Ikea Has Everything

I love Ikea. The majority of the furniture in our apartment comes from Ikea because it's affordable and hip. I never thought about Ikea for wedding supplies though. That is, until I read a post on An Atlanta Bride, who recently married her Mr. Wonderful. Her blog is awesome, you should check it out. She bought tables from Ikea to use in her lounge area during cocktail hour.

My wedding is basically one long cocktail hour and originally we were going to rent coffee tables, but $125 each for 2 seemed extravagant. We are still getting the lovely white benches for our two lounge-like areas, but I knew we could get the tables for cheaper. Enter Ikea. Mr. J and I took the free Ikea shuttle to the Red Hook, Brooklyn location. I love walking around the showroom. We saw many coffee tables and wrote down a few we liked. Then we saw a display that had two tables pushed together to make one, and guess how much those tables were? $12.99! So, we picked up 4 white Lack tables for about 52 bucks, as opposed to $250. Yes, I was in heaven! I love a deal. (All images via Ikea) We were on our way to pay and had to go through the first floor with all the Home Decor. For anyone thinking about centerpieces, YOU MUST GO TO IKEA. So many ideas, so little time. We walked towards the paper lanterns and both fell in love. Instead of me slaving on the beautiful coffee filter garland I was going to make to hang over the tree branches, we're going to go with 4 paper lanterns dangling just above head range. Ikea had an example of a lantern painted blue (SCORE!) so we bought the blue paint as well. It will look great during the ceremony when the sun is out and beautiful at night after sunset when the lights can be turned on. So with the 4 Lack tables, 4 paper lanters, 5 cords (we bought one more just in case), 1 can of blue stain, 1 paintbrush, and one blue Ikea bag, we spent $107.

I can't wait until Mr. J and I move into our next apartment, I want the red kitchen in the showroom!

Rehearsal Dinner Location, Fort Greene, Brooklyn

Today Mr. J secured our spot for the rehearsal dinner. I'm excited. It's not a traditional space for a rehearsal dinner--but then again, we're not traditional. We are having it at the South Oxford Space in Fort Greene (just blocks away from where we first met). I've been to the space for dance/musical performances, they also host a number of creative events, luncheons, and cocktail parties, as well as rehearsal space for the art world.

We can't rehearse at Akwaaba because there is a wedding the evening before ours--so we needed to find a space with enough room to do a full rehearsal, but also sit down to have dinner. As you all know, New York City can be very expensive, especially to have 30 people for drinks and dinner. We looked at restaurants and it was a bit pricey--and we wouldn't be able to rehearse. Mr. J's mother is graciously paying for the rental of the space. We can go in and set up for an hour to make things look pretty, they've got tables and chairs, we'll bring in our own food and probably use sternos to keep it warm. We'll also bring in our own drinks. We'll do set-up from 6-6:45 p.m., rehearsal from 7-8 p.m., dinner, toasts, bridal party gifts from 8;10:30 p.m., and clean-up until 11 p.m.

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Akwaaba means "Welcome," Come on in!

This is more of Akwaaba, which means "Welcome" in the Akan language of Ghana. We had our walk-through with the caterer and I took some more pictures.

Sun porch, I'm expecting all the old folks to hang here.

This is the courtyard--now imagine it decorated, it's pretty raw
right now except for the wonderful trees.

This picture is from the summer, so you'll see

how the trees bloom with leaves
providing full shade.

I LOVE our engagement photos!

We had a lot of fun playing around.

This race helped warm us up in the 40 degree weather.

I like this shot a lot. Just don't look to close because my hands look ashy. (It's from being out in the cold for three hours).

He wanted to spin me around but my crack was showing!

We decided to wear our Barack the Vote t-shirts because we met on an election day.

As New Yorkers, we've got to have the subway shot.

And this is the spot where we met. He came up to me and asked if I liked jazz. Awwww.

So the pictures were taken by our friend Richard Louissaint. Check his blog for more of our pictures. Mr. J's mom was visiting with us for the weekend and was behind the scenes holding our bags. She's such a trooper! We want to get a book done of our favorite photos and get some prints for our families. We're both ecstatic about the photos because they are exactly what we wanted, casual, fun, romantic, and in Brooklyn!