Outdoor Ceremony Site Staging

It’s been a long time coming, but it looks like it will be ready for this coming weekend when we host our first outdoor ceremony for the year.  Building this new site has been a nearly two year long process.  It all started with a drought which made it feasible to build a peninsula.  Last year, we struggled with getting the grass to fill in because the peninsula was built from the soil found at the bottom of the pond, but by the end of the season the grass had come up nicely.  Once it was in place, we built a pergola.  Just before the snow flew, we planted some trees around the site.

That brings us to this year.  The first order of business was to finish the pergola.  We wanted to build a stage and step which would allow our couples to be visible to their guests.  My husband began the project one weekend while I was away at a dance competition with our daughter.  He texted me this picture of my two boys busy laying the foundation to what would become the stage.  We like to start the love of power tools at an early age.

Next up, my carpenters built the decking of the stage.

They lined the inside of the stage with bracing to prepare it for the deck boards.  These boards aren’t rounded because we didn’t want curves which might make walking in high heels difficult.  The cart wasn’t fond of the amount of weight, but it did make for some fun driving skills.

In a last minute change of plans, we decided to move one of our outdoor outlets to the stage area because my mom says the pergola is calling for a chandelier.  Now we have some electricity if her dream is ever realized.  Here’s Santa pulling up our previous wiring to bring it over to the pergola.

It was a pretty easy fix and they were happy with me that I had changed my mind at this time in the planning process rather than a day later.

While this was going on, we began landscaping around those trees that had been planted last fall.  While I was off at the dance competition, my staff members surprised me by having all of the wood chips in place when I returned.  The boys got busy planting some ornamental grasses along the edge.

Our final stage will happen this week when we put in the border to the landscaped bed as well as get all of our flowers planted.  Here’s the edging laid out ready to be installed.

By the end of the day, we had a nice base for our stage and step.

My daughter came down with me to inspect and she was pretty pleased with the work!

Our to do list continues to get smaller and we’re looking forward to this whole project being marked off the ole’ list!