Decorating Divas

Okay, this is not at ALL wedding related but: The office where I work has rented out some spare office space to Mary Kay. Currently, my parking lot is full of blush pink Cadillac Escalades, and Ima not lie – I am totally jealous. They are SO pretty!!! But, I also did my homework and decided to research how to achieve one of these luxury cars, and lemme tell you something – I will never own one. Even if a bitch decided to start selling Mary Kay this very minute, I am nowhere near motivated enough, nor do I know enough women, to meet those kinds of sales metrics by selling make-up. But I do love me some Mary Kay.

Thank you all for enduring that breaking news.

So this past weekend we had a wedding decorating party. I would like to personally call out the following people:

Leslie Hughes
Judy Hughes
Mary Beth Hughes
Amy Razor
Lisa Razor

These women above? THEY ROCK. They rock the HARDEST!!!! These lovely women gave up their entire Saturday to come be and my wedding beck and call (is that a phrase? How do you spell that??? What does that even MEAN????)

Wait, what? A.D.D. Annie today….

Anyway. Leslie graciously opened up her home and let us invade. Her and my mom made a smorgasbord of snacks. I had suggested light finger foods. But Southern women rarely understand what that phrase even means. So instead we had baked apples, homemade biscuits, bacon and cheese pinwheels, vegetable soup, bologna sandwiches, quiche, homemade pies, and chicken enchilada dip. Boom.

I got up on time on Saturday morning and took a shower, made my list of things to take and gathered said items. I put all the doggies up, gathered my stuff and walked out the door prepared to save the world. One teeny problem. Andrew had went to the UK game with a buddy, and had forgotten to leave me car keys. Ooooops. After a frantic phone call (or 4) Leslie put her baked apples on hold and ran to pick me up. Shew!

I came armed with every decorative item known to man. I brought lace, ribbon, pearls, flowers, hot glue guns, paint and paint brushes – you name it, I brought it. The mission for the day:

-Decorate 20 sets of Salt & Pepper Shakers
-Put together/paint items for Unity Ceremony
-Paint directional road signs (my awesome daddy made!)
-Decorate my Cards suitcase
-Decorate flower girl basket
-Decorate ring bearer pillow

And guess what? Success!! Through a lot of laughter, a LOT of eating, and a lot of “Google it and see what it says!”, we managed to complete all of the above. Amy and Lisa were absolute rockstars on my salt & pepper shakers. No, really. Y’all don’t even KNOW. I gave them 20 sets of black and white shakers, already filled, and basically just said, “Make these cute.” They completely outdid themselves. When you are garnishing your food at the reception, take note of these adorable little detailed shakers. I squealed everytime I saw one!!

My momma primarily handled the flower girl basket and ring bearer pillow, adorning them with little chocolate brown and purple ribbons.  But the REAL true gem of the day was when we discovered my mom’s hidden talent.

The card suitcase was the last item on the agenda. This is a vintage suitcase from the 70’s/80’s that I completely gutted. We lined the inside with sheet music, trimmed the edges out in lace and burlap, and made vintage letters on lace that spells out CARDS. The idea is that if people bring us cards to the wedding, they can drop them off here. Then Andrew and I can just close up the suitcase and take it with us on our honeymoon, and spend some time just leisurely going through them and reading them. I have to think Pinterest for this awesome idea.

Well, the suitcase was looking great, but in the inspiration photo it showed a handful of handmade burlap and lace flowers. Now, in my wedding head this seemed like a really simple task. Scrunch up some burlap, stick some glue in the center and voila! I don’t need to buy those pre-made flowers at Michael’s. Psssh! So I picked up my little strip of burlap and twisted and turned, and voila: Nothing. Just a crumpled up piece of fabric. I showed my first sample to Lisa who, bless her sweet heart, opted not to laugh at me, but instead gently suggested I try again. First one never works right.

Three or four foul attempts later, the best I had was a wrinkled piece of burlap that if you squinted, stood on one foot, said the Lord’s Prayer and stood 10 yards away maaaaaaaaaaybe looked like a dead flower. So Lisa, again bless her heart, gently suggests I Google it. Good call.

So I Googled it. Voila! A nice, step-by step tutorial that included pictures!!! Fool proof!!!!

………….

Even the Lord’s Prayer couldn’t save them now.

Enter: Judy.

My mom comes in and sees my sad attempt and doesn’t mince words when she tells me it is sad looking. So I tell HER to try and do better. And I’ll be damned, she did. She took that fabric, moved her little hands like a mad woman for about 10 seconds, and held out a perfectly symmetrical, perfectly woven, gorgeous handmade flower that looked like it had been picked from the Garden of Eden. We all stopped and stared at her. So, much to my delight and her dismay, she was immediately charged with making 6-8 more burlap flowers. And when she finished those, we made her try it with lace. And they were even prettier!!! I literally mean it when I say Judy Hughes could rule the world y’all.

Anyway, we spent countless hours working non-stop and we finished every task. I Googled my way through some unique wedding fonts to handwrite the wording on our Unity Ceremony heart. My dad carved the heart himself, and I wrote on it, “The Gehrings, est. 11-8-14” and it will hang on our unity sand jar for the rest of our lives. My sister Mary painted my letters for me because I was too nervous I would mess it up – she did it perfectly!!

And there you have it. An incident free, happy, laughter and love-filled wedding decorating day!! I crossed a ton off of my to-do list, and spent time with the beautiful, strong ladies in my family! This week has also been productive. My awesome sister, Leslie, has completed our playlist for the DJ! Woohoo! I purchased the remaining sand for the sand ceremony, and we now officially have enough jars and plates for the reception. I looked over my to-do list, and it is dwindling down. It’s time now for things like buying gifts, getting my hair colored, getting my nails done, and of course the all important task of having my dress altered. I am SOOOO excited about this big day….and SOOOOO in love with that handsome fella I’m marrying. ;)