Prepping for Wedding Week

If you recall in previous posts, I had a lot of time on my hands from mid Jan to early March. I did spend a lot of time helping Ben with Boat and Caretaking projects and activities, but I could only do so much. In my down times, I worked on planning, organizing, and creating our wedding. I wanted it to truly represent us, our lives here, and the beauty of Abaco.
Here are a few of my projects that I have pictures of:

The Proverbial Driftwood Sign for the Islands

Anchorage had to be on top with 4060 miles of travel (Ben's brother Chris and his wife Erin)

Florida represents with Jacksonville, Niceville, and Destin

Coloradians (Mom & Dan) traveled 1831 miles

Maryland family traveled a bit easier with 865

California totally represented with guests from San Diego, Temecula, Los Angeles, and San Fransisco

Junction City, Kansas was also uniquely represented (they are so happy to have moved away from there!)

The Bosses from Huntsville, Alabama joined for just the wedding

And of course, Atlanta was in the house!

Driftwood pieces

Driftwood sign of the Travel Miles of our Guests
Ben made the base and screwed/nailed the small signs on and
I painted all of the signs

The Wedding Sign for guests to find our ceremony

hand painted driftwood with boating rope screwed into place and expoxied shells (local of course)
Ben did the epoxy and rope work


                            Name Cards and Decorative Shells

Picking out Shells for Name Cards (all local)

Dinner name tags: sponge blotted with blue and yellow; my step-mom Wanda did the calligraphy;
Shells: I polished the shells with baby oil, drilled tiny holes in each shell, and used jute twine to hold them together (42 of them!)

Shells used in decoration during the reception and dinner vases

Finished Dinner Settings: Burlap Runners, Shell Name Tags, Bamboo Chargers,  Local and Personal  Shells in Vases

Projects were the fun part! Including all the Welcome bags filled with local Maps, Activities, Must See Things, Local Restaurants/shops and Do's and Dont's.  We also included a local history book of Hope Town, water bottles, Handmade soaps made by the children and teens of ECC- Every Child Counts, invitations to wedding events (welcome party, day after brunch, rehearsal dinner, etc.)
It really was fun making and prepping everything. I thought I had more pictures of everything but unfortunately I can't find them (one of the down sides to having your "things" spread out over several countries and locations!) Maybe my mom took some pics :) Mom, you have any???

The not-so-fun-parts, which you would know if you ever planned a destination wedding, were: trying to communicate the logistics of travel and accommodations to others (numerous times), budgeting and working with island-time businesses, trying to confirm RSVP's (are you coming or not?!?), talking money with parents, and of course getting the groom to be to focus and help make some decisions during his busy busy days working.

Fortunately everything worked out wonderfully, except a few major issues that ended up working out in the end...as you will see in the next post.