So Now What?

Okay, so the dress is figured out- got the location (Angel Rock's and Twin Bears)- have the officiant (friend, Matt McClurg)- have the Maid of Honor (my baby girl, Chelsey)- have the Best Man (Rick's brother, Dan)- what else???

Oh yeah, Rick's clothing (he's wearing Class A's)- but I'll let him tell you more about that endeavor, if he is so inclined...

As for me I've been working on decorations. Seems for a wedding that is to be held outside with a simple reception at a campground this should be an easy accomplishment, right? So I start looking through books and magazines to figure this out. Those of you that know me, know that this is not exactly an easy task for me, because crafty I am not. But I found these neat tissue paper ball things on a blog site and I thought cool- easy, cheap- what could go wrong here?

Well, first there is the interminable question of, oh yeah- colors! I hadn't thought about colors! I'm getting married outside and I have no wedding party to speak of and people can wear whatever they want. I mean really colors? But I guess if I'm going to make tissue paper ball decorations I need to pick some kind of color scheme or it will end up looking like a child's birthday party gone very bad!! So I'm thinking why not go with the colors nature will be providing us that time of year, pretty fall colors in deep reds, golds, yellows, oranges and greens. Sounds beautiful doesn't it? Until you stop and think about Fairbanks, AK that time of year and realize that while it could be pretty yellow, golds and greens it could also be brown and dead decor or even better on a really rough year it could all be dusted in white, flaky stuff. Hum? What to do, what to do?

So I dutifully ask my beau to be and Rick suggested blue & white for our "colors". By the way what are we a gang- we have "colors" now? Unfortunately blue & white makes me think of Hanukkah- which makes me think of his ex- then it makes me think of winter and snow (burr) and finally I have flash backs to the 80's and high school colors. So all in all the poor man got vetoed on that one pretty quickly.

So now I'm back to fall colors. I'll quit my whining and just go with it. That makes it time to tackle actually making one of these things to see it I can figure it out. I have detailed instructions, it shouldn't be that difficult- cut, fold, wrap with wire, fan out tissue!

I head to the store to get tissue paper for experimentation. While walking briskly down the aisle I see a box with "my" tissue paper ball things displayed on the front. WAIT- beep, beep, beep (back up beeper) OH MY @#*! These things are made by none other than Martha Stewart! Okay, I seriously, right there in the middle of the store, contemplate ditching the whole idea. Yuck- Martha Stewart! But really I'm not crafty, these look easy and as established earlier they have to be cheap to make- maybe I can get over the Martha thing. I stop and really examine the box and wonder how hard can these be to make that they need to sell a kit- it's tissue paper for goodness sake! Then I look at the price and actually laugh out loud- they want almost $20.00 for a box of 4 of these things! Are you nuts? It's tissue paper- folded, cut and wire tied together! I'm sure even I can do this without the help of a kit. So I buy a pack of tissue paper and home I go.

Now sitting on my bed with sharp instrument, cutting board, tissue paper, thin wire and instructions I set about making a tissue paper ball. Let me just say- ugh! Seven tissue paper balls later with a variety of cuts, folds and tie techniques they still look like nothing in the pictures I saw. WHY?!?! Poor Rick comes home from work and finds me sitting amongst the paraphernalia of my afternoon. It looks like someone threw a ticker tape parade all over our bedroom and there are these ugly balls of what look like scrap paper on the bed with me. Sweet man offers to help and picks one up. He looks at me and says, "well it looked like they were scrunched up in the pictures" and he proceeds to scrunch/ball up one of the balls. I start laughing uncontrollably as now it looks like after the ticker tape parade someone opened gifts and threw the garbage on our bed as well! Little piles of discarded tissue paper- yeah!

But it's okay- we are not done and we will not be defeated by the tissue paper- we will prevail! I'm not sure how- or when but we WILL WIN! For now it's time to move on to a different project- how about we tackle the homemade invitations?!?!