Wedding Ceremony - Bows

I had a stay at home mom for most of my early years, but for "fun" we'd both go down the street to Anne Marie's Daycare. She always had crafts and delightfully institutional lunches like fish sticks and other stuff I never got at home. She and my mom have been friends for around 40 years now, and I still send her Xmas cards every December. When I was wedding planning Annie kept asking if there was anything she could do, and one day I finally came up with something - BOWS!

Our ceremony was in the Great Lakes Aquarium, in the main lobby in front of a waterfall wall. We had rented chivari chairs but I still wanted to add a little more elegance to what might be a pretty grey and institutional space. I found HUGE spools of wire edged ribbon at Costco around the holidays (I want to say well over a hundred yards for around $6? I could be wrong...) in both the royal blue that the bridesmaids would be wearing and the lighter blue of my dress. I also ordered a "bowdini" bow maker on ebay, new in the 1970's package, and sent the whole lot over to Annie to make into something spectacular.

She did not disappoint! She didn't even open the bowmaker, but FREEHANDED all of these! They had a color coordinated pipe cleaner center which would secure to the chair, and they were PERFECT. I couldn't have asked for more.

Two of my best friends and my two ushers rushed around attaching them and setting up everything else while the wedding party took photos down by the water - they all did such an amazing job. It was a little difficult for me not to do it all myself - I'm sort of used to being in charge, and I had spent over a year planning all these tiny details - but seeing my friends and family work so hard to set up my wedding ceremony was very moving. Couldn't have done it without you all!

And by the way, the photo is by Olivia Wagner Photography - and I couldn't recommend her more. She is AMAZING. Neither the hubs nor I really love getting our photos taken, and we're not real photogenic people, but she made us feel relaxed and comfortable, and somehow made us look wonderful in every shot she captured. I also love that she went around and got the little details like this shot of the bows before the ceremony started - when you work so hard putting together a celebration, it's great to have all the work captured so stunningly.