DIY Wedding

Mike stitching the programs next to my "serger station."

We made almost everything for the wedding: invitations, my dress, tablecloth and napkins, drapes for the stone pillars of the pavilion, hand-carved stamps to decorate flower pot guest favors, aprons for the kiddos to cover their clothes while painting pumpkins, and ceremony programs.

Three weeks before the wedding we spent a glorious August Sunday in bed writing the ceremony, blubbering in turns over the passages we chose to represent our union.

We printed the program on thicker paper, choosing a picture my nephew took of us on a hike, and included all of the ceremony readings for guests to follow along. One of Mike's sisters got ordained online and performed the ceremony. Internet win.

 

Mike hand-stitched the program binding. The book arts nerd in me did somersaults when I saw the lovely stitch pattern he came up with.

Two weeks before the wedding we stopped working on the house and switched our efforts to turning the materials we'd been collecting for months into the beautiful outdoor wedding of our dreams. Days upon days of sitting side by side, stitching, carving, fitting, and talking about how wonderful it was going to be.

For the tablecloths, pillar drapes and napkins we used a 50% off coupon at Joann fabrics and bought 14 yards of white cotton muslin.

We cut the fabric into the sizes we needed and then dyed the muslin green using RIT liquid dye and the washing machine method.

Then I serged all the edges with a complimentary green and that was that. The drapes are tied with a burlap sash.

Our ceremony included an "elemental blessing" with water, a candle for fire, a bell for air and bread for earth.

We purchased two cases of 12 oz ball jars for holding candles (with a couple inches of sand from the beach of the lake to keep them in place) and drinking glasses.  Guess who already has next year's canning supplies!

Group reading during ceremony

The morning of the wedding we decorated the lovely stone pillared pavilion with our crafts, listening to music and dancing as we did, and then we separated to get ready. Mike's oldest sister arrived and set up the cake she'd made for us, then his parents and aunt and uncle trickled in and set up the food they'd brought.






We had planned to make a menu of vegetarian foodie delights but a month before the big day some picky eaters who will remain nameless asked for ziti, which would not have gone with anything. We realized we didn't really care what people ate as long as they were happy with what they ate, so we let Mike's parents take over the menu and we ended up with a delicious Italian feast.

Throughout the planning phase it was clear that many people we discussed the wedding with assumed we were choosing a small, outdoor wedding for financial reasons. This irritates me to no end.


Could we afford a $10,000 wedding? Not without going into debt. But we wouldn't want that big, expensive wedding even if we had the cash. We tend towards the introverted, so a crowd would have been overwhelming (frankly I was a bit exhausted with the small party). We're also really private people and spoke extensively over the year before the wedding about how we wanted our wedding to be an intimate exchange of vows, shared only with the people closest to us. And that's what we got.

Our wedding was perfect for us and perfectly us. As terribly cliche as it sounds, it was the happiest day of my life and I wouldn't change a thing.