Wedding Week: Wedding Books

When thinking about ALL the details for the wedding, I added "wedding favors" to the list.  Being the gift-givers that we Kennedys are, I wanted the wedding favors to reflect the interests of Glo and Gordon AND be something that people would actually want to take home with them.  Combining those two interests, I thought of books.  Glo and Gordon's favorite books, our family's favorite books, books that I thought people would like to read.

There were so many great parts to the wedding, but this was a really FUN part of the planning.  Glo and Gordon came up with a list of books that they like, and we went from there.  Of course we initially thought we would only need 40 books, but as the guest list grew, so did the book list.

I started in our own library.  Did we have extra copies of any books?  Sure enough we did (The Help being one of them).  Next, Glo and Gordon went to Pioneer Book in Provo, a most excellent used book store, and found about 20 books there. And while you would think used books would be less expensive than new ones, they aren't really.  Johannah and I finished off the list at our local Barnes and Noble.  And again, John gets the hero award because 50 new books definitely weren't cheap although we used the BOGO offer to the best of our ability.

In the end, the selection was the best of the best in my opinion, and I asked myself the proverbial question, "Why can't I be invited to one of my parties?" because this really was such a beautiful idea.

I also had the idea that we should stamp the books with the event and date.  Glo was all over this idea, designing and ordering her own four-inch stamp which was so tender.

It was funny to see that wedding guests hadn't noticed the stamp, because once they had chosen their books, I would open to the front page, and every single time there was a collective "ahhhh" <3

But even better....

Allison has amazing design and party-planning skills, so I figured she would be the one to come up with a beautiful table at the reception displaying the books for people to choose from.  However, she and Mark came up with the idea for him to make Glo and Gordon a BOOKSHELF.  I seriously never thought Mark would get it made in time, but a week before the wedding, he pulled up in our driveway with a complete bookcase in the back of his car.

The crazy thing? Like Glo, he used his artistic mind and designed the entire thing himself!  When he first brought it in (before Glo was home), we all just oohed and aah over it for a good twenty minutes.  I mean, he poured some serious thought and LOVE into that bookshelf.  Needless to say, Glo and Gordon were floored when he presented it to them two nights before their wedding.

And that's what we used to display the books at the reception.  Because of where it was in the barn, nobody had noticed the sign, telling the guests "Every great love begins with a story. Please take a book as a memory of our day together", but once John made the announcement, people were running to pick a book! And Brother Charles recognized many of the exotic woods Mark used on the bookshelf which, of course, started a whole conversation between the two of them <3