Jane & Craig

Ceremony & Reception Location: Dearborn Inn

Wedding Color: Clover Green

Guests: 140

Emergency Kit Items Used: Clear nail polish, on myself, I ran my nylons!!

Some pro photo peeks located here.

Jane & Craig were set to get married outdoors on the Dearborn Inn grounds by the gazebo, and she was worried about rain. What a beautiful day it turned out to be, no rain at all! Dearborn Inn has beautiful grounds and gardens, and a terrific area for photos with all of the replica homes that surround the gazebo area. For the ceremony, we set up shepherd's hooks down the aisle, and hung Jane's DIY pommanders from them. I had a bit of trouble getting some in to the ground in some areas, they just wouldn't budge. But, after some rearranging, I finally got them to line up fairly well, though some just refused to go in to the ground any further. I guess I am a little nutty about things lining up just right sometimes!

Jane had a very extensive candy buffet, lots of containers! This took a majority of the time to set up and I was glad we had plenty of time. Jane had made it very easy by putting the candy she wanted in each container IN the actual container, but bagged so it would not fly loose and spill in the storage boxes. Ladies, if you do this, it's SO HELPFUL and makes the candy buffet set-up so much easier for me (much appreciated!), but you might want to pack some extra stuffing material to be used later when it's time to pack the containers back up. I had re-bagged the candy at the end of the night but was lacking stuffing material to put inside the containers later...because, of course, the candy stock was significantly depleted through the night :-)

People seemed to have a blast with the candy buffet though, the candy cigarettes were snatched up quickly! "Retro" candy seems to bring back a memory of childhood in some, and it's fun to watch people enjoying something so much.

Also for the decor, Jane had purchased some thundersticks at the last minute, an idea she had gotten that very week from another bride. To be quite honest, I wasn't exactly sure what "thundersticks" were!! Ah, those noise-makers that are popular at sports events, got it! (I am not a huge sports event attendee, obviously!) A set of thundersticks were criss-crossed on each guest chair and a little note of directions for them was placed on each place setting. Upon bride and groom arrival, the guests made lots of noise! Very neat idea, I can see this becoming a very popular trend when others catch on.

Dearborn Inn really has their ducks in a row when it comes to hospitality. There was a banquet captain in the room all night and also the booking manager was there until around 10:00 p.m. In a case like this, I prefer to allow them to do what they do best while still remain on-hand "just in case", but DI truly needed no "babysitting". They coordinated all of the events of the night as needed and my assistance at the reception was limited / not as neccessary. My time after dinner was filled by replenishing the candy buffet and watching guests enjoy their evening. A coney hot dog station was rolled out in the bar area later which people seemed very excited about.

The other vendors of the night had great personalities and were easy to talk to: Rafael of Memories Forever, Kris of Kreativ Imaging and his really sweet assistant, and Ron of Disc Jockey Productions.

Jane & Craig, I hope you are having a wonderful time in Jamaica at Sandals Dunn's River! This is the same resort we went to in April and we didn't want to come home! Congratulations!