A Vintage, DIY Wedding

I am flat - out exhausted, physically and emotionally.

My sister got married this weekend, and it was a DIY wedding.... and we DIY'd all of it - except the cake. Someone else did that.

First of all, the lovely bride:

I bought these brown paper bags on eBay and Mom found the stamps. These were for the candy favors. They will be for sale in my Etsy shop soon, because we made waaaaay too many.

 A little before of the reception hall: the flourecent lights were covered with tulle and Christmas lights. My sister wanted a soft candlelight look. Right here I have to say: While my sister, my mom an d I hatched all the ideas amongst ourselves and were heavily inspired by Pinterest, the work was carried out by our friend Faith Freeman and her daughters Joanna and Alice. Mom and I lent our help mostly in the evenings; but the bulk of what was done took two and a half days and was done almost exclusively by these lovely ladies. And my husband, who did the heavy lifting and moving, and was go-fer boy. :)

 Aaaaand my buffet. Purchased at Goodwill in really awful condition. I've been sanding and stripping and painting and babying this thing since Christmas.... I'll do a detailed before and after soon.

 Of course, with a sister that sells burlap bunting banners for a part time gig, she wanted to use banners in her decor. We also made burlap table runners.

She came to my house and said "I like this, and that, and that, and also this", and pointed to everything she wanted in the wedding, and we packed it up and used it. Including the tree slices. We had fallen a large dying tree in the yard and so we used slices of the branches as pie and food stands. Almost everything used as decor for the wedding was mine... she wanted to use vintage things instead of lots of flower arrangements.

Doors was one of the first things my sister decided she wanted for the wedding. We had some doors, of course, but our friend Daniel works on a construction crew in Northern VA that removes asbestos from old historic buildings and remodels them; so he had access to all the doors we wanted. He drought down a load, and he and my husband put several sets together.

My husband also made the trees, which was my idea .... that I almost regretted because it was one of the most difficult things we did. We screwed pieces of wood to the bottoms of carefully sculpted tree branches and placed them in burlap bags filled with gravel. Mrs. Freeman and her team strung them with lights. 

  One of the trees was designated as a "Wish Tree"... also my idea. (I got the inspiration from a smaller wish tree thing I saw on Pinterest. But ours was bigger.) Instead of a guest book, people wrote a message on a tag and tied it to the branches. Later, we removed the cards and put them in a pretty box for her to look at later.  The small stable next to the tree is something from my house as well...

Several tables had lights underneath, so the appeared to glow.  It was awesome.

We used doors in the corners, to give the rather hum drum room the feeling that it was a older space.

 My old suitcases were made into a gift card box.... the photo is of my great grandmother Sophie Rose Kelly, whom my sister is named for. The mini banner is one I sell in my shop.

 Years ago I had bought hundreds of white hankys at an auction - and never did anything with them. Mrs. Freeman draped them over the backs of the chairs and taped them in place - it was a genius plan!

This set of doors blocked the closet door and the tree behind it was just an awesome touch as well. It covered up the fire extinguisher. :)

 The cake table.... and banners from my shop. Every window in the place had Christmas lights in them, and the effect was AMAZING.

 The candy buffet..... the glass candy jars are from my friend Sally, with the antique shop. I have wanted to do a candy buffet for years and finally did it!!!

I don't think I have enough sisters to have weddings for me to do ALL the ideas I have. I guess if I wanted to act on all my wedding ideas, I'd have to become a wedding decorator.

I have about 100 gallon size pickle jars in an old barn on our farm. We cleaned some of them up and put sand in the bottom, and a candle, and put them all over the back deck ovelooking the lake, and lined both sides of the sidewalk leading into the building. It was fantastic.

Here is what the Wish Tree looked like at the end of the evening.


Ok that's a lot of photos, so I'll quit now and show photos of our vintage inspired dresses another time.

It was the best wedding ever, even if I do say so myself, and I LOVE using vintage stuff instead of a zillion flower arrangements!! The only roses we used were in her bouquet, (which I made) and the corsages. All the other flowers she wanted was baby's breath. Which we did use tons of.

Vintage, DIY weddings for the win!!