Final Round of Supplies

It is time to make some final decisions and bite the bullet. I can't help but think if we really wait until the last minute, we will have fewer choices and spend even more money, so I have taken some time these past few days going over the what's-left-to-acquire list and doing some procurement. 

Since we are doing our wedding ourselves at home, we don't have the luxury of utilizing all the tables, chairs, dishes, linens, etc. that might be available if we were renting a hall.  I've read in several articles and books that this can make things more expensive in the long run, but I'm still not finding that to be true.  Yes, we are having to rent some tables and chairs and we have purchased some additional items (like glassware, flatware, and plates) that we wouldn't have otherwise, but we have got great deals through research and we have a post-wedding plan for re-using or re-homing just about everything. We have had a commitment to trying to be as green and ecologically-minded as possible which has guided us in making some decisions, while thrift and common sense have played a role as well.

Months ago, when we started the planning full speed (January, actually), I took inventory of what we had and anticipated what we might need; and we wrote down many of our initial ideas.  Now, we've narrowed it down to the definites and it is time for the final push to get everything in order. I am actually glad that we did things in chunks because we have made some definite adjustments.  For example, we initially chose orange and yellow as our accent colors, but because we opened up the clothing for the attendants to include all the colors of the rainbow, we have made room for some multi-colored nods to the rainbow as well: multi-colored linen napkins for the white tables, for example and instead of an orange and yellow candy bar, we are going with a big jar of gum machine bubble gum balls and rainbow swirl suckers.  Not so much to make things tacky and busy, but just enough to embrace some of the whimsical, vintage, summer garden/picnic theme we have chosen.

So, time to order all those gumballs and swirly suckers, and to do a final inventory of supplies.  The fun part is more boxes arriving on the front porch--the more challenging part is figuring out where to store everything for the next two months!