Ran Plan Sprinkle and Rain Plan Monsoon

I mentioned before that I currently have three plans for out wedding reception. Previous posts have gone over the beautiful weather day (that it will be, right? RIGHT?), but precipitation is a reality we really need to be concious of. Because 150 people will not fit in Mikey and Sandi's house.

Sidenote 1: I realized last week that neither DJ, my mom, my dad or my sister would believe what I had to say about reception layouts until they played around with the to-scale drawings too. So I printed them off, and cut everything out like you would a dress up doll. It helped DJ conceptualize the space we had to work with, and I'm sure my dad, mom and sister will benefit from the same thing when we get to the lake the week before the wedding.

Yes, I am obsessed. And yes, I'm usually right.

Sidenote 2: I just looked at the 10 day forecast... which currently includes July 1. 75 and sunny with 10% chance of rain :)

Anyway, back to rain plans. Lets start with Rain Plan Sprinkle. This is going to be the hardest one for me to put into play, because it accounts for the "maybe it's gonna rain, maybe in the morning, but maybe in the evening." I hate maybes when it comes to wedding logistics.

Rain Plan sprinkle seats a scant 96 guests under the tents. It assumes that at some point the weather gets better, and that we'll move tables and chairs into the living room of the shack and the house. It requires flexibiliy, calmness to make a decision, and someone to move the dancefloor under the tent the day of.

Yes, I just set up something that requires calmness and flexibility under stress. On my wedding day. With my family.

Oh shit.

Now onto Rain Plan Monsoon. This is the "oh shit, build an ark, the three day forecast says 80% chance of rain and we're all going to need lifejackets" plan. It requires us to check the five day forecast on Wednesday morning, and decide if we need to spring for a second tent to accomodate guests. Yes, it's gambling on the second tent, a 20' X 30' tent being available. We'd also order the necessary sidewalls with it. The extra tent would be set up in the driveway area:

I've already reserved the sidewalls required to enclose the 20'X 50' tent. Three 20' panels with windows, two 20' panels without windows. They would encase primarily the south and west sides of the tent, sinc ethe house and hill would be on the other two sides. Imagine that my grey arrows are sidewalls:

Once the sidewalls are set up, the tables from up on the deck and overflow in the upper terrace move into the 20'X30' tent. These tables will be set up on top of the dance floor in the driveway, and have to be broken down before dancing begins. This plan seats 138 people, and is, again, the worst case scenario.

Frankly, I'm hoping that we don't have to put Sprinkle into effect. Of all of the scenarios, Sprinkle has the most variables, the most "what-if's". So give me sunshine! or give me Monsoon!

What do you think, are we going to survive this wedding thing?

Light it up!

Where were we? Yes, lighting. So we've got the layout:

Remember, this is the "It's not gonna rain!" plan; I'll come back to rain plan "Sprinkle" and "Monsoon" in later posts.

Let's discuss lighting first, and then add decorations to the mix. We'll use a TON of white Christmas lights to fufill a number of functions. First, to provide ambient mood lighting. Second, to define the edges of the terraces in order to keep people from falling off of the edges of them. Third, between DJ and I, my mom and DJ's mom, we already probably have about 2,000 linear feet of white Christmas lights so they're free.

This is where having a scaled layout of your reception venue comes in handy. I can tell you how many linear feet of lights we'll need. No, I haven't been diagnosed with OCD, why do you ask?

Anyway, the lights will be on when our guests arrive at 5pm, but won't really be visible until 8 pm or so when dusk sets in. The sun will go down about 8:30 pm, and after that we'll rely only on Christmas lights for exterior lighting.

Start by edging the terraces; it's easiest. I'm thinking that we'll need a couple of fence stakes, and we'll string Christmas lights like a double strand barbed wire fence. One line at hip height, another at knee height. It'll go around the west and north sides of both the lower and upper terrace (can you see the yellow dashed line?):

We will, of course, have to create an arch of sorts with the lights over the stairs down to the second terrace so as to not block the staircase. Yes, I think of these things. I've been doing our Christmas lights now for over 10 years, and hate unsighly and unnecessary cords!

Since those lights will be at hip height, we'll add lights to the ceiling of the tent to give nice downlighting. We can't use candles or open flame in the tent; fire hazard.

It might look like this:

The next main space to light will be the shack porch. You remember that it looks like this:

Since there is a railing on the shack, outlining the railing in lights is a low priority. We'll line the ceiling edge with them, as well as down the outside hallway:

The upper deck will need lighting too. I'm trying to decide here; do we string them around the railing, or try to elevate them somehow?

For now, let's assume we keep them at railing height:

Lighting for the dance floor will be strung out from the deck to stumps (remember, Mike likes to cut trees). If we can squeeze them in the budget, I'd like to make this happen with the bigger bulb bistro lights. Target has a 100' section for $19.99. Check out these images for inspiration:

I'd also like to purchase some brightly colored paper lanterns, and pop them around up there too. I could purchase them online relatively cheaply, like these:

Hopefully, we'd get to something like this:

So maybe something like this:

That leaves us with the need to light the bar area under the deck, as well as near the shack. The bar area under the deck will be lit be more christmas lights, and maybe a few more paper lanterns. The bar area near the shack will be illuminated by the light given off from the lights wrapped around the trunk of a bull pine tree.

That does leave a couple of other lighting needs. We could put tea lights in jars on shack and deck tables. A good friend of mine suggested doing tealights hung with wire from branches, which might look something like this:

One area decidedly unlight is the porta-potty area. I can't decide if the blue room will need it, or  if I want to call additional attention to it?

One other "issue" might be the lights in the house. The dining room lights, kitchen lights, etc might cast big pools of light outside, and I don't want them to wreck the vibe. The lights in the living room are on dimmers, so that can be adjusted, but maybe I'll have to tape down the kitchen and dining room lights?

Do you think I missed anything?

Logistics

We're hosting a 140 person cocktail hour, ceremony, and reception at my parent's house on July 10. Did your head just explode considering all of the moving parts, issues and things to think about with that? Mine did last Saturday.

And then I started spreadsheeting. And I'm all over it.

The first question is where the eff do 140 people fit? Let's go over the "It's a beautiful sunshine-y day" plan first, then I'll digress into rain plans in another post.

First, refresh your memory of my parent's place:

I've already gone into detail about how the landscaping is different. And that we painted last summer. But those are the fluffy things we'll talk about later. Let's talk layouts:

The above image is not to scale; I'll get to a scaled image shortly. But looking at that, you'll notice that there isn't really one huge big space to put a tent. Well friends, you take what you can get. Here's the plan:

I'm paying extra for the 20 X 50' tent to be set up on Wednesday. The peace of mind is worth it, and if it's raining, the tent would give the ground underneath three days to dry out. The tent will go across the upper terrace, and nearly touch the front of the house. (these images are to scale)

The upper terrace currently looks like this:

The tent is a freestanding tent, which will have to be strategically staked. I'm sure we can MacGuyver some stakeing, as there won't be much space outside of the tent for staking. The tent will generally look like this:

The tent provides 1,000 square feet of dry area. We will, of course, be a bit hampered by the stairs down to the lower terrace, deck railing, and flower beds. But, generally, we can get seating for about 64 people under the tent, and an additional 16 on the terrace outside of the tent, for 80 seats on the upper terrace:

The blue in the area above is circulation space around tables, yellow the tables, and red circles are guests. The rentals place provided this nice little formula for how much space is needed for tables, chairs and circulation space:

ASIDE FROM MAIN TRAFFIC AISLES, ALLOW 4½’ BETWEEN ROUND TABLES FOR CHAIR AND SERVICE SPACE AND 5’ BETWEEN OBLONG TABLES WHERE SEATING IS BACK TO BACK. THIS PERMITS 24” SERVICE SPACE BEHIND 18” CHAIR DEPTH.

We also have the upper deck of the house and the deck of the shack. They currently look like this:

We can accomdate another 44 guests with the following plan:

Okaaayyyy... that leaves a dance floor, and bar and catering stations to take care of. We'll put two bar stations up (beer and wine only). One under the deck:

And another between the house and the shack:

The dance floor will come in 4' X 4' panels. The good weather plan is to set up the dancefloor in the driveway area, which is flatter than it looks in this picture:

 

That leaves only a catering area to be determined. We might set them up in the kitchen of the shack. Or, they could pull their van into the driveway and set up catering tables behind the dancefloor. It'll be their preferance and depend on the weather. We'll also bring in a porta potty or two to keep my parent's sewer/ septic from overflowing.

Stay tuned for the general lighting plan (again, it's not going to rain), as well as the rain plan "Sprinkle" and rain plan "Monsoon".

(yes, I really did name the rain plans differently).

Harrison's campground

A drawback to getting married in Harrison is the lack of hotels. Or hotels, plural. There is one. It has 15 rooms. There are also two fantastic Bed and Breakfast places. And vacation rentals. And a campground.

And since none of our guests are staying at the Hilton, this is obviously a very low-key kind of wedding. Shorts and a polo? Perfectly acceptable! Heels and a cocktail dress? If you want to! Sundress and flip flops? Great! We're just hoping my dad keeps his shirt on.

When I was in Harrison last week I stopped into City Hall to check on a number of things. They also let me glance through the reservation book for the campground. There are a handful of RV camping sites left, and a number of tent sites remaining!

Which is good for my extended family... as my mom put it, they're great in the 4th quarter and overtime. They don't plan ahead, but when they show up you will have a GREAT TIME!

A number of friends have reserved RV sites for camping, and I wanted to let you guys in on what the campground looks like. It ajoins the (closed for 2010, I believe) marina, city park, and has a bathroom with showers. Very basic, buy functional.

This is kind of a dark photo, but, lake to the left, RV camping spaces in the middle, marina at about 2 o'clock.

Each RV space has water and electric, and a picnic bench. They are definately cozy, but I think all of our wedding guests will end up in this line of spaces; we've got great friends so I have no doubt it will be fine!

But if you sleep walk, or have a kid who sleepwalks, you might want to wear a life jacket to bed- the lake is RIGHT THERE!

Cocktail Hour Decorations and Logistics

Did you know that Wednesday was February 10th? And that’s one two three four five months from our wedding. Which means we’ve now got less than five months until our wedding. Did you just laugh in an erratic, crazy-eyed way too? No? Just me then?

I’m starting to think about logistics and decorations. Since we’re starting the wedding evening with a 5:00 pm cocktail party at my parent’s house, let’s talk cocktail hour logistics and decorations…

Here's a photo of the lake house.

You’ll notice a few things. The site isn’t level. The house has been painted since this photo was taken. The giant juniper bush has also been removed. Let’s also keep in mind that our guest list is now 300 people, and probably 200 will come. And that the lake house faces west and south, which means in early July, it could be pretty hot on the site at 5pm.

Thus the need for ample cocktails.

And you can’t serve booze without food; that’s a recipe for disaster!

So I’ve got a working layout for how this whole thing will function. We’ll tuck a few tables and chairs onto the gravel driveway. The foot band drink station will be under the deck, in the shade. We’ll sprinkle chairs throughout the lawn, in case people wanted to sit. Music will be pumped through the speakers in the house and an iPod docking station (we do this frequently in the summer, so I know it works).

As for decorations, I’m aware that it’s pretty hard to compete with nature. She’s got it down pat. But we could enhance the scenery through some (hopefully) relatively cheap landscaping installations. Petunias are a favorite family perennial; if only because we have a hard time killing them! So decorations will be simple, and easy to put up and take down.

I’m thinking white petunias along the edges of the terraces, which will hopefully help people be aware that hey! There’s a four foot drop there! Maybe also some white dangly ball things in the tree, like these:

Source

In addition to the flowers, we do need to find some way to stake off the terrace edges so no one eats shit off of them. That’d be awful. Any suggestions for cheap, but not terrible ways to stake them off? I don’t want to prevent someone in case of fall; just let them know that the edge is there.

The grassy area will be for congregation, standing around with a plate of food and chatting. I’m sure people will lean up against the rock walls and use them as tables to put plates down on. We’ll have to be sure to spray for bees, and try to level out the grass as much as possible.

Since we’re going a little un-traditional by doing the cocktail hour first, and then the ceremony and reception, DJ and I thought it was important to tell people what was going on. The invitation will only say something like “invites you to join them at five o’clock”, without detailing that cocktails are at 5pm, ceremony at 6:30 pm and the reception at 7pm. We don’t want people to get confused, so DJ’s mom is making signs to stake around the property. Something like this:

In addition to staking some signs into the ground around the property, we’ll be able to pop them into 5 gallon buckets to cordon off parking directly in front of the house. I don’t want to clutter up the awesome view, or the expensive photography, with photos of someone’s Chevy in the background. We’ll to the same mobile 5 gallon bucket idea to put up signs on the bike trail.

I’m thinking we’ll keep decorations pretty low key. Some white flowers, and the iris bulbs might be blooming. Some white dangly things in the trees, signs to tell people what the plan is (and where the bathroom is), and some kind of roping off of the terraces. Am I missing something important?