From Miss to Mrs: Ceremony Details

With our ceremony at such a gorgeous location, off the porch of a grand plantation home, framed by towering oak tress there wasn't a lot of decoration needed. Except since we was having a primarily Jewish wedding, the one thing we needed was our chuppah.
The structure of this was actually made by the boy using pvc pipe, flower pots, and a bag of cement from an online tutorial. If I remember correctly, my FIL was the one who put it all together, and my SIL took care of the flowers at the bottom.

The chuppah in progress - personal photoAs for the covering itself, for a long time I wasn't sure how that would come together. As it happened, once the boy and I were first engaged, the one request my mom made was that she make our chuppah cover. Since it was something I hadn't really thought about, I told her I agreed, and from there she asked me to come up with ideas on what I wanted it to look like. I think I bookmarked a single image since I really had no idea. (And yes, I mean bookmarked. Pinterest hadn't quite taken off yet.) Except, by now you probably know what happened, and my mom died about 10 months before the wedding which meant not only did I have no idea what I wanted it to look like, I had no idea how it would be made at all.

I didn't really want to ask anyone to help at this point. I figured at some point it would come together, and I'd find a solution. Instead what happened is I said something in passing to my MIL, and without a hesitation she decided she'd sew our chuppah for us. Which is how my Catholic MIL happened to make the centerpiece of our Jewish wedding. I still had no idea how I wanted it to look, and left it up to her. She wound up embroidering it with flowers, our initials, and even a small tribute to my mom.
Speaking of my mom, almost a year ago I wrote this post about leaving flowers on a chair in memory of my mom. Except as it got closer to the wedding, it became something I didn't want to think about. Which is why I was so surprised when someone, I believe my godmother, pulled the extra flowers from our centerpieces to leave them on the chair where my mom would have sat.
On a less sentimental note, I put the boy in charge of buying the wine for the ceremony. I didn't tell him it had to be Kosher, just that it was something I wanted him to take care of. He remember that a few weeks prior we had gone to Doe's, and shared a pretty delicious bottle of wine. He actually tried to track down a bottle of it in an actual store, but wound up going back to the restaurant to see if they'd sell it to him. And while it wasn't their standard practice, he must have been convincing.
The ring bearer pillow was bought on clearance at Michaels. I didn't really care what it looked like, only that it was plain so I could dress it up. The blue and purple ribbons, may not have been gorgeous, but they did tie it into the overall colar scheme. Plus I had the ribbon leftover from when I crafted the escort card holders.
The flower girl basket came from our florist. One aspect I loved was that the petals weren't simple rose petals but actually matched the flowers in the bouquet. Of course, they weren't actually thrown, but if you look my niece didn't actually have a free hand to do so. I was told that about half way through the ceremony she whisperered in realization to my SIL, a bridesmaid, telling her she forgot to throw her petals and was reassured that it wasn't a problem.
Really the only other item on display was our ketubah, which we signed before the ceremony. I had it custom framed at Michaels, and asked them not to put felt over the back so we could take the print out to sign it. The stand itself was provided by our venue.
Are you the type to notice details at a wedding? And if you're already married, how much did you decorate your ceremony site?

Unless otherwise noted all photos in this post courtesy of Sabree Hill Photography
with editing by me to protect privacy.
Miss a Recap Post?
From Miss to Mrs: The Calm Before the Storm
From Miss to Mrs: There's a Hurricane Coming?
From Miss to Mrs: Here Comes Isaac
From Miss to Mrs: Weathering the Cane
From Miss to Mrs: After the Storm
From Miss to Mrs: Trials and Tribulations
From Miss to Mrs: The Last Errands
From Miss to Mrs: A Night on the Town
From Miss to Mrs: The Hangover
From Miss to Mrs: Rehearsing in the Heat
From Miss to Mrs: The Last Single Supper
From Miss to Mrs: Gifting the Girls
From Miss to Mrs: The Last Single Night
From Miss to Mrs: Oh What a Beautiful Morning
From Miss to Mrs: Getting Prettified
From Miss to Mrs: Prepping the Plantation
From Miss to Mrs: Turtle Time
From Miss to Mrs: The Photographer Has Arrived
From Miss to Mrs: Becoming the Bride
From Miss to Mrs: Dress Details
From Miss to Mrs: Ou Est le Groom?
From Miss to Mrs: A Bridge-y First Look
From Miss to Mrs: Couple Time
From Miss to Mrs: Just the Two of Us
From Miss to Mrs: Grouping the Girls
From Miss to Mrs: Ain't No Party Like a Bridal Party
From Miss to Mrs: Fun with Family
From Miss to Mrs: Making it Official
From Miss to Mrs: The Bedeken
From Miss to Mrs: The Final Minutes
From Miss to Mrs: Programming Break
From Miss to Mrs: The Processional
From Miss to Mrs: Walking the Walk
From Miss to Mrs: Circle to Ceremony
From Miss to Mrs: Remembrance to Kiddush
From Miss to Mrs: The Exchanges
From Miss to Mrs: Lucky Number Seven
From Miss to Mrs: Mazel Tov