Wedding Part 2

Seeing as we are nearing our 4 month mark it seems fitting to wrap up the happenings of our wedding day. Our reception was a long time in the making, because of the 1000 origami cranes I made everyone fold! It was more of a whim to have them at the reception in the beginning, but once the 40 dollars worth of paper had been bought over the internet it was too late to back out. One of the few benefits of our long engagement (for mormon standards) was the time to fold. Ryker and I spent a lot of evenings silently making birds, and we also recruited help from tons of nice family and friends. Probably the best part of having so much help was when we were finally hanging the birds and discovered that some people had come up with their own patterns, leaving us with a few roosters and divebombers. Once all the cranes had been folded it was time to string them onto fishing line. Ryker, Dustin, and I spent the week before the wedding looking something like this.... Look how happy they are! Well Ryker is a little bit concerned for the situation Harry is in, but otherwise they are having a grand ol' time.

After we had the strings made and taped to the walls/lying on jordans bedroom floor, we found ourselves in a pickle. I hadnt thought far enough ahead to transporting the strings to the church. They were so easy to get tangled together. I did what I normally do to find something though and googled "transporting 1000 paper cranes." Of course there would be detailed instructions somewhere on the internet. But for reals there was, it was a miracle. So Ryker and I scavenged for some big boxes behind a furniture store in town and the transport device was born.

Basically we ran thick wire back and forth across the top of the box and one by one taped strings of cranes to it. A lot of work! It kept getting saggy and the box tried to fall apart, but our good friend tape pulled us through.

The night before the wedding we loaded the box into Petes trailor and made our way to the church to hang them. Im so glad my father-in-law is an electrician, and a super awesome guy besides, because he went right to work figuring how to best hang the birds.

Meanwhile the rest of us were all busy setting up tables, filling vases with water and rocks for the centerpieces, going to walmart, eating pizza, and gawking at chewbacca, the special guest. We had so much help, I was so thankful for everyone, we couldnt have done it without them. Here is Ryker doing some dance moves.

My parents rocked the house by providing the rest of the decorations. Our backdrop was sweet, and the flowers were great. My mom wanted flowers more than I did, she is a flower lady, but they were the best.

One of the last steps of decorating was getting the fish. Ryker and I had decided that having live goldfish in bowls would be perfect for our centerpieces, so the day of the wedding Abby and my cousins Kelli and Kenzie Foster went to Wal Mart to buy 20 or so of those cheap goldfish. It was quite a sight to see them rolling into the church parking lot.

I guess they stuffed Kenz in the back to keep her fishy friends company.

Finally it was time to stop setting up and change into our nice clothes so we could stand and talk to our friends and family in the line. Even though we spent nearly the entire time in line greeting people I dont feel like I missed out on anything. However, here are some pictures of how things looked beyond where Ryker and I and our familes were.....

The centerpieces were super easy and cheap to make, we raided the DI for random sized vases, got some glass rocks, waterproof led lights, and goldfish. We had brownie sundaes for refreshments. The flowers on the brownies looked a lot like carrots though, and a few people told me they thought it was carrot cake and didnt get any. Oh well, the leftovers were tasty. We also had a lot of extra orange soda and whipped cream which went to good use.poop. oh, looks like ryker wanted to blog, too.A little secret about the cake.......our moms made us get one. At one point Ryker had suggested that instead of buying a cake I could just paint a picture of one. It was a pretty good idea, but in the end we got a real one. Alberstons made it for us for an AWESOME price and it looked dang good. The top half is sitting in the freezer right now, a few days ago I wanted to check it out and it made me miss my wedding day haha. Hopefully it tastes good next april. It still looked yummy.Oh my goodness, this is a small portion of the amazing gifts we recieved. We are so grateful for everyone who dropped by and showered us with stuff. Seriously, you guys rock.

HOLY COW i must just blog really slow, because this post has taken forever! This picture captures the feeling of the end of our wedding day and the end of this post. Ok BYE!