Pages

Saturday, August 20, 2016

Our Rustic Farm Wedding...

From the moment that Eric proposed to me...OK scratch that...4 years before Eric proposed (LOL)...I knew where my dream wedding would be held. It all started when I accompanied a friend of mine who had recently become engaged to an open house event at this wedding venue in Phoenix called "Venue at the Grove". We drove up and I was immediately thinking, "This doesn't feel like we are in the desert anymore!"
I was smitten from the first few minutes touring the grounds...the venue is actually a working Pecan Grove in the middle of Phoenix. Being a Midwest girl I immediately felt at home with the smell of fresh cut grass, the barn towards the back of the property, this super cool old yellow Ford truck parked behind the barn, and the trees! The trees were glorious! There was a beautiful brick paver patio that was surrounded by pecan trees and bistro lights that created the perfect mood lighting as the desert sun started to set. Yep...I was in love. Long story short my friend who had brought me here ended up having a gorgeous destination wedding in Cancun...(AWESOME!) but I never forgot about The Venue at the Grove. Four years later when Eric proposed to me on Christmas morning, I knew where I had to take him.
My parents flew out to visit in early February that year and so I had called and scheduled a tour at the venue. The four of us went and lucky for me, Eric and my parents fell in love with the venue too!! A short 12 months later we were married there on February 25th, 2016.
I am of course a DIY girl at heart so you know I needed at least a year long engagement to get all of my projects done!

The things I did myself:
  • Flowers + Table Decor
  • Signs
  • Cake
  • Welcome Bags
  • Invitations
  • Makeup
  • Flower girl baskets + ring bearer pillow
What I left to the professionals:
  • Hair
  • Day of coordination
  • Catering
  • DJ Entertainment/Ceremony Music
  • Bar tending
  • Photography
For the flowers I wanted something pretty and simple. I had been reading that people spend thousands of dollars on flowers!! What?!?!? I was able to order giant bunches of babies breath for $8 a piece from my local grocery store. I also ordered a couple bunches of wax flower to add in to my bouquet. I ordered them about a week before the wedding and picked them up the day before. My sister and I put together the bouquets the night before the wedding and they stayed perfect the whole next day! They smell great too!! The rest for the vases on the tables my wedding coordinator put together for me the day of. All together flowers cost about $50! The vases for the table settings were from multiple trips to Goodwill. I found mix matched glass vases for 99 cents to $1.99 each. To tie them all together I used jute rope to tie little bows on each one. I love how they turned out!


I made all of the signs for the wedding as well...most were made out of pallet wood. I used a pallet to display the itinerary for the evening as guests walked up to the grounds... I also did a couple of chalkboard signs using chalk markers so they wouldn't get messed up. :)


When I told people I was planning on making my own wedding cake, I got A LOT of strange looks. Most people swore to me that I would not want to do that to myself, that I would have way too much to worry about without having a cake to make as well. It made me laugh, because I was a cake decorator for several years when I lived in Indiana. It was actually one of the things I most looked forward to doing because baking and decorating de-stresses me. For most people I totally agree that having to make their own wedding cake (or cupcakes as mine ended up being) would be too much on top of the regular stresses of wedding planning. But for me, it was a relaxing couple of hours in the kitchen the day before the wedding. :) I did a simple double layer 8 inch round cake for our "cutting cake". It was red velvet with cream cheese icing...SOOO GOOD! I made some burlap roses for the toppers of the cake and did a "messy iced look" to tie in the rustic theme from the rest of the wedding. I did french vanilla cupcakes with vanilla icing for the guests. I got really good compliments on them! :) I think they were just what I wanted, simple and yummy desert at the end of a perfect night!


All in all, I don't know that a DIY wedding is for everyone...but if you are like me and you LOVE doing crafts and projects I would highly recommend it! It saved us a TON of money and I don't feel like we "skimped" on a single thing!

Here are my biggest lessons I learned from planning our DIY wedding...





I plan to do more posts about my specific D.I.Y projects and share where I got my good deals from! :)



Here are the credits for our amazing wedding...if you'd like to know more about it... :)

Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)