A Challenge for My Friends...

This is a post inspired by a convo I had with Valerie from My Own Crafty Wonderland at her pillowcase party, which you can read about here, here and here.  Hubs and I are starting to plan our 10/14 for next May.  What is a 10/14?  It's 10 years married, 14 years commonlaw (Justin says commonlaw counts...either way, we're a truly lucky couple and we know it!).

Love is in the air...love is all around.  Justin's good friend, one of Arthur's godfathers, Craig, met beautiful Mary and their wedding is planned for the fall.  Normally, I don't look forward to weddings much...perhaps it's because I've been to so many, and been in so many.  But with Craig and Mary, this is going to be a very special time for us.  We love Craig so much, and Mary is sweet and beautiful and treats him so adoringly.  And recently our friend Sacha, who we adore, married the sweetest, funnest man, and they will soon be throwing a big bash to celebrate...romance is so contagious...I can't wait!

All this has us excited about planning for our big event: building our playlist, thinking about food and decorations and all the fun wedding things that ladies flip out over.  And it's very much like planning our wedding again...our original event was an unvitation kind of wedding...to dodge the lengthy guest list and traditional church wedding, we married on Beaver Lake at Circle of Light...65 guests and weekend-long party.  It was amazing.  We had a brilliant, lovely time.  Three days in Arkansas, back to Tulsa for a concert at Majestic (in its previous incarnation), and then off to spend ten days camping, hosteling and staying at kitschy mountain lodges.  It was a dream to say the least, but now we are looking forward to sharing our commitment with all of our friends and family.

Here's what we have so far:

The event will take place next May at the Marquee, thanks to the kindness of Sacha and Marc.

Kisha, who was one of my best friends in high school and remains one of the dearest, most amazing people in my life, and her husband Chris, suggested a handfasting for this party.  After they explained to us that this is a short, earthy sort of ceremony that can be performed in a non-religious way, but is a way to recommit ourselves to each other without all the vow renewal business, we agreed to incorporate this into our event, but we want to keep it light.

We also want to include decorations, music, and other ideas to make this a big, insanely fun party to epitomize the essence of our years together.  We want to include things we love, like scooters, concerts, etc.  After doing some talking about what we want the party to be like, Justin suggested that it should be like a Flaming Lips concert (at which, incidentally, marriage proposals have become something of a regular event). Together, we've seen over 200 concerts in our 10/14, and Flaming Lips shows are our favorite.

I think this is an insane, amazing idea.  Instead of the usual wedding sort of things, we'll have bubbles, confetti, energy, balloons, bright colors, et cetera!  SO my question to you is, what are some ideas you have for our event?


Here are some pics to get you started:

http://www.last.fm/music/The+Flaming+Lips/+images
Peace and Love!
K