Wedding Blog

I apologize for my looooong hiatus. Two shortened work weeks coupled with weekend travel made me one very busy Bee!

Last you heard from me, I was headed out to Montana for my Super Wedding Weekend. As I wrote, I didn’t get to take the train because I couldn’t take my bike on board, which I would have needed to get into the Park before it opened for the season. Instead, I drove with my mom and we had to walk 1/2 mile from the car to the cabin on the first night because the road was still closed at Lake McDonald Lodge.

Thankfully, the Park opened up the road another six miles the very next day so we were able to unload the five crates of glass-bottled Mexican Coca-Cola I trucked up for pre-wedding storage. (Mr. Chery Pie and I are driving to Glacier for the wedding this fall and we’ll need all the space in the car that we can get!)

Although we (my mom, wedding coordinator and I) only spent two full days in Glacier and the surrounding area, we accomplished so much that I barely know where to start. The overwhelming amount of wedding-related news and accompanying photos and videos crippled my brain to the point of complete writer’s block and blog-induced panic. Eek!

But I’m ready to write now, and I guess I should start at the beginning if I want to get to the end…

The two of us drove out on Thursday and it took about 10 hours, as projected. The weather was forecast to be in the upper 80s to mid-90s that weekend, which is unseasonably hot for Mid-May - it had snowed twice in the previous week. So while the temperature felt like August, the landscape was different than I had ever seen it. We passed fields green with Spring grass, creeks overflowing with melt from a year of record snowfall, and low mountains still white at the tips. It was absolutely, astoundingly beautiful… in a way that I have never experienced in all the years I have visited Glacier:

The first thing we did on the morning after we arrived was drive into Columbia Falls to meet Katalin, my wedding coordinator, at a coffee shop. Believe it or not, though we’ve been working together for over a year, this was the first time we’d met in person.

After some quick introductions, we decided to drive over to Whitefish to visit with Celebrate rentals, the company from which we are renting our tent, chairs, tables, linens, flatware, heaters… you name it.

Our goal for the visit was to choose and reserve the plates, linens, silverware, tables and chairs. At first I didn’t think it was really necessary to visit the rental company in person. I’ve never been particularly concerned about the “look” of our plates or silverware or in having anything other than basic linens and chairs. (No chivari chairs (aka Bridal Crack) for this girl!) But Katalin said that a quick trip would be worth it, and it was.

The one benefit of not being very picky about these rental items was that it was really easy to choose what worked for us. Out of all these plates…

The square ones seemed the obvious choice:

Then, I picked out our linens… khaki tablecloths with chocolate brown napkins. I think it’s a nice contrast and will look good outdoors:

Then, we picked out some plain white resin chairs for use at both the ceremony and reception.

The hardest decisions were whether to use plain silverware or funky ropey silverware and whether to angle our place settings or leave them linear:

I was aiming for the funky silverware but after seeing it in photos and getting a veto from Mr. Cherry Pie, we’ll be going for the first look.

Now we have to decide what to do with the napkins (don’t care, will leave up to Katalin’s capable hands) and whether to choose long tables (8’, seats 8 people) or round (60″, seats 8 people) for our tented reception. I’ve heard several votes for round (people like to chat that way) but I love the visual elegance of long tables pushed together.

All in all, I’m glad we took a quick and productive trip to the rental company before the day really got started. Next up: Visiting Glacier Wallflower and designing our floral pieces!

Please share… what do your place settings and table colors look like? Any advice for this rather table-aloof bride?