Christina and Tamsen were married at Spring Hills Farm in Dalton, PA last October. They wanted their day to have a laid back, rustic feel and to fit in with the gorgeous, Autumnal nature around them.
“The inspiration for our wedding was nature and romance”, they began. “We put a lot of love into making a great party for us and our family and friends. We got a lot of comments on the animal dance party… masks were hung in the tent by the DJ area and after the reception everyone grabbed a different animal mask and started dancing. It was a riot and everyone had a lot of fun with it.”
“Almost the entire wedding was DIY. At the ceremony site we hung mason jars with twine from tree branches and put tea lights inside for a backdrop. Other decorations included bunting which was made from floral bedsheets that we tea-stained, cut into triangles and sewed together. The paper pouch circles were pages from old books sewed together, and the paper flag bunting was made from wallpaper samples! We thrifted beautiful vintage handkerchiefs, made tiny envelopes for them to go in and set them on a table leading into the ceremony for weepy guests to take.”
“The DIY carried through into cocktail hour and our reception. We bought bottles of whiskey which were displayed on thrifted gold trays with vintage shot and highball glasses. We printed name cards with coordinating table numbers which we hung with hand-painted clothes pegs from string.”
“We garbage-picked a big wooden spindle which we used for the drink decanters, it looked amazing and was free! We tied silver and white key tags onto mason jars as name tags for the guests. The table runners were homemade from burlap and the flower vases were old bottles which we picked up from flea markets. We saved a lot of money on the flowers. We went to Trader Joes a couple of days before the wedding and picked 10 of the prettiest $3.99 wildflower bouquets we could find. We used these for the tables, bouquet and buttonholes and cost us less than $40!”
“Other money saving things included not having a DJ or officiant (we had friends do both)”, they continued. “We also bought all the beer from a local store. We served BBQ, buffet style, and everyone served themselves rather than having a fancy caterer. Our ‘cake’ was actually a collection of pies and desserts from a local bakery too!”
“The only thing we’d change is that Tamsen had a cold, which was a bit of a bummer, but couldn’t really be helped!” they concluded. “So we guess our advice to other couples would be down the vitamin c in the weeks running up to the wedding and take care of your health!”
