mason jars and dance floors

I love mason jars- I love drinking from them, canning, storing stuff in them, and decorating with them. I have vivid memories of canning homemade salsa, chili sauce, and pickles as a child, and recently I've made/canned applesauce, apple butter, and blackberry/strawberry jam. While planning my wedding I obsessed over several wedding blogs. One was a backyard wedding where I found inspiration for mason jar lanterns. My brother and I made 10 and hung them from Shepard's hooks around the dance floor. The centerpieces ended up being a large circle of 6 jars, alternating ivory votives in jelly jars and bouquets in pint jars. They were gorgeous (thanks Jess, Hillary, & Ed!). I bought a lot of jars, and I have all of them left over, which means lots of canning in my future :). Here are a couple reception pictures from after the party:


We considered a lot of options when it came to dancing: a bigger tent and a real dance floor underneath ($$$$$), a snap-together hardwood floor to put on the concrete patio, dancing on concrete, on the grass, digging a pond and putting colored lights and a clear dance floor over top (we seriously had one company suggest this)... and ended up talking to the builder who suggested a roll of laminate flooring over concrete. We were able to buy a remnant of a neutral, smooth floor, which cost at least several hundred dollars less than any other option. It was super easy and fast and now my aunt/uncle are covered for the next decade of patio dance parties. I absolutely loved what they did with the lights over the floor: I hit up BigLots a day or two after Christmas and found pearl lights marked down to $5 and bought 8 boxes. They were a little more elegant than standard white Christmas lights, and were just beautiful.

I'll leave you with some blurry boogieing!

Farm Day!

Earlier today my friend Mia and I took a little road trip to visit Guy's Family Farm in Clarksville, Ohio, where I'm buying most of the flowers for the wedding. It was wonderful. We met with Sandy, who gave us a little tour and introduced us to her family, puppy, and kittens. It looks like we'll be able to use the following in the bouquets and centerpieces:





Statice










Feverfew








Snapdragons










Sweet William








I'm just thrilled, and can't wait to see what JessP does with the flowers. For centerpieces, we're going to arrange mason jars on each table, alternating bouquets in pints and votives in jellies. Can you believe it's only two weeks away?!

Reception centerpieces

Well, I think it's starting to feel a little more like spring this week. It's actually beginning to get light outside before 7, it might be 58 tomorrow, and I can't stop thinking about my wedding-flower garden...
I think I'm going to start seeds indoors in the next week or two, take a few trips to Cincinnati to till our old vegetable garden, fertilize, and plan, and then... to plant! I'm really so, so excited by the thought of growing most of my flowers. I know I'll be making frequent trips back home over the next 3 month anyways, so I'll be able to see the flowers growing and help weed and water. We'll see. I met with my florist (and best friend) on Skype the other day. She's in France right now, and recommended 5 start finding pictures of bouquets I love instead of focusing on flowers that bloom in early June. That makes a lot of sense.

The photos below are from a site, www.stylemepretty.com, that has some amaaaaazing photos and ideas. Really, there are too many.