-My brother-in-law Will and nephew Rob built the frame out of local aspen trees. The wedding was held at the Utah Natural History Museum and any untreated wood must be frozen for nearly two weeks before it can be used at the facility in order to kill any sneaky organisms that might unleash themselves upon the priceless artifacts. Will and Rob built the frame in June and I got just one good look at it before they took it to the museum. I never had a chance to practice draping the canopy before the wedding. Eek.
-Rachel was of no help whatsoever. She kept on saying extremely lovely (yet ultimately unhelpful) things like she trusted my judgement and I have a good eye and she would be fine with whatever I came up with. Eek.
-The frame was 6' x 6' square and approximately 8' high. Fabric doesn't come in 6' x 6' lengths so this became more of a math problem than anything. There were lots of calculations involved. And a little bit of swearing. And a bit of despair. Eek.
-What fabric do you use that looks fancy enough for a wedding, but not too fancy for rustic aspen wood? Where do you find this fabric? I shopped at pretty much every fabric store in Utah. I ended up finding some beautiful linen fabric in ivory. Luckily, Rachel prefers ivory over pure white. (Ha! Finally dragged an opinion out of her on that one.) Good thing since this fabric only came in ivory. Eek.
-The linen fabric I selected was lovely, but prone to fraying at the edges. How do you edge a monster-sized piece of fabric that was 10' wide and 18' feet long? In my case, I didn't. I took up my friend Jenny's rash offer of help. She took over and ended up using her serger to bind the edges. She also helped with some design modifications that ended up being absolutely perfect. Yay for Jenny! What if I hadn't included Jenny in the process? It could have all gone wrong. Eek.
-The museum closed to the public at 5:00 pm and we had just about 1/2 hour to assemble the frame and drape the canopy before the ceremony started at 6:00 pm. Rob was uber prepared and had the frame up in no time. Will's brother Dan and Dan's husband Chewy helped me drape the canopy and play around with a couple of options before we decided on the final design. Eek!
Lot's of "eeks" but ultimately it was a huge success.
Wow, it is truly very pretty. I really adore the efforts that have put into this. My sister will have a beach wedding at one of the private beachside LA venues and I think something like this would be quite interesting for their special day. I am definitely going to give this idea to her.
ReplyDeleteI'm SO sorry I was entirely unhelpful - but you did a fabulous job (as I knew you would... knowing that you have fabulous taste). Thanks again for making my day so special :)
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