Last week Jenn wrote about the initial stages of planning her wedding. This week I am publishing the second half of her post. If you would like to know a bit more about Jenn, head on over to her own blog Blush and Bees, where she chronicles gardening and other horticultural adventures on Vancouver Island.
Part II
After the venue was set, a huge weight was lifted off our shoulders. With my wedding planner book in hand, now all I had to do was follow the to-do lists and keep on time with everything. We knew that simple was what we wanted, but not DIY simple which I knew would make me absolutely nuts. Doing any one thing 100 times seems to take the fun out of it. The few things that I did do were: guest favours, the seating chart, the guestbook, and the table numbers. For the guest favours Eric and I picked blackberries and I held an Aunt’s and Mom’s jam party. We made enough jam to fill over 100 little jam jars and my Mom and Mother-in-Law cut the cloth and lavender flowers (from my backyard) for the final touches. A few days later, I had some girlfriends over to put all the pieces together. It was a fun way to have girl time and we ended up with some nice, but very inexpensive favours. For the seating chart, I bought a cheap canvas from an art store and painted it.
The guest book was just a plain recycled/reused paper book with a hard cover. I opted out of buying a ridiculously expensive “proper” guestbook and instead bought lacy see-through paper to cover the front and back covers of the book. I then glued little envelopes inside the book and cut little pieces of fancy paper for people to write notes on and tuck inside the envelopes. I gussied it all up with ribbon, the same ribbon we used to tie the rings together for the ceremony. If memory serves right, the guestbook idea came from a Martha Stewart craft idea I found on her website. The table numbers were tent cards I made from white card stock and I chose pictures to draw on each one (flowers (my thing) and motorcycles (Eric’s thing). The tent cards actually took the longest amount of time, but since there were only 10 it wasn’t a big deal.
My Mother-in-Law and her best friend did 4 gorgeous flower arrangements for the ceremony, the guestbook table, and the bar in the Ciderhouse. Sea Cider provided the tin vases and my Mom-in-Law bought the flowers as a gift. I also managed to get some pampas grass for free (I’m a gardener so have access to plants) which made quite a statement in their arrangements. And finally, my amazingly talented Aunt made the cake! So there were a lot of personal touches to the wedding by a number of friends and relatives. I am truly grateful to have so many ladies in my life that were willing to donate their skills and time.
I think if there was one thing I would recommend to anyone planning a wedding, it would be: keep it simple. The more carried away with details and expectations that you get, the more frazzled, stressed, and disappointed you are likely to be. Enlist the help of anyone you can think of that has a skill or talent you could use. Believe me, people are so happy to be involved. Really! And having family and friends involved in the creation of a wedding personalizes it more than you and your future hubby spending 3 months of weekends making paper cranes and lanterns. Make sure the important things are looked after by people you can trust. Good venue, good food, good liquor, good music. And of course, good photographer!! Everything else is extra. As a bride, you have so much on your plate, and adding to it with DIY details can be a nightmare. I know now that having a low key wedding, especially an at-home one, puts a lot of pressure on the bride, groom, and relatives to do it all. Sometimes it’s nice to enlist the help of professionals so that you and your family can enjoy the day stress-free. But if you really want to do it the full-on DIY way, go for simple, simple, simple. No frills, just the basics. The basics of a wedding will take up all your time anyway!
Even though our wedding went over our initial budget, we are glad we did it the way we did. With all the professionals we had, it was absolutely flawless. The food was incredible, which was really important to us, and we had extremely positive feedback from all the guests. Most saying it was the best wedding they had ever been to. I know I am biased, but I think it was the perfect blend of professionally done and personal touches. There was enough of Eric and I in it to make it feel like us, but not so much that it felt disorganized and haphazard. We had expectations and standards of what we wanted and in order to get them, we realized that having professionals to do the big stuff was necessary. I guess that would be my second most important tip: make sure that your expectations are in-line with your budget.
And with all that said, I wish all you future brides out there the best of luck with planning and the most fun on your day. It truly is one of the best days of your life, guaranteed.
Another note from Jesse: Jenn and Eric also hired Vanessa from Verbena Floral Design to do their bouquets, boutonnieres and a some table top decorations. I even had the pleasure of getting a behind the scenes look at their work for this wedding, which can be seen here.
