August 8th was Pinja and Justin's wedding. I loved helping Pinja plan her wedding. She is from Finland and many members of her family were able to fly over and share her special day with her. The site was in the backwoods of hillside in Anchorage. This pad that we set up our tents and everything on was made about a week before the wedding when we all realized that the original site was just too muddy to work with. Justin luckily owns a company that has the equipment needed to slap a gravel pad fit for tents and a dancefloor together in a couple of days. Here is a picture of Valley Rental Center setting up their tents for the wedding.
Pinja wanted a very outdoorsy, natural, and elegant feel to her wedding. The arbor was made by my Dad, Doug VanWingerden. He made it exactly how the bride wanted it to look. Just naturally beautiful. Awesome job Dad!
Pinja wanted some lights in the trees that we could light later in the evening when the main activities were over and things were shifting into "dance/party" mode. I found these cool little metal cages at Pier 1 for $1/ea on sale. I took out the little funky plant that was in it and replaced it with a candle. It worked great! They looked especially cool when the candle started to melt and drip through the cage underneath.
Our tables were long buffet tables set, two deep, so they were extra wide and long. We used standard white linens and then ran a wide runner of burlap over the white to give it a rustic feel. We set slabs of birch along the length of the table and topped those with fresh bread from L'aroma and set a bottle of red and white wine on either side. Then we filled in with the flowers and votive candles.
The cake was set on slabs of birch as well and surrounded by mini chocolate and vanilla cupcakes.
My favorite part of the decoration were the mahogany chivari chairs. They just look so cool!
