Details: Creating an outdoor seating area

Paul and I had a very lazy weekend. He's been busy lately so he swore off work for all of Saturday AND Sunday. No work emails, no checking his blackberry, nothing. I was pretty impressed that he pulled it off. We spent the time going on a hike, cooking semi-elaborate meals, having friends over, and other odds and ends.

None of that is at all relevant to what I'm about to post, except for to say, that I've had a good excuse for not posting in a few days!

So one of the things that I knew I wanted at our wedding was an outdoor seating area. Couches, floor pillows, a fire pit, the works. Since our wedding was in my parent's yard, they offered to let me drag their living room furniture outside. Have I mentioned that I love how flexible my parents are?

I was given a Crate & Barrel gift card from my old office as an early wedding present, so I used that to buy a rug and some floor pillows that I knew we'd reuse in our house. And I lugged up a big chair I love, because I thought it would look cute in pictures (and I'm going to admit that is a crazy reason to bring a hundred pound chair anywhere).


We set the lounge up on the pool deck, which was located just close enough to the dance floor to be a good place to take a break and people watch, but just far enough away from the DJ to carry on a conversation.
After dark we lit torches all around the patio and floating candles in the pool, got the fire pit going, and people sat around on the couches and curled up in quilts on the rug. One of the great mysteries of our wedding is how there isn't a single picture of it! I've put out a request to my friends in hope someone has one that they've been hiding from me, so if something shows up I'll be sure and post it here.

Having the seating area was a great, super easy addition to the wedding (particularly since we could use stuff we already had on site). People don't really want to sit at tables after they are done eating, and it gave them somewhere to be if they didn't want to dance. I have no idea how much this would cost, but I was at a wedding recently where they primarily rented couches instead of tables and chairs. They did have a few tables for those who needed or wanted them, but in general it was perfectly fine, and a lot more comfortable for seating once people were done with their food.

My brother-in-law & his girlfriend at the couch-seating wedding.