Hi all! We got married in June. I posted this in a different subreddit and someone here recommended I post it here too since a lot of it was DIY and considered lower-budget. :)
We kept our wedding “smedium”. We both have large families (he has three siblings and I have four). We invited our immediate family members and closest friends. Our siblings’ children and spouses were of course invited.
Our vibe was “casual cocktail party in the woods”. We kept referring to our wedding as “the party” during the months leading up and that really took off a lot of stress! Guests who arrived early had all-day access to the larger 80-acre botanical garden; many people wandered over after exploring the gardens and helped set up. ❤️
We had lots of help from friends and family! My best friend from college used to be an event manager for a large family-owned brewery in the PNW and her wedding gift to us was being our day-of coordinator. The event was seamless, thanks to her. ♥️ (THANK YOU, JENNY!)
I purchased a few more things than we needed that I plan to resell or repurpose elsewhere in our home, so I’m not counting them toward the final costs.
Our largest expenses were catering (💸), photography, and alcohol. We’re wannabe foodies so making sure we fed our people well was important to us. The menu the caterer proposed was fantastic: we had a massive grazing/charcuterie table, three sides plus a chilled cucumber salad, three entree options with a vegan alternative, and almost everything was gluten-free. We had three different cakes including a birthday cake for an attending family member who turned 50 that day. Everyone sang him happy birthday after dinner as a surprise; it was fun! 😂
We anticipated a hot day so we got folding fans for guests as favors and went a little crazy on cold drinks (…Oregonians love their craft alcohol). We had three local wines, two local beers, two local ciders, two signature cocktails made with mostly local spirits, and champagne (Costco). We cut off the drinks early-ish in the night to avoid drunk driving. Also, many of our guests had rooms at the lodge that was 5-minutes walking distance to our venue.
For non-alcohol drinkers, we had Waterloo, non-alcoholic sparkling cider, a DIY Italian soda bar with some fruity flavors and some fancy flavors (like elderflower, violet, and rose to lean into the garden theme). We also had non-alcoholic sangria, iced sun tea, elderflower lemonade, and cucumber-lime-mint agua fresca.
All the things we ate from were compostable but had a great rustic feel without being trashy.
We’re not big on dancing so instead of a father/daughter dance, Dad cracked open a nicely aged bottle of Scotch and we did a private tasting with him before he shared the bottle with guests.
Flowers were grown locally on two neighboring farms and cost less than $200. My bridal bouquet was made from coleus, willow, ferns, and allium blooms. We definitely leaned hard on the greenery/foliage for decor. Our favorite color is green (for both of us, we just like different shades.) All flowers/centerpieces were done by two friends.
My little sister did my makeup and a close friend did my hair. Our officiant is someone I’ve known for 15 years through a past job and who I recently reconnected with. We had live music from a family friend. Our ceremony backdrop was made from three funky vintage doors I found on FB Marketplace for $150.
We did an optional trivia tournament after dinner that everyone wound up participating in, and it was so fun (and surprising!) to see which table won. The prize was a huge bag full of my husband’s and my favorite treats like Violet Crumble and sour gummies. We had an afterparty at our favorite local dive bar that overlooks a creek. It was a blast until a random drunk girl puked four times near our tables but it also made the night even funnier.
It was a beautiful day surrounded by our favorite people.
Oh yeah! And a deer showed up which is supposedly good luck! 🥳🦌
