In Which We Transform a Reception Hall

Podcast Tuesday!!! And this week, we took the whole show on the road!! Literally!

 Click here to listen.

The whole reason we drove through the night to get to Kansas in a big fat hurry was so we could help decorate the reception hall. {You know how I hate to miss the fun stuff!}

Here is the before picture of that adventure:

That's a big ole blank canvas, isn't it? So that you can fully appreciate the 9 hours of work that went into this room, here was the after shot:

But in between the two...so much work. And so much fun! Between family members and wedding party members, we had quite a bit of help!

I don't think I really have to explain to you how happy Ryan was to get to decorate atop the scissor lift. {They covered this garage door with a backdrop made up of lace, burlap, and tulle. And if you would have been there, you would know that in our family, this is now known as "tool-ee on a spool-ee."}

Doesn't it look like we TP'd the place? We didn't! Cassie's mother-in-law and sister-in-law made this STUNNING wagon wheel/mason jar chandelier, and they strung the tool-ee on a spool-ee from the center to the corners. Lori and I had the job of stretching out the strands of lights to nest in the tool-ee.

While we're talking about the chandelier...you GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!

 Can you even believe it???

But back to the stage before it looked like that...

Ryan's #1 helper was Murphy, Cassie's dog. Murphy is such a good dog. He made me miss Phoebe SO MUCH!

Broke one. Whoopsie. Didn't know our own strength.

The backdrop! Didn't they do great work?

Committee meeting to figure out how to decorate the doors. This was another really cool thing! They had these five old {HEAVY!!!!} doors that they used for the backdrop behind the cake table. AMAZING. Here's how it looked finished.

Ryan and I got a LITTLE tired, you know, because of the all-night driving adventure, so mid-afternoon, we had to wave the white flag and go check into our hotel for a nap. So we missed setting up tables and putting out the centerpieces, but the whole thing looked so amazing when it was done!

Here are a few other shots from the finished product:

 {The picture below is hilarious to me. They had three huge tanks filled with ice and drinks and they put blankets over it to keep it cold all day. Ryan walked in and thought someone was asleep in there!}

I was so glad we came early to help...this was an exhausting but fun day!! Amazing how the place transformed over the course of the day!