that was over, we met weekly to create and glue and make and dream and talk and laugh and plan and gather supplies and create timelines. It was a very DIY vintage-y wedding, for sure.
It is hard to recall who exactly saw which idea first but along the way we had giant paper flowers, and old frames with lace. Tredessa brought a big stack of old lace curtains over and we created “lace balls” by using a glue mixture on the lace and forming it around balloons. When it was dry, we popped the balloon and voila: a lace balloon ball to hang from the ceiling.
Tredessa really liked the idea of a barn for a wedding and in short order her old roommate introduced us to a family who’d built a small barn on their 17 acres. They used the downstairs of the barn for the owner’s hobby of hand-carving wooden carousel animals (which are amazing!) and the upstairs for family celebrations. It was perfect!
We realized that to have a wedding ceremony, a celebration dinner, and photobooth and a dance floor all in one spot would be a tight, tight fit. So Dessa decided to pray about finding a nice, small church for the ceremony and the next thing you know, New Horizons Christian Fellowship opened right up for us. It was so cool, right across the interstate from the barn!
Here are some of Ellie’s photos {www.lilacphotography.com} showing the “things” of the wedding
We used things we have, antiques and vintage items to decorate at the wedding. This old typewriter was at the guest table.
I have to say I have some talented kids. Stormie designed and printed the super-cool wedding programs with the full love story on them.
Jovan created the flower mobile that hung over the guest table.
The wedding party on a framed poster. Jar candles on a rustic candleabra for ambiance.
A felled branch was wrapped in white satin ribbon and candles in jars, along with lots of glass and heavy crystals embellished the “tree” we created. The whole backdrop was draped in cottons and canvases creating a living room atmosphere.
The sidewalk to the church was lined in the trademark-Rhoades-family luminarias. We used framed lace at both the church and the barn for the dinner celebration.
The gift area was comfy and merchandised with antiques. Mercury-glass love birds on an old window from Tredessa’s grade school, touches of home.
Left, Tristan playing at the wedding. Right, Tredessa and Ryan scattered photos of great-grandparents around the reception, witnesses to long love, a nod to their heritage.
An old brass and crystal chandelier got a coat of white paint for the wedding. It hung right over the bride and groom during dinner.
Here is a look at things we made and the progression of the wedding as we were getting it set up.
Chronos Images* Tredessa at the barn a couple of hours before the ceremony.
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Things I forgot {or just didn’t count on}
Paper doilies to line the sweets table plate. Well, they were there…just didn’t get unpacked.
The Rolo-Pretzel Turtles. Sadly they missed the celebration. So they caused their own celebration of sorts in the ensuing days. Delish, Stormie and Elise!
The Mini-cinnamon Rolls on sticks and the Espresso meringues. They were my last two things to make/bake…and I just had to let them go. And somehow the wedding was positively fine without them.
To sew my stole. It needed repair work badly. I bet some one would have done it for me if I had asked. But I just wore it anyway. Who the heck am I becoming??!
To get a manicure. Just no time for it.
We forgot to have anyone run out and ring the church tower bell as Tredessa and Ryan left the church to waving flags and cheers. Because we were all just celebrating and smiling too much!
Tredessa and Ryan having fun in the photobooth. Tredessa with her matron-of-honor, big sister (by 1 year and 3 weeks), Stephanie
Succulents are way heavier than flowers and needed more support. Lots more support. And I could have made them 2 months in advance, but didn’t…until the morning of the wedding.
On at least 7 occasions I said to myself, “It would be advisable to have moist towelettes at the caramel fountain.” To all who had to lick their fingers, my deepest apologies.
I knew, I just knew I packed the wedding-white stir sticks for the hot tea table. They were discovered in the tote, while we were packing up…two days later. I knew it.
I had this beautiful design to paint at the front of the aisle runner (I had already painted a subway-style “advice” piece at the entry-end) and I just couldn’t get to it. There came a time the week before when I just had to let that idea go and know it would be ok, anyway.
Then, there was the balloon fiasco. Oh, my. The groomsmen inflated about 150 balloons the day before the wedding and they went up into the bell tower of the barn for a release just before Tredessa and Ryan would leave the reception. No one counted on the exceptionally frigid temperatures (to below freezing) during the night, which deflated and shriveled a good number of the balloons. When the pulley doors were let down, about 50% of the balloons were just little white wads of who-knew-what and the other balloons were pretty sad looking, too. The photographers kind of got their expressions and it is funny now.
Things I will never forget
Tredessa was radiant. Beaming, even.
After her engagement, she wrote a wedding plan. Most brides decide on definitive colors and places and and details concerning things. And Tredessa had thoughts on that, but her main wedding plan was about it being fun and family and intimate and closeness and relaxation and rejoicing. She wanted everyone who came to feel peace. She wanted everyone to have a romantic night of dancing and celebration. Her plan came together!
Seeing Guini tapping and twirling, dancing with abandoned glee with her daddy, turns and twists and getting-dipped. She looked beautiful. She felt beautiful. She was free and full of joy. One of the favorite moving-picture memories I now carry in my heart.
I had this magnificent bridal bouquet in mind and it did not turn out that way at all, which was stressing me out the night before. I dreamed of it when I barely slept. But in the morning, I remembered that Tredessa wasn’t all “flowery” anyway. I disassembled everything I had begun the night before, left 75% of it on the counter, put in the 6 white roses, the spray of naked-lady lilies, the small bunches of white spider mums and lots of vintage buttons and a couple of brooches and the succulents I had grown just for the occasion. I hand tied the smaller, very specifically-structured bouquet and wrapped it in satin ribbon overlaid with chiffon to match her dress. And in the 5 minutes it took to assemble after all the worry, it looked like a reflection of her ring – a perfectly lovely, vintage-y, love-with-a-history bouquet. And I knew it was perfectly right for the slender, beautiful hands that would carry it.
Delicious food made by loving, generous hands of a good friend. Vintage-y. DIY. A barn wedding. Using old family photos, chandeliers, creating a “living room” experience for the church-front. These were bits and parts of the the most beautiful wedding in 2011!
Dave barely even sniffled during the ceremony. Shocking! He is tender-hearted towards his kids. He was engaging, effusive and funny, even. Everyone loved the ceremony.
Three days with our familia from Florida. Ryan’s brothers and their fams and his parents and grandparents and uncle…We gathered in tight for traditional Thanksgiving on Thursday, had rehearsal and dinner on Friday and danced together on Saturday. We loved them all and just melted together. Familia!
Ryan’s mom (my new “sister” from Florida) told me, just before Ryan walked us to our seats, “You are beaming.” And I knew I was. I could feel the glow, so proud of my daughter and so pleased with her choice.
Ryan’s vows to my daughter were beautiful. Hers to him nearly knocked breath from me, so full of promise and depth and wisdom from observation. I was unprepared for the tears that bursted forth.
Ryan danced with his mom to Dean Martin’s “That’s Amore!” Everybody started singing along. It was a riot. Tredessa and her father, who had originally wanted to dance with her to “Suds in the Bucket” by Sara Evans, chose, as a nod to their shared love of great movies, the theme song from “The GodFather.” See my mama smiling there on the right?
Cousins and family from near and far came to help us celebrate the day. Cousin Emilee was the “stage manager” the day of the wedding. Mairin and Mia attended to the bride all the way from Minneapolis.
In the photos taken at the church right after the ceremony, Tredessa was like, “Really? Are you going to ‘Tebow” right here, right now?” Well, we live in Colorado, don’t we???
The church was very small,. We draped everything is fabric, off-white cottons and canvases, and used lace-filled frames and big paper flowers strewn about as a backdrop.
THIS is one of my FAVORITE photos from the celebration because
it really portrays the sweet joyousness of the wedding and celebration. It is the bride and groom surrounded by their attendants, dancing and making happy and the soft glow of the lights in a room full of family, well the mood was just perfect. Everything Tredessa sais she wanted when she started to plan it. It was good. It was sweet. It was magical. It ended too soon!
First dance: “You’re just too good to be true, can’t take my eyes off of you…”
*Chronos Images //photography (Matthew Greenlee and Rachel Ruge)
