Our Backyard Wedding

On August 1st we successfully hosted 40 of our close friends and family for our backyard wedding! We chose our own backyard for the location based on the fact that we wanted an outdoor wedding in the summer and we wanted the location to be somewhere special. We thought about renting out some outdoor location but in the end we thought, why do we have to rent out somebody's property when we own our own! Our house is so special to us and every project we've worked on together led us to our special day.

The ceremony took place in our house. We hired a pianist to play our antique piano as guests gathered in our living room and fireplace room to watch me proceed down our black and white painted stairs.

Food & Refreshments
We filled galvanized steel buckets full of ice and cold bottled coke and beer. We also provided bottled water, sugar free lemonade in a big glass pitcher, and a variety of wine. I bought all the wine glasses at Ikea because it was cheaper to buy them rather than rent them.



















We decided that we would take on the task of cooking all of the food! Some might think we're crazy for deciding to do this but we really wanted the whole day to be memorable including the food. We refused to settle for catered food that was "just ok" so we opted for our most favorite dishes that also didn't require any heating besides the use of a grill for the chicken and steak. Guests enjoyed a menu that included a potato salad, a tomato-cucumber-onion salad with a lemon pepper vinaigrette, and grilled steak and chicken kabobs. Since we knew it would be a hot day, we made sure that the salads we made didn't contain anything like mayonnaise that could spoil in the heat. We rented a large charcoal grill for my uncle and dad to grill up the kabobs so that we could feed more mouths at once than on our regular gas grill.















For dessert, we took a less traditional route than a wedding cake and I baked mini dark chocolate fudge cupcakes and frosted them the morning of the wedding.













Tents & Tables
I had concerns about renting a tent because i was afraid it would eliminate so much natural light in the backyard and it would take away from all the hard work that we put into our landscaping and gardening. I discovered that renting a large tent would also cost more than just buying a few Tivoli gazebos from Target that we had to put together ourselves. So we opted for the gazebos and they looked beautiful. We put two in the backyard and one in our driveway.


















We rented a few pub-height tables and white tablecloths to place under the gazebos. By choosing the pub-height tables and no chairs for under the gazebos, it allowed guests to feel free to mingle. We also rented a couple lower tables and chairs for people that preferred to sit. My mom and aunt decorated the tables with black satin ribbon and added a bow to each one.

Table & Food Set-up
Since we chose to have a buffet style menu, I set up the plates and napkin silverware bundles on one table near the food.
We bought plastic plates and utensils just to make the cleanup easier. The plates weren't your average plastic though. I found some great heavy duty white plastic plates with a silver trim around them that looked a lot like real plates. I also found plastic silverware that are actually silver colored so they also looked like the real thing.

I also purchased white dinner napkins and wrapped them around a pairing of silverware and tied a black bow around each bundle. I bought 6 sets of tiny chrome topped salt and pepper shakers and tied a tiny black bow around each pair and placed those in the center of each table. These were just a few touches that I think really made the day fancier and not just your average backyard bbq.

Flowers
We bought all of the flowers from Globalrose.com and they were shipped from Columbia two days before the wedding. There were a total of 16 beautiful bouquets that we rearranged and placed in wrought iron torch holders that we normally have citronella canisters in. The rest of the flowers were placed in vases throughout the house and on some lowers tables in the backyard.
















The bouquet that I held for pictures was extra special to me. My mom and I picked the flowers for my bouquet from the others and arranged them exactly the way I wanted them. My mom wrapped the stems with a white satin ribbon and tied a small bow.
















Invitations
My invitations were from Target on clearance for $7.49 per box! I only had to buy two boxes and I had plenty left over if I messed up printing them out. I had to come up with the layout for my text and a font and then I followed the instructions on the template for printing. They also came with envelopes for the invitations and reply cards with envelopes. I used the leftover reply cards for food description display cards for the food tables.



















Off-Site Photos
One of the greatest surprises we've had since we moved into our home is how much we've grown to love the city of Lowell. So often newlyweds find streams and fields and waterfalls to take their post ceremony photos at but we're city folk and find the old mill city charm of the cobblestoned streets of downtown Lowell appropriate. We snuck away from the house after our ceremony inside and posed for pictures downtown.

My Dress
The dress I wore was the first and last dress I tried on and I didn't even go to a boutique to try it on!













I had my dress custom made from a seller on ebay. That's right, EBAY! All they needed were my exact measurements to make the dress from. It was shipped to me about 2 and a half weeks later in a bag. I tried it on and absolutely loved it. It fit like a glove. My mom and I made a few tiny adjustments to the front of the dress but there wasn't even a need for me to take it to a tailor for alterations. The dress has beautiful details and I know that the designer version of this dress (Jim Hjelm style: 8800) could cost up to $5,000!! I would never pay that much for a dress that I wore for 1 day. The cost of my dress was $155 including shipping!! I would recommended taking the risk of buying a custom dress on ebay to anyone. It's a gamble, but the amount of money it costs is definitely worth the risk. I ordered the dress months ahead of time just in case so that if I didn't like it, I still had time to shop for something else.

Cost
We planned everything months ahead of time and spent a lot of time gathering ideas and finding ways to cut costs here and there. So how much was our wedding you ask? The total was less than $4,000 and that's including my dress and hired photographers!

We had a lot of help from family to pull off the day and we couldn't have done it without their help! We were lucky enough to have perfect weather on the day of the wedding which was a nice surprise since all day the day before we had heavy rainstorms.