Look Print printed and cut the tiles perfectly, and not only that: they were so concerned that I'd get them mixed up they tagged the back of each tile with the location of the tile in the mosaic (that simple act saved me hours of work I think).
When I got the tiles home I put them into prepared envelopes that had instructions taped to the back and some background information on the front: there were individual ones for the Portrait Tiles and for the Landscape Tiles.
The day before the wedding I packed the car with easel, lightbox, camera, transparency envelopes and took everything down to the reception venue, had a test layout with Monica to make sure she was happy with positioning (there was not a lot of room to spare in the marquee and it'd been raining and was due to keep raining), it was important to get the easel and the tripod positioned for the best outcome for the time-lapse I'd been planning.
On the morning of the wedding, on the way to the Church to set up for the brunch, I stopped by to set up the easel with the lightbox velcro'd to it and also the tripod with the camera. I'd made "Don't touch this" sign for the camera and a "Use this device" sign for the camera release hoping desperately that no one would move or adjust the camera, which would ruin the time-lapse.
The wedding was beautiful and the brunch busy, and it mostly rained throughout, though there were enough dry spots to get the outside things done that were necessary.
When we finally got to the reception, we discovered that no one had told us about the jukebox, which pushed the musicians in front of the lightbox. The MC, bless her heart, was at pains to stress no one had touched anything (all the legs were still on their masking tape targets)! In fact, after downloading the time-lapse stills, I discovered that the MC had even taken photos to prove that nothing had moved :)
My original intent was that everyone would have their own transparency and have to work together to get the piece put together, which would have involved quite a bit of trial and error – and waiting. I was concerned that this would take too long, so I altered it so that people would first check the lightbox and find out what positions could be filled, then find a tile that would fill that position. This would mean that the process would be as quick as possible. The whole process took 85 minutes in the end!
I got the wedding party up to put the first three tiles up while Sandi explained what was happening. Then everyone else was encouraged to come up and place a tile for Nat and Moni, Sandi clicking away furiously with the camera release. I actually couldn't get away from the Mosaic as everyone wanted to make sure they'd understood and kept checking with me. I made two time-lapse videos: The Construction and The Evolution.
This was the first ever Community Art Performance I'd ever conducted, let alone been part of... and apart from being exhausting (85 minutes of intense work with the guests): it was great fun! Everyone seemed knocked out by the piece, were keen to find their photo in the mosaic and lined up to be part of the construction (most importantly).
Thank you everyone for being part of the piece: from uploading photos to putting the mosaic together. I couldn't have done it without you!