what table are you sitting at?

One Love Photo

Tommy and I have a real love for road trips - and have taken many.  A couple of years ago we started collecting license plates from the places we had traveled....it has grown and grown!  We wanted to incorporate these into our wedding somehow.  So instead of using table numbers, we made them the table identifiers and it was the perfect way to do it.

We had 20ish plates, which would have been just enough with the smaller tables that SnowBowl used to have.  A couple months before our wedding, the SnowBowl got larger tables, so we only needed 12 license plates.  The hardest part was picking which one's to include!!!  We ended up selecting the states that were most precious to us:  Rhode Island, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington, Oregon, Utah, Colorado, Louisiana, New York, Hawaii, and Nevada. 

One Love Photo

We had quite a few license plates, and we picked up a few more online (like ebay!)  Then it was time to "make" them.  We made a night out of it!  We soaked and scrubbed the plates as clean as they could get.  Then we took our old Atlas...the one we had used for our countless journeys...and used each states map to cover the backs of the corresponding state's plate.  It was neat because some of the maps had highlighted routes and penciled in notes made by us over the years.

 One Love Photo

Then I took out my boxes of pictures...and Tommy and I went through and picked out our favorite pictures from our adventures to add to the backs of the license plates.  Every plate was decorated with a picture of us IN that state.  It was WONDERFUL to relive those adventures again!   It might sound silly - but this was a memory maker in itself - a night I will surely remember.  Some of the pictures we found were from before we were boyfriend and girlfriend...and in some of the pictures we look so young!  Rehashing adventures is the best.

 that Arizona plate was a popular picture prop with all the out-of-towners! via One Love Photo

After all the work we put into them, I was a little worried that they might look too "crafty" and not really wedding pretty.  But it was one of the Tommy's favorite things for the wedding - and it was one of my favorite nights spent working on wedding stuff.  Thankfully, I realized I was being kinda silly and we ended up using them and I'm so glad that we did!  They were a hit - and were a unique way for us to personalize our wedding and share our journey with our guests.

the plates with the maps and pictures....

I ended up bordering the backs of the plates with black stock 

to make it look more finished.

  a couple of plates hanging in our former bathroom

Now they decorate our hall way!  Best thing ever.

*note:  I've had a few questions from real friends and bloggy friends alike as to where I found this idea.  Truth be told, I've never seen it done before.  Maybe that's another reason I was slightly hesitant to do it.  Thankfully, it turned out bodacious!