In honor of me and E’s six-month wedding anniversary today, I am finally sharing more photos from our beautiful, unique (to us), largely DIY backyard wedding last October!
We got engaged in March, and since we had been together so long already and planned to keep living overseas, but wanted to celebrate with our families (and a variety of other factors that I won’t bore you with) we decided to have a short engagement. The best option for our short notice and the best location for us ended up being in his parents’ backyard in the town of Olympia, Washington, near Seattle, USA. Their “backyard” is gorgeous and borders on a forest!
It was stressful to have such a short engagement–and to be abroad and unable to plan for a large portion of it–but our wedding ended up nearly perfect and it was one of the best days of my life!
Sometimes I wish we’d had a longer engagement–it’s a special time of your life that only happens once, after all–but now that we’ve been married for six months, I’m so happy to be married and could not have imagined a better wedding day if we had waited (except maybe I would have gotten more sleep in the weeks before…or maybe not because I tend to procrastinate anyway!).
Since it was a backyard wedding, that meant that everything had to be brought in, made, ordered, or borrowed. My extremely talented aunt did our flowers–some of them in pumpkins, that is the dream!–and that helped everything tie together. My childhood friend just happened to be starting her wedding photography business so we snapped her up right away. Two more friends sang us down the aisle (we have a lot of talented friends). A good friend of ours was the DJ. Eric’s cousin married us, his mother (Eric’s aunt) and my mother made the soup, a group of my family helped with the food…it really “took a village” as they say and I’m so grateful for everyone who made our day!
Here are some of the details:
^^In lieu of a guest book, we had everyone sign this globe. It turned out even better than I hoped and I will always treasure it!
^^We had everyone help us make a “bucket list,” too :).
^^The cake had to incorporate travel, too, of course!
^^The flowers in the pumpkins! Also, we made these lanterns out of mason jars, candles, and…you won’t believe it…all-natural cat litter made from walnut shells!
^^E and my sister’s fiancé put up the arbor, and my aunt decorated it.
^^The pumpkin aisle!
^^Taking pictures with our bridal party was one of the highlights–I, at least, had a great time! We also took a shot of Becherovka, a Czech liquor, with the whole party after we were married and had walked back down the aisle. We had to bring a little bit of Prague into our wedding!
^^We had two kegs that E’s dad brought out on a tractor. It was a hit 😉 and one of the kegs was Pilsner Urquell, of course!
^^E’s sister and I did chalkboard labels for everything, including the program (no paper for us).
^^I was so nervous before the wedding that I ended up doing other makeup as well as my own.
^^One of my favorite details–E’s dad helped me make these signs to show all of the important places to us, and how far they were from our wedding site. We also used to help guests navigate the venue.
^^E’s dad (a talented carpenter and craftsman, by the way) had these extra wine barrels that we borrowed.
^^A friend of the family happened to have a bunch of lights leftover from his wedding, so we paid him to borrow them and help us set them up. We also found hot-air balloon lights that we hung over the wedding party table.
^^Family photos! We collected photos of us and our lives, as well as photos from our parents’ and grandparents’ weddings. We hung them up with twine and clothespins–easy!
^^We gave out mason jars with the guests’ names for drinks and as favors.
^^We had a grilled cheese bar!!! E’s sister designed our menu and a group of his parents’ friends helped us set up a station and make them. They were delicious! Luckily we also were the taste-testers for the menu…best job ever.
^^Handmade road signs to help our guests find their way.
^^We had a photo booth, too. We set up a Polaroid camera, lent to us by our photographer, and a background, and yet another amazing friend made props. It was a fun addition!
Despite all of the DIY–which I am not a fan of–I loved our wedding and our day and most of all, I’m so happy that many of our favorite people were there to help us celebrate!
All photos by my talented friend, Hannah Traver Photography!