A lot of decisions were really easy - once we chose our venue, it locked a few things into place for us. We have to work with the catering company they partner with, and they provide all of the food, drinks, and linens. Our venue supplies all tables and chairs. That's a lot of planning we didn't have to do! Then a lot of other parts fell into place - we booked our photographer, I bought my dress, we figured out what our bridal party is wearing (more on that in a future post), and re-booked our DJ (our first one flaked on us after having committed to us over a year ago...).
I had talked to a few florists, and picked the first one I really talked to as I liked their work...and honestly, it's difficult to plan a wedding in a city you aren't from or currently live in, so sometimes you just have to go off "vibes". We had a long discussion about what our (mostly my) vision was for the day. Although we are doing a barn wedding, I did not want to go with anything too rustic, so no burlap, actual barn items, or anything like that. I also feel like "wedding colors" aren't a thing as much as they used to be - I feel like 10 years ago, everyone had very specific wedding colors, and everything from the bridesmaids dresses to the napkins to the invitations to the flowers were all in those two colors. Now I feel it's a lot more fluid, and more about the vibe of everything going together rather than everything sticking to two exact colors. So our colors are really just about being soft and pretty - lots of whites, blushes, gold, and navy.
So I started pinteresting away, and since nothing we are doing is crazy out of the box, of course there is a ton of inspiration out there. So here's what we're thinking!
For my bridal bouquet, and for the flowers for my bridesmaids, I asked for a mix of blush and white flowers, with a mix of bigger flowers. Peonies will be at the end of their season, so lots of ranunculas, english roses, a tiny bit of baby's breath for sentimental reasons, and then lots of green! My florist's instagram has several of these types of bouquets, so I have a good idea of what it will look like, and I can't wait! The men are going to get simple boutonnieres with probably an english rose.
All the fingers crossed that the weather cooperates and that we will be able to have an outside ceremony. Our venue supplies the chairs, and has an arch at the ceremony site. Our florist is making a floral piece for the arch (something like the one above, at least that's the picture I sent!), but then I'm a bit lost on what else we should do! I don't want to spend a ton of time buying and making things just for down the aisle, so I'm thinking getting flower petals, and having them be scattered down the aisle. When I brought that up on Instagram stories, several people said that makes it hard to walk down the aisle, so maybe we'll do it like the flowers in the right picture, where they are denser along the chairs. Just a little something to make it pretty, but doesn't require much work (or transport, because we're getting married 5 hours away from where we live). Any ideas?
The only other real outside directions we are planning on is a welcome sign! I love the style of the one on the right, especially because we could hang it in our entry way at our house! But, we desperately need a sign that says the things on the sign on the left, so...we might have two? Maybe the welcome sign right by the parking area, and then the second one closer to the ceremony? Our guest list is very unbalanced (I have 10 family members coming, CR has 65...), so we need to sit scattered. I also really want the ceremony to be cell phone free, so looking for a polite way to express those requests. My mom and I will be making these, so I'm already looking forward to a little crafting season!
The Christmas after we got engaged, CR's brother made us this amazing set of cornhole. He stained them a beautiful dark wood, and we just love them. It gave me the idea of having several other lawn games at our wedding during happy hour! I just think it would be so fun for our guests. I think we're going to get some of these decals for the cornhole boards, and then make giant jenga and yahtzee, and staining them a similar color. Again, fingers crossed the weather is nice!
For the reception, we are doing long tables instead of round tables. I love the idea of everyone being a bit closer and being able to talk to more people. I feel when you're sitting at big round tables, you can only really talk to your date and the person on your other side, and this way, you're directly in contact with 5 people! So instead of doing a large center piece, our florist is making long green garlands with flowers scattered throughout. I'm a bit nervous about this, as I haven't see my florist make one of these (although they say they do them all the time). My big sticking point right now is that our venue doesn't allow any flames, so I can't have real candles. I still want the pretty light though, so we're currently trying to find some kind of votives to put little fake candles in. I don't want to see the fake flame, but I do want to see the flickering light, if that makes sense! On the edge of the tables, we will have some kind of simple way of displaying the table number.
The last couple pieces are for displaying the seating arrangement, dinner, and drink menu. I don't want them to look just like the other signs, so we will have to play around with this for a bit.
Gah, writing all of this out makes me realize we actually have a lot more decisions to make, and projects to do! Hoping that my off-service month in May gives me the time to finish all the little things :)
What are some things you loved about your wedding, or weddings you have been to? Anything I'm missing?
