A Family Fun, DIY Backyard Wedding: Anna & Chris

Todays wedding features two of my most favourite things in the world – birds and glitter. You might wonder what happens when you put these two things together? Well, you get birds covered in glitter of course and for the record these birds are not real! With a little help from her mum and aunt, Anna crafted some of the most interesting little bird centrepieces I have seen. Although a huge project I think it really paid off as the results are very sweet and extremely creative.

Anna and Chris’s family didn’t just stop there with creativity, they played a huge part in bringing this wedding together doing everything from painting and building to sewing and baking, everything was designed with family in mind.

I asked Anna to tell us more…

“When the time came to plan our wedding there were two things that I was certain about… I wanted to keep it low cost (my goal was $5k, and we got pretty close!) and I wanted it to be DIY by me and my family. These two things went hand in hand, of course, and dictated a lot of the planning process; fortunately, I have exceptionally talented family and even more fortunately they were willing to help!

I knew that I wanted to get married in a picturesque church setting and the stunning Morning Star Lutheran Chapel just happened to be close to my aunts beautiful property which we used for the reception.I did a lot of research early on and found lots of way to save money. I asked my uncle to perform the ceremony and our friends played piano and sang. My dress was only $200 and I added the bolero (which we made from scraps of vintage lace my aunt already had) and I added glitter to my wedge shoes. I did my own makeup and my sister did my hair. We only had one attendant each, Chris’ Dad and my sister Josie, and we kept the wedding small, inviting only 100 guests.

We planned a menu that could be served as boxed dinners to avoid expensive catering costs and my uncle and his family flew in from Colorado and made and assembled all the food. We had two cakes the first was made by my aunt along with the cupcakes and the second was made by family friends of the groom.

Chris is a bit of a music buff and I set him the task of creating a playlist for us to play from his iPad instead of having a band or DJ. this actually ended up being really neat and we really enjoyed listening to it! We played lawn games and held a collaborative art project where everyone got a small square of paper with a circle drawn on in and some colored pencils to decorate it with and then they were mounted on a board to create a large piece of art to commemorate the day.

We spent a lot of our time on DIY’ing the decorations. We ordered gorgeous flowers from a grower at the Charlotte Farmers Market which my Mom put together. My mom also sewed together yards of pennant bunting and my Dad designed, painted and built two large hanging signs and two large cupcake stands, whilst my mom and I painted some smaller signs. Chris and I painted a large, hanging heart and corn-hole boards. The little birds on the glittered branches for the centerpieces were a major project and my Mom and aunt really made that come together. We all scoured thrift stores and auctions for lace table cloths, glass candlesticks and teal mason jars for the tables… and when I wanted pink candles but found them to be quite expensive, my mom and aunt bought inexpensive white candles and dipped them into melted pink wax to make them pink… just to show you the level of dedication and detail they were willing to go to. Obviously I can not list everything here that went on in preparation but this gives you an idea of much work our families were willing to put into this wedding to make it special for Chris and me.”

Super suppliers – Photography: Tesar Photography//

What did you think of the boxed meals? I thought they were a fabulous idea and great if you are on a budget. Hats off to Anna, Chris and all their family for creating such a fabulous wedding day, you really don’t need to spend huge amounts to make your day special, I would say the proof is in the pudding!!!

Much Bespoke Love

Emily x