When I pictured my wedding with Mr. Monkey I never imagined something posh, but I did picture us getting married somewhere pretty. When it came to picking our venue, both of our parents agreed that it made sense to have the wedding and reception at my dad’s church, where he’s a pastor. As a PK (”pastor’s kid”), I kinda had no choice about the venue or the guest list (400+ people).
Now, I love my church and all but I never imagined my wedding reception taking place in the church basement. Everytime I read wedding magazines and saw pics of gorgeous venues, I felt kinda sad. Mr. Monkey, being the super positive person he is, saw it as an opportunity to be creative & have fun with the space…so, we did a few small things that helped brighten the space. *A lot of this stuff has been done before, but I just wanted to share a little bit of what we did to spruce up our venue.

We started off by buying a whole mess of paper lanterns at Asian Ideas (great service and delivered really quickly!), ribbon at Michael’s, and fishing line. With the help of Mr. Monkey, my mom, and a rickety ladder, we hung all the lanterns on the week of the wedding.


(Here’s a picture with people at the reception)

Then, we went a little crazy with ordering our favorite candies, bouncy balls, plastic army men, and set up a candy table with help from our friends.



For wine, we went with three-buck Charles Shaw Chardonnay… thank you Trader Joe’s!

Finally, we used the tables at our church. Our Korean caterer (Kum Kang San in Flushing, NY–absolutely recommended!) brought tablecloths and chair covers.

In the end, it was really quite special getting married at our church and even having a reception in the basement. A lot of people chipped in preparing the church beforehand–cleaning windows, painting old doors/walls, assembling flowers for the centerpieces, and cleaning up afterwards.
It may not have been our first pick as a wedding location… but looking back, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
I feel the same way about my reception venue, which is the Fil-Am Community Center building my grandfather is caretaker for. I grew up around the place, though, so I grew to feel good that it’s included in this special way. I really loved your lanterns, and it sounds as if you had a perfect day!