Yes… crazily enough… i am now a married woman. 7 months and 4 days of dating, 63 days of engagement. If you haven’t spent time around me with Matt, you probably think we’re crazy. But i think it’s the right kind of crazy, because i simply adore him 🙂
If there’s anything i’ve learned over the past 4 or 5 years through my own experience and through doing life with friends, it’s simply this – everyone has their own story.
and i *love* ours.
If it was my decision, you’d be reading a blog about how matt and i eloped and ran away to greece!!!!!
But alas, he wanted a real wedding. And i know if it was the other way around, he would have made sure i had the perfect wedding – so i practice that compromise thing everyone is always talking about in marriage 😉
I’m writing this blog because i’ve had a lot of people ask me about the planning aspect of our wedding, especially with a short engagement and not spending a fortune! I’ve never liked spending a lot of money, unless it’s on a plane ticket. Here are some of the details that went into our big day.
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| Our Short Little To-Do List…. 🙂 |
1 – The style
Although it’s what’s popular right now, i’ve always loved vintage stuff. All of my furniture is my grandparents, from a yard sale, or quite frankly found on the side of the road. So, all of my natural tendencies are to go for something slightly worn over something new and shiny. So i trusted my gut (and i’m SO GLAD i did!)
All of the furniture we used for the wedding was ours already or Matt built it. He built about 20 pallet benches, that we actually sold after the wedding. Otherwise, we used my dresser (gifted to me from my grandpa’s house), my vintage trunk (found on the side of the road). Plus candles, candles, candles. I bought all of the pillar candles i could find, because i LOVE candles. They make everything cozy.
2 – Invitations
After going back and forth on designs, colors and everything else…. we both decided we wanted something beautiful and simple. I didn’t want a flashy colorful invitation, but i wanted something that reflected our style – vintage, shabby chic. So after a great idea from Matt, we checked out stamps on Etsy. We ordered two custom stamps (one of our logo – M+R in a heart, and one of our actual invitation details), bought stock paper from the craft store, and we made the invitations.
M+R Stamp – http://www.etsy.com/listing/89481555/personalized-solid-heart-hand-carved?ref=pr_shop
Wedding Invite Stamp – http://www.etsy.com/shop/lovetocreatestamps?section_id=5677892
Total Cost: $95 + 2 hrs of creating/addressing
I absolutely loved them. Not to mention, i used the rest of the card stock and M+R Stamp to write thank you notes, and in other aspects of our wedding
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| Our Mad Libs – an alternative to the guest book! |
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| Customized Vino – created by yours truly |
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| Labels for food – it’s important to know where the peanut butter cups are on the dessert tray! |
3 – Flowers
This was a fall wedding, so it was hard to find the things i wanted that were in season. I wanted “dusty” colors, all very light, as that was the developing theme.
I chose garden roses, because they are HUGE – similar to peonies (which are not a November flower). I used the purple lionium instead of lavender, which was also out of season. And the greens were sage and eucalyptus – they were both chosen because they were almost a faded green, and not super bright. My bouquet had gardenias in it – my favorite – and were the most expensive part of the entire process.
I was also lucky to have a friend volunteer her flowers arranging services. Megan did the most amazing job arranging our bouquets, boutonnieres, and misc. arrangements throughout the wedding! We ordered the flowers from Import Flowers, and they were designed by our dear friend Megan! – www.impfl.com
Our Flowers: $215 total. And we had tons left over!
5 – Cake
I wasn’t set on a traditional cake. I also didn’t want to do cupcakes. My friend Pam suggested a friend of hers that does cake pops! I LOVED this idea. We ended up ordering oreo (my favorite) cake pops and cheesecake (matt’s favorite) as well. We also got a small, red velvet rose cake for us to cut (per matt’s request!).
They were delicious, as well as adorable.
Cake pops: 75cents each, + cake + delivery – $200 (note: we probably had 100 pops left over!)
To order from Sam (she does small and large orders!) – http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sweet-Sam/338201469622230?ref=ts&fref=ts
7 – Bridal Party Wardrobe
Personally, i’ve never had to spend more than $50 on a dress to be in a wedding. And i think that’s awesome. I feel very lucky to also have always felt comfortable in the dress i was asked to wear – bonus! So, with that in mind, we let our bridal party pick their own outfits in a color scheme.
The Inspiration
Dusty, light pinks and purples for the girls
Grey cardigans or vest for the guys… with dark jeans
The Outcome
I was pretty happy with the way it looked 🙂
We got the ties for the boys, and we got them from http://www.solidcolorneckties.com/ – which sounds insane. But seriously, the ties were about $6 each and had free shipping. WIN!
7 – Venue
This one was the biggest thing for us. I was dying to get married outside. Even though it was a total gamble in November (btw – we couldn’t have been luckier, with a sunny, 70 degree day), but i was hell bent. I also was furious that most venues, ie a patch of grass with an electrical outlet were trying to charge upwards of $7000 for 8 hours. And it didn’t include anything. This might be typical for a wedding, but i KNEW there had to be a better way.
We stayed about as local as we could – and got married on the front porch of a bed and breakfast that shares a backyard alley with matt’s (now, our) home. It couldn’t have been more perfect.
Afterwards, we moved the party to our backyard – which was my favorite decision we made.
We spent money re-doing the backyard and making imporvements to it, rather than renting a space. We now have a beautiful backyard for hosting friends and family! It was win-win.
before the party started
8 – DIY Photo Booth
I have a dear friend who deserves credit for allowing me to borrow his camera set up (in exchange for me promising to take very very good care of it!). I bought a handful of dress-up items (pirate hat, feather boa) and printed out some funny phrases, as well as some celeb faces (let’s be honest, i just wanted justin timberlake at my wedding) and matt and i’s as well – because i thought it was funny 🙂
Cost: Probably like $20 on props and printing.
I should also probably mention, the most important thing on my radar was our PHOTOGRAPHER! And we made an amazing decision with Eden! The photos above are by her, and i love them 🙂
www.edenfrangipane.com
Those are probably the questions we’ve been asked about the most. Everyone has their own style, and i felt like our wedding was ours! It was a great day, and i’m glad it turned out the way it did 🙂
Renee, this is very nice and informative for people planning a wedding. You guys did an amazing job with everything. It was beautiful and so are you. Love and miss you both, Mom