Category — Real Weddings

How cute is this?? Must do for engagement photoshoot or part of wedding photography.

photosource

I was raised from childhood through college near a beach, so naturally I imagined getting married on a beach.  When it was time though, it didn’t pan out as I hoped.  When I weighed my wants to have a intimate beach wedding vs having lots of people to come bless us, unfortunately the later argument won.  Plus, there were no beach around where I am now, so the flights, hotels, transportation would not have fit in my budget.  Nevertheless I love looking at beach wedding photos.  So much warmth and love, who doesn’t feel like celebrating at a beach?  I love how little you need to decorate a beach wedding.  The turquoise ocean contrasting with the bright diamond sand does pretty much everything.  I like it all white, or maybe a pop of coral color for great photos.  I would hand out flip flops to all the guests as the favor, have floor cushion seating so they can dig their toes in the sand, have kids build sand castles, have fabric wrapped altar that’s blowing in the wind, and maybe a mini wedding dress with birdcage veil.  Beach weddings.. definitely worth thinking about!

^ Intimate Weddings

^ Rustic Beach Wedding Inspiration

^ Pops of Coral

^ Real DIY Beach Wedding

^ Beach Canopy Seating Arrangement

^ Beach Wedding Oahu Hawaii

^ Alternate Seating for Beach Ceremony

^ Beach wedding seating arrangements

^ Rustic Beach Wedding

^ Mexican Beach Wedding

^ Maui Wedding at Kihei Beach

Alina from My Yellow Umbrella has shared with us her beautiful barn wedding, with all of her DIY skills.    She made the wedding invitations, programs, sparkler tags, cupcake log stand, banners, photo props, ring bearer pillow, flower girl dress, craspedia bouquets/boutonnieres, comment cards, the I Do sign, twine globes, and a lot of thrifting for table decorations and the vintage suitcase.  She sure kept her goal of keeping it unique, affordable and mostly handmade!  Make sure to check out her blog for lots of DIY tutorials and her Etsy Shop where she sells a lot of her sewing products.  I especially love this sailor’s knot rope door stopper.  I’d love a nautical theme wedding bride to use this as one of the decorations.

Anyways back to Alina’s DIY wedding photos!

^ I love bridesmaids in flats!
^ I love paper straws
^ I can’t believe she made all these!^ Great vintage suitcase find!

Location| Fulton Valley Farms
Video | Craig and Mary Beebe of The Brickhouse Studios
Photography | Jackie and Casey Cooper of Jackie Cooper Photo
Hair | Kayla Bodley at House of Hair Salon
Wedding dress | The Savvy Bride
Bridesmaids dress | David’s Bridal (link to the dresses here)
Groom’s/groomsmen custom suits | MakeYourOwnJeans.com (custom suits for $100 each!)
Grant’s (ringbearer) suspenders and bowtie | The Baxter Boy (Etsy Shop)
Striped candy bags | Two Crazy Ladies (Etsy Shop)
Gray striped straws | Shop Sweet LuluCandy (75 pounds of it, folks) | Candy.com and CandyFavorites.com
Flowers | Dillon’s Floral Department
Ruffle fabric for flower girl dresses | RuffleFabric.com
Groomsmen, groom and usher’s ties | Cheap-Neckties.com
Sparklers | SuperiorFireworks.com
Bride’s Shoes | Off Broadway Shoes
Bridesmaid Shoes | Ebay.com
Cupcakes, drinks and cups/utensils | Sam’s Club
Yellow plates and napkins | The Dollar Tree
Mason jar drink dispensers, yellow parasol and yellow paper lanterns (hanging above the candy table) | World Market
Glassware on candy table | mostly thrifted,  HomeGoods and Target!
Pepsi crate on candy table | Bondie’s Old Town Antique Mall, a local antique shop

Alina’s Top Ten DIY Tips

1. Think about getting married in the off-season; by having a December wedding, we got our location for half-price, simply because it was their off-season.
2. To second my note above, stay away from anything labeled “wedding” just for the sake of being labeled. I saw so many prices doubled just because they had “wedding” in the name!
3. Think ordinary; our cupcakes were bought in bulk from Sam’s. We heard (I didn’t have time to stop and eat one!) that they were awesome. They also looked pretty because my mom insisted that we cut out cupcake wrappers and top them with a monogram.
4. Do it yourself; you can see for yourself the list of items we made ourselves above. By simply spending the time creating the things we wanted, we cut out all of the expenses we would have incurred in paying someone. For the items we didn’t have time to make, we tried to use local businesses and Etsy shops. What you’ll end up with is something totally unique and completely personalized.
5. Cut down on fresh flowers; the only fresh flowers we bought were babies breath, ranunculus and a couple of bouquets of simple white flowers they already had in the store. If I could do it over again, I wouldn’t even special-order the ranunculus. They were beautiful, but accounted for over half of our total flower cost ($120 total, if you’re wondering), and they had so many beautiful white flowers I could have also used (which I did end up doing since the ranunculus were so small). I’ll do a post on flowers later, but these are my initial thoughts!
6. Do your research; we were able to buy $100 custom suits and all of the ties were under $15 (some were even $5!). That’s less than renting a tux for each guy AND they all came out of the deal with a custom suits, folks! By doing your research to find the best price, you can feel confident in what you are buying.
7. Shop on clearance and thrift your heart out; my shoes were bought on clearance, my dress came from a consignment shop, our mason jars came from thrift shops/Craiglist/friends, everthing (except the mason jar drinks dispensers) from World Market was on clearance, most of the glassware was thrifted…rarely did we buy something for full price, but if we did, we did our research first (see #6).
8. Decide what’s important and spend your money there; I’ve always said that pictures would be the most important for me. My feelings are that your big day are gone in such a flash that all you’re left with is photos, memories and maybe even a video. So, photography took the biggest chunk of our budget, which was 1000% OK since we planned for it. From there, we were able to allocate the remaining money to everything else. It helped us to pare down and sort through the list of possible items to include. For example, we didn’t have a DJ, so we set up a Spotify playlist on my Mac and had a friend in charge of making sure everything ran smoothly. F-R-E-E! (Thanks, Ben!)
9. Let people help you; this one was hardest for me. Not because I wanted to control it, but because there were so many little things I was picturing, I had a hard time communicating and delegating it all. Probably the biggest help to me was when my mom came down for the weekend and sat me down to research and order things we needed (like the candy). I needed someone to make me focus on getting it done, rather than spending my time stressing about it. (Thanks, Mom!) We also made our twine lanterns (interrupted in the middle by an earthquake!) and I finished the flower girl dresses that weekend. Oh, and my Nana came up a day earlier and we took care of buying all of the paper goods. Not only was it a huge help to me having them there, but we also created some fun memories. So, have a girl’s night with your friends or get together with your family and knock those projects out!
10. Finally, know that your big day is going to go fast. By preparing myself for that, I remembered to stop at different times during the day and try to freeze that moment in my memory. I missed things, yes…I didn’t get anything to eat or drink and I didn’t see the kids eating candy or people enjoying the fires outside, but I do remember what my thoughts were when I woke up, I remember seeing my friend Krissy on the couch as I was leaving for my hair appointment, I remember the quiet time spent with my mom, Jackie and Kayla as I was getting my hair done, I remember the looks on the groomsmen faces during the ceremony, I remember the things my daddy whispered to me when we were dancing (he made me cry big time), I remember the hugs we got right after the ceremony, I remember seeing precious friends that live far away, I remember the moment we decided it was time to leave and I remember being on cloud 9 as we drove away. That day was truly the best day of my life and I’m still so elated as I sit here remembering.

Scott & Cristen from W. Scott Chester Photography has shared with us a valley ranch vineyard wedding from Napa Valley, CA for Chandler + John’s rustic wedding. W. Scott Chester Photography is a husband & wife wedding photographer team, and you can get the gist of their personality through their About page of their main site. In this wedding I love all the minimalist decorations they used, just focusing on the pure beauty of their venue. The ruffled curtain backdrop, black and white striped bride entrance curtain, the simple hanging light bulb decoration, the building wall as the projection screen, pool lounge cocktail hour, love it all!

I’m so honored to be featuring Chris & Marcy’s barn wedding, photographed by Brita Photography.  All of Brittany’s photography has so much light and color in them, I feel warm and happy just looking at them.  She has captured all the stunning characteristics of Chris & Marcy’s DIY barn wedding at the Reid Barn Georgia.  Marcy has coordinated all the hues of the purple very well, which is pretty hard to do.  I think the pops of orange in their bouquet has helped it empower the colors.  Loving the program on a popsicle stick, birch wood vase, twine wrapped bottles and the vintage fabric ribbon hanging buntings. Just simple gorgeous!

Photography | Brita Photography
Ceremony + Reception Venue  |  The Reid Barn
Wedding Coordinator | Signature Wedding & Events, Corrie Kirk & Swoon Designs
Floral Design | Bedazzled Florist, Valerie
Wedding Cake & Whoopie Pies  |  Bonne Bedingfield
DJ |  Randy Herrin
Ceremony Duet | Leslie Rummel & Phillip Dingler
Bridal Gown | Elite Bridal, Essense
Bridesmaid Dresses | Enzoani, Love 2012
Hair + Makeup |  Rhonda McLain
Shoes | Brianna Leigh
Invitations | Moore Custom Creations

Beautiful minimalist country wedding photography by Landon Jacob.  I love all the dark red with contrast to all the green from the garden, highlighted with ivory and the wooden grains.  These photos tells you that less is sometimes more powerful!  The combination of figs and pomegranate gives a lot of rich colors to the neutral ivory.

Photographer: Landon Jacob
Event Design and Production: Spencer Special Events
Venue and Catering: Belfair Plantation
Floral Design: Branches
Cake: Sheri’s Edible Designs
Mini Desserts: M Sweet Desserts
Shortbread Favors: Heritage Shortbread
Figs: Californiafigs.com.
Stationery: Emma J Designs
Calligraphy: Bride Kielty Whelan of Savannah Calligraphy
Linen: Party Tables. Rentals: Ranco Tent Rental & Savannah Special Events
Glassware: Pier 1 Imports.
Measuring Spoons: World Market
Soap: Baltimore Soaps
Streamers: Extravagant Exits
Mr. and Mrs. Forks: Lazy Lightning Art
Bride’s Dresses and Veil: Aster and Ivy
Earrings: Vintage.
Bridesmaid Attire: Forever 21
Hair and Makeup: Christine Stephens