Sand ceremony trial

We are doing the sand ceremony instead of the unity candle. I first found out about the sand ceremony on theknot, of course and found a slew of information here: http://community.theknot.com/cs/ks/user/page.aspx?username=sandceremonybio

The above link has an abundance of information regarding the wording for the ceremony as well as the different bottles and other containers you can use to hold the sand. If you google, sand ceremony, a ton of info will pop up also. The newest trend is the sand ceremony frame. The frame is a shadowbox umbra ether frame and it has 4 panes of glass. One of the panes can be removed to hold the sand while a picture is displayed in front like this:

Getting the frame is another task: the one pictured above is from http://www.sandframes.com/. They customize your frame; you choose the wood and the send everything you need for the ceremony. I didn't want to pay that much, so I found the umbra frame at Kohls, on sale nonetheless for $14.99, and followed these instructions http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/welcome.sfly?fid=a88f97c87060743e&sid=0QctHDFm1bMXbg to seal the frame to keep the sand from falling out. You can also purchase the frame from Amazon for $20. Right now, Kohls is running a special online to buy one frame get one free for $15. Great deal if you know someone else who could use the frame too. By the time I purchased the Flora Bond from Michaels, my frame cost me under $20, versus the cost from sandframes.

I decided to do a trial run, so I would know how much sand I'm going to need and if the bottles I purchased are big enough. This is the frame after I used the Flora Bond and put the glass back in place. I let it sit upright for at least 24 hours to dry.

The 2nd pic is a close-up of the Flora Bond. I scraped off the excess glue once it dried so it wouldn't be so caked up in the corners like the above picture.

I purchased 2 cork stopper bottles from AC Moore for like $1.50 total and I bought a 2 lb bag of sand for the trial. The bottles aren't big enough to hold 1 lb of sand each but from the trial I see that 2 lbs of sand will fill it up to the top almost; I just refilled a bottle with the remainder of the sand and that did it.

After it was filled, there was maybe a 1/4 of an inch of space left, which I plan to fill with the Flora Bond after the ceremony so the sand won't leak out of the top space. If you don't want to do that, you can leave the frame in the upright position but just know the sand will leak out the top if it's turned horizontal.

So, the plan is to go back and get one more bottle which I will use for the Officiant to pour sand for the "foundation" and on top of ours, sealing the deal. That sand will come from Paradise Cove. I'm going to decorate the bottles minimally, just a pink bow ribbon on mine, which will have pink sand, and a brown ribbon on Mikes' to go with his brown sand. Or vice versa, who knows. =)

Oh, I don't want to forget this, I was confused about adding the picture. What happens is you slide the first piece of glass up and tape the picture to the 2nd piece of glass. If you want to change pictures in the future, like we will, just remove the 1st piece of glass. No problem.

As far as sand, I'm going to purchase 1 lb each of the Azalea and Chocolate from http://www.moonglowcandles.com/wedding_sand.htm They have the most amazing colors and they match the colors in the David's Bridal and Alfred Angelo lines. How cool is that!

If it's not that serious with you, as far as the colors, the craft stores sell them too. Like I said, I bought the natural color in the photo above from AC Moore for $2.

Hope this helped someone and have fun!