Painting the Roses Red: Bridezilla Emerges

I spent so much of the wedding planning process trying not to be a Bridezilla, and like to think that I was--on the whole--quite successful. But (you knew there had to be a 'but'), I must admit, in the end, I too tore through Tokyo on a rampage. The cause? Fake lemons. I'm slightly ashamed to admit it, but those damn plastic fruit were my undoing, and I just cracked--CRACKED!

You have seen the fantastic archway that Daddy Goodlaff built, but I haven't shared with you how I wanted to decorate it. So, here it is. The local craft store, aka: the bad place, had this fantastic arch set up, and I loved the way it looked. Overdone? A bit. But on the whole, quite lovely.

Arbor Day

Early on in the planning process, I assigned Daddy Goodlaff the task of building us an arbor/archway to stand under during the marriage ceremony, because no one in my family can escape the crafting project assignments! So, even though Arbor Day is officially a week away, the Goodlaffs celebrated a bit early by visiting Daddy Goodlaff to see the magnificence of the arbor he built for our wedding ceremony.
The inspiration for our arbor?

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Gilmore Girls, anyone?

I loved the ever-so-slight curve at the top, and the openness of the design, and based all future searches off this small arch idea. I drew inspiration photos (badly--I'm no artist), handed them over to Daddy Goodlaff with the ever important dimensions, and left him to it. Check out all his hard work:

Minion Craft Nite II

You would think after the glue and tissue paper torture I put them through last week, my minions would have stayed far away from Casa Goodlaff, but not so! Mama Goodlaff and BM TCollins came back for more wedding craft fun, and what's more, Mama Goodlaff wrangled up one more set of hands! The newest member to the Goodlaff Craft Support League is The Enforcer.

The Enforcer is Mama Goodlaff's good friend and co-worker (and one of the sweetest, most thoughtful people you will ever meet), and has agreed to be our Day-Of Coordinator, which is beyond awesome!  She will keep us all in line and on time, and if any of our guests decide to cause drama (completely possible given the situations with some of our family members), she will nicely tell them to cease and desist, and if they won't behave, she will have the happy task of removing them.  Having The Enforcer in charge will mean that Mama Goodlaff and I won't be completely crazy with details on the day of the wedding...maybe.

So there we were, four little crafters all in a row. The day's agenda included pinwheel creation and Kabuki Streamer construction, and after I cracked the (crepe paper) whip, the ladies knocked it out!

Yeah, they look terrified, don't they?

Getting Crafty With a Little Help From My Friends...

At this point in the planning process, it's becoming less about planning and more about doing.  My ideas are now having to come to life and projects I've put off for a long time can't be put off any longer.  Case in point: the yellow votives for our tables. 

Months and months ago I searched high and low for yellow votive candle holders.  Did I find them? No.  I looked everywhere.  I found amber glass votives, and white glass votives with yellow candles.  To be fair, I did find the votive holders I wanted, but they were in Australia.  The cost, coupled with the shipping, was just too much.

No biggie, I thought, I will make the candles I want. 

In order of appearance: candle #1 is what I wanted the votives to look like (nice and bright, but frosted for a soft glow); 2 is half acrylic paint (disaster), half yellow glass paint (streaky); 3 is frosted, then painted with yellow glass paint (not frosted enough); 4 is layers of torn tissue paper; 5 is a single layer of tissue paper; 6 is one company's definition of a "yellow" glass votive. And yes, that is our Wii Fit Balance Board serving as a modeling platform--as you can see, it gets used a lot.

Changing of the Guard

Despite the fact that our porch recently looked like this:

I've decided that it's time for Spring to come to the Goodlaff household, which means a changing of the guard on our front door.  Yesterday, guests would have been greeted with a gigantic pile of ice and snow and this lovely, wintry wreath:

Today, visitors to the Goodlaff residence will instead be greeted with this:

Dressing the Venue

Let me just say, I am well aware that our venue really doesn't need any kind of decoration. The Goodlaffs are lucky because, unlike some generic hotel ballrooms, our venue is beautiful as it is.

See? (Please ignore the people setting up for a high school prom.)

The Miners Foundry Cultural Center is a fantastic historical building and Mr. Goodlaff and I don't want to take away from that or cover it up beyond all recognition, but we do want to make the venue our own.

You may remember our modern English garden party-ish theme, and there is nothing more garden party than lanterns and globe cafe lights. I know, I know--it's been done. But I look at pictures like these and I'm so in love: 

A Place for Guests to Park It

Our venue comes with perfectly good, perfectly free chairs.

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Sigh. They may be usable and free, but they are completely mis-matched and on the ugly-ish side of the folding chair spectrum. Free chairs: I know, I really shouldn't be complaining. But the reality is that these chairs were messing with my grand wedding vision, and having just managed to even form a vision, I was a little upset at it being so easily (and quickly) disturbed.