This week I am thankful for having a good marriage. No, a GREAT marriage and a wonderful partner. On November 1 Andy & I will be celebrating our 1-year anniversary and I couldn’t be happier. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever had so many consecutive days of being happy. And as he always says, “we’ve got a lot of life to live.” I can only hope so.

To celebrate we will be headed to the beautiful little town of Galena this weekend to walk downtown, maybe do some shopping, tour a mansion, enjoy a little wine tasting, maybe catch the Halloween Parade and I cannot believe it,  but Andy agreed to a Haunted Dinner & Ghost Tour! =) See, I told you he’s the best!

What are you thankful for today?

Handy Andy has been a great instructor teaching me how to use a bunch of his fun power tools. (I was a little scared I might saw a finger off but so far so good!) I don’t have near the patience he has so I had a couple bad hours as I got over the learning curve and was about to yank this item entirely. Since he did most of the construction on the last couple stands I had NO IDEA how much work actually went into these babies.  But, Andy got me through it and once I saw the finished product I realized it’s totally worth it.

We’re continuing to find new ways to improve the quality and process and we enjoy working on them so for now we’ll keep on making ‘em. How do you like our latest creation:

This is our newly designed small stand. It has three tiers – 20″, 15″, 10″ and should hold approximately 75 cupcakes. Or, about 65 cupcakes and a small cake on top. I am loving the zebra print!

The whole day was a bit chaotic though, I was running around putting out fires the entire time. But it was great. I really am proud of myself for being able to think on my feet and help facilitate the event without having done more planning ahead of time. And I can’t believe I wasn’t scared a bit to be in front of so many people. I think because I knew it wasn’t about me…they weren’t there to watch and judge me, but to watch and support Wendy and Jason. And that’s why I was there; My job was to make sure they had the best day possible and I think they did.

Here are a few random things that happened:

• Poor Jessica had to spend 3.5 hours getting her hair, nails and eyebrows done that morning b/c she got stuck with a new girl! (Jess was NOT happy!)
• Stephanie’s dress was a couple inches too long so I took it up the morning of the wedding.
• All the girls needed their dresses steamed so thank goodness I got a Tobi steamer for my wedding last year!
• The girls were about to jump in the limo when I counted the bouquets and realized we were one short. Just call me Laura Martha “MacGyver” Stewart-Meckley  because I quickly looked around, grabbed some leftover flowers, a ponytail band, some floral tape & ribbon and whipped together a make-shift bouquet. It didn’t match the rest perfectly, but I honestly don’t think anyone noticed.
• LOL – Demitrios (a groomsman) came over to me to help put on his boutonniere and he said, “I told everyone to come see you because whatever we can do Laura can do better!” (Thanks for the vote of confidence D!)
• The stupid wind blew the aisle runner all over the place so we grabbed it and the guests put a foot on it while Wendy came down the aisle.
• The sand ceremony vase broke as the kids were pouring in their sand.
• The Best Man couldn’t get the ring off his finger!
• We had no electricity in the park so we had to use a little CD Player that skipped a bit with the crazy wind.
• I was able to contain myself during the ceremony, but did cry a bit during the sand ceremony while SarahJayne sang Ave Maria.
• I was so excited at the end of the ceremony I was nearly screaming “Ladies & Gentlemen, it is my great pleasure to give you MR. & MRS. JASON & WENDY FARNSWORTH!!”  (I almost busted out with spirit fingers and a Russian, but I did manage to contain myself to a point)
• When the wedding party arrived at the reception and sat at the head table, Jessica (one of the bridesmaids) came over and said “Help! Everyone is asking me what we’re supposed to do, I don’t know! What ARE we supposed to do?” So, I jumped into action, consulted my trusty itinerary I created and tried to wrangle them up to cut the cake and get photos. Afterwards I dismissed tables for dinner, got everyone ready for their speeches, prepped the DJ for their dances, and ran back to cut & serve the cake. Then I danced and drank heavily the rest of the night. I was told by a few that I’m “the coolest minister they had ever met!”
• When we realized the DJ was not truly prepared for the wedding (in his defense, he’s not really a DJ but a bandmember with some DJ equipment who was nice enough to fill in last minute since the original DJ backed out…I know, what’s with these people backing out?!) we sent Handy Andy home to get his hard drive of 50,000+ songs so we had a nice variety of music.

All in all, it was fine. Everyone had a good time and most importantly, the new Mr. & Mrs. enjoyed themselves. I had a few people half joking, half serious tell me “If I ever get married you are HIRED!” and I had one girl (sort of a friend of a friend) who is pretty serious ask me if I would consider doing her wedding. I told her I would think about it. I had a great time doing Wendy’s wedding but I never had plans of making this my new career.

Truth be told, I loved every minute of it. I loved the planning, the coordinating, the excitement, the smiles, the tears, just everything. My friends think I’m crazy, but I honestly had a great time. We laughed, we cried, we had a blast. It was an amazing day that I will remember for as long as I live. It truly was an honor.

Now, I will use my minister powers to pray that my group of friends will return from Mexico in good health.

Shameless plug: Handy Andy is for hire to make your very own Giant Cupcake Stand!
Or, don’t forget if you have your own version of a Handy Andy at home you can make your own!

The Seifferts were nice enough to hire me to make their programs, favor tags in addition to the invitations!

I also did some fun decals for the reception and the get away car. Please forgive my feeble attempt at snapping  a photo, my camera is on its last leg. The Seifferts promised me some good shots from their photographer, so stay tuned for those!.

I recently did some touch up painting to our cupcake stand because we’re loaning it to our friends for their upcoming wedding and we then are selling it to another bride afterwards. Wanted to let you all know I’ve added more info and photos on my old post if you want to make your own  giant cupcake stand!