A DIY WEDDING

I wanted to show you some pictures of my daughter's wedding reception that we put together on a budget! They were married in Chicago, and because of the distance, most of the family were not able to be there to see it, so we put together a reception for them to celebrate with her on July 3rd, of this year. The only requirements Britt and Jake had, were for it to:

• Be an outdoor party
• Lots of friends and family
• NO gourmet food---they wanted lots of home-cooked comfort food
• Dancing

The trick was to find a place that could hold a large amount of people, be somewhat sheltered in case of  bad weather (we went through a period of time where EVERY SINGLE party we had---yup... rained). I remembered friends of ours who had their reception at a historical Barn in Jefferson Patterson Park---right by the water! It wasn't technically "all" outside, but the whole half of the "L" shaped barn was not enclosed. I went with my paper and pen and started thinking of how we could make the inside of the barn beautiful for her, and the ideas just kept coming(cha-ching)! It was going to be perfect, and best of all---within our price range!

 

We had to move about one hundred picnic tables and their benches because I rented round tables and white chairs. We had lots of great helpers (thank goodness!)

The tables had cream colored linens (borrowed from someone else who did their own wedding.) Dollar store wine glasses; we made wine charms to put on each and every one of them (the guests were able to take the glass and charms home---ha---less dishes to wash at the end.) I had three mason jars on each table---one had fake purple flowers, real lavender, real babies breath, and some other real tiny purple flowers; one had fake red carnations mixed with real red roses, and babies breath (I was able to get the fake flowers for a bargain at Michael's,  mixing them cut expenses) and the third jar had different herbs in them---rosemary, thyme, etc. There were two empty wine bottles (no, I did not drink all of them...they were from various friends and family...who helped me drink all of them...just kidding...really) mixed in with the mason jars and red glass tea light holders. Because it was on historical property, we were not allowed to use real candles, so I bought a bazillion battery-operated ones.

I also took picture frames that were on clearance, hot glued some moss to each corner of the frame and put photos of their wedding in Chicago in them to hang in each of the windows.

My Mother-in-Law made the cake, it is a marble cake with chocolate peanut-butter icing because my daughter does not like professional cakes---I think it looks beautiful (and it was yummy.)

I put together this ladder to fill in an open space that needed something. Here is a closer look at what it has on it:

To decorate the ladder, I used some clearance items from Michael's, a mixture of the herbs that are on the tables, pictures of them when they were toddlers, and I spray painted glass bottles white, printed out labels from the Graphics Fairy (love her site), and hot-glued brown ribbon around them. The material is just some burlap netting thingy.

We made our own bar (because they didn't have one), out of wine barrels from a local winery and MDF. Since we were going to take this back home and use it at our house...

(It fits perfect under our deck stairs)

We put a "W" for our last name on it to dress it up when not covered with all the goodies above!

(Stencil is from Simple Stencil---love them!)

We had a photo table of all the parents, Grandparents, and Great Grand Parents weddings...

So, there you have it (well, most of it anyway!) There are more pictures, but I think you have probably either fallen asleep already, or are about to! The day was perfect, budget friendly, and FUN! I didn't show pictures of the dancing, I'll leave that up to your imagination!!

I'm going to be linking this post up to:


504 Main's Tickled Pink Friday http://www.504main.com

Funky Junk Interior's Saturday Nite Special http://funkyjunkinteriors.blogspot.com

Under the Table and Dreaming's Sunday Showcase http://www.bystephanielynn.com/

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