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Sunday, June 29, 2014

DIY Wedding

Simplify your Wedding Planning

Spend less - Have more Fun!

Do it Yourself!

Having just planned and pulled off my own, albeit small wedding in two weeks time, I thought I'd share some of the things I did, and learned that helped keep me focused, saved money and made our day, June 21st, the most perfect day ever. 

Choose your venue:  Do you need a church wedding?  I didn't.  This made it possible to schedule our big day on short notice.  If you do, or if you must have a highly sought after venue for your wedding or reception, you will need a year or more advance notice.  Planning a small outdoor wedding cuts that dramatically.  In our case, we didn't even rent a park pavilion.  We chose a spot on the river that had easy parking for our guests, a good backdrop for photos and was meaningful to us. 

Find an officiant:  Do you need a church wedding?  Are you ok with a trip to the courthouse? Do you have a friend who is ordained?  How about a family member or friend who'd be willing to get ordained?  We asked Rob's dad if he would do the honor of marrying us.  It took less than an hour to complete the application process online.  The Universal Life Church is recognized in most states and will ordain you for under $20.  Check with your state to be certain that a ceremony conducted by your chosen officiant will be valid.

Get Organized:  Two weeks is not much time. Make lists. Update them daily. Crosscheck them with your fiance. Crosscheck them with your best friend. I used GoogleKeep and absolutely fell IN LOVE with this free app.  It is my new fave organizational tool. 

Have someone to Vent to:  My someone was my best ever friend.  Though she lives far away and couldn't be hands-on with the help, I couldn't have done it without her.  She kept me focused and brought so many fun ideas into reality.  We talked on several occasions over the two weeks. 
Me and Kit


Consider your "Must Haves":  Are professional flowers important to you?  Music?  Embossed invitations?  A traditional gown?  A reception with all the trappings:  DJ, catered food, table decor? A professional and classic wedding cake?  Photos? 

We pared down our Must Have list to these things:  friends and family that are dear to us, clothing that paid homage to the specialness of the occasion without being too expensive, photos, a fun and relaxed reception, a cake that looked pretty and tasted fabulous.

We skipped the formal invites. Two weeks plan time leaves no room for snail mail or the time it takes to order invitations.  I used an online e-vite for more distant friends. Some will let you send up to 10 invitations for free to sample their service.  I printed a flyer that I hung at the office to invite coworkers to the reception, and phoned an invite to close friends and family.

I found a fun and inexpensive dress at a local boutique:  Urban Farmhouse in Geneseo for $47.  Zappos got my fabulous shoes to me overnight with free shipping.  Rob was thrilled that I chose jeans, cowboy boots and dress shirt/vest combination for him. 
See why they call it Ol' Muddy?
The day of the ceremony, my awesome hairdresser, Fran, artist extraordinaire and owner of the fabulous Your Suite Hair took this picture:
And made my hair look like this:

I didn't know my hair could do this!
 

We were able to fit a really fun engagement shoot into the two weeks leading up to the wedding.  Choose an up and coming photographer to get the best deal on a shoot.  Ask around until you find one who includes print rights and will give you a jump drive that you can take to any photo print shop and print your own.  Cassandra at Oh Snap Photography was so much fun to work with and made us look better than real life!




For the ceremony, we really didn't want a professional wedding photographer.  Just the words alone are expensive.  We asked around and found a friend with a sister, lol.  Shauna came to the house before the ceremony, snapped some fun "getting ready" shots, followed us down to the river, and then came back to the house to get some pictures of the reception.  She is an amateur photographer with a nice DSLR camera and she charged us an outrageously cheap price for the time that she spent. I haven't seen her pictures yet, but I already know she'll be getting a tip from this happy bride.

 
As I mentioned previously, I outsourced the cake in a similar fashion.  You don't know who you know until you start asking.  We found a friend of a friend who does cakes.  After a few days of texting back and forth we settled on a non-traditional cake.  I used a pretty three tiered cake stand that I already owned and she made three different cakes:  Traditional white with buttercream icing, Gluten free German chocolate and a flourless chocolate cake that is "to die for".  Find the recipe for La Bete Noir here.  I was so pleased with the finished product!



Food was a challenge.  And I love a challenge!  We spent the Friday evening before the reception roasting potatoes and vegetables and threading steak, shrimp and brat bites onto skewers.  I had Rob's family and the kids helping and we made short work of it.  I made tomato, pepperoni and mozzarella ball appetizers which looked adorable on little bamboo skewers.  The next day they would be drenched in a jarred pesto sauce.  They were a huge hit!  I made a chimichurri sauce and a rosemary, garlic dipping sauce the morning of the wedding and my daughter K, made an old classic appetizer, Zucchini Carpaccio.  I'll post recipes soon!  After the ceremony, we warmed up the potatoes and veggies, set the skewered meat out on ice, boiled the corn and fired up the grill!

For flowers, this is what I decided.  HyVee.  White daisies.  Done.

My sister rocked out our decorations for us.  She is such a creative genius.  I had gathered some random items together: old glass bottles, and glass serving dishes, mini chalkboards, mason jars and tea lights, some ribbon, some antique suitcases, aviation maps and some bits of burlap.  Here is the before picture:


She did some of this: 



And this:
And made everything look exactly how I envisioned it.  I love her!
I will post some of the professional photos of the ceremony and reception soon! 




If you are up for planning a DIY Wedding, I encourage you to go for it!  Our wedding day was so much fun.  Doing it ourselves, we had things exactly the way we wanted them and at a price point that we were comfortable with.

If you are even a little creative and handy in the kitchen a small to medium sized reception is very doable with just a few handy prep cooks and decorators helping out.

This is my team of "prep cooks"!  Love them!!!


 The most important thing to keep in mind is that it is a day you should remember as being fun, not stressful. So, do your advance planning, stay within your budget and your skill-level and have fun planning your wedding!








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