The Leake wedding

At the end of June, the Dustin family tackled their first wedding as caterer and decorator!  No, we aren't starting a business or anything, we just did it as a favor to a friend.  It was a lot of hard work, a lot of hours, and a lot of fun!

Hannah helped me for weeks with shopping and choosing decorations, while Danny planned the menu and worked on fitting it into a budget, and then he single-handedly did all the shopping for the food.  Whew.  He did a ton.  Superman-ish.

And Jacob.  He was the muscles of the whole thing. He did the grunt work.  He loaded many heavy boxes of books, decorations, flowers, food, etc. for me.  Never could have done it without him.  And then on top of that he switched to his dress clothes after the ceremony and went out to help at the reception - hauling trays of food and ice and serving drinks and coffee and then hauling everything that he had just carried into the church back out of the church and into the car.  Whew!

 The bride and groom were very laid-back and easy to please.  They had only one request - and that was that we try to make a trifle that was an old family recipe and had played a role in their first date.  

It turned out beautifully.

The bride was a school teacher, and so we incorporated books and relaxed flowers and burlap to reflect her personality. 

  And I have to say here that my beautiful, talented, hard-working daughter made each and every one of the 32 flower arrangements for this wedding.  I tried to help her.  Ugh.  My arrangements were not up to "wedding" par. It was supposed to be me doing the decorations and her helping me, but it turned out to be  the other way around!  She made one sample, and I was able to copy her for a few that were meant to be exactly the same.  The rest, she went into creative-artist-flowing-inspiration mode and worked without quitting for an entire day.  

At one point I thought we were going to run out of flowers, that I hadn't bought enough, and I started to panic.  My mature, calm daughter said to me "Mom, don't worry.  We have endless hydrangeas in the yard.  It will all be fine."

When I grow up, I want to be like her.  Truly.

The lovely couple

Family heritage theme.  Beautiful and touching.

Hannah serving the lemonade.  And Jacob off to the left drinking it! haha

Beautiful buffet tables filled with food meticulously prepared in the kitchen

I have to say that despite the bumpy spots (like only one person out of seven showing up to help on the night before the wedding) all went well.

We even had a candy station for kids and adults alike!

One of my personal favorites.  This was a cluster of decorations on the drink table.

After much work, weathering heat and broken air-conditioning at our house, and moments of panic when helpers did not show up, I have to say the wedding was a success!