From the colors to the fabulous DIY projects, this Style Me Pretty wedding is inspiring. Read the couple's story below - Check out the eco-conscious ways they made their budget stretch by buying items they could reuse everyday after their wedding...Love it!
"I know every bride says it, and I’m sure they mean it, but our wedding was truly the best day(s) of our lives. We had a year and a half engagement and I started planning right off the bat! It was a good thing to because we filled the wedding with little touches and DIY projects that made everything perfectly us.
Even before I met Doug I found the place where I wanted to get married while at a business conference. Whispering Pines is tucked away in a woodsy section of Rhode Island. We booked the whole site for Columbus Day weekend for our 80 person wedding. Once we chose Whispering Pines we started telling our guests who started referring to the weekend wedding as “camp”. We decided to go with the rustic camp theme with wood slices, wildflowers, care packages for guests, and camp t-shirts for favors. We stuck with an aqua and poppy color scheme and I think the look really came together.
I wish I could tell the entire story of our wedding with all the little stories that made the weekend memorable. Like how the night before the wedding the girls and I snuck into the boys cabin to play pranks, very “summer camp” of us, but they were up waiting with shaving cream. It was hilarious and I wound up spending a few hours the night before our wedding with my groom and the boys. I know, scandalous. The whole wedding party got about 4 hours of sleep!
Our budget wasn’t huge so we tried to maximize the most important things. Whispering Pines, though lovely, isn’t cheap. It sounds shocking but it was 3/4 of our budget for the venue, food, and overall experience. We figured that’s what people would remember and we were right! We had about 5K to spend on all the other details & vendors.
One of the major themes of the wedding was trying to use things that we could re-use after the wedding. We needed an “altar” for our outdoor wedding so we decided to buy a side table that we could use outside for the unity candle, now it’s Doug’s bedside table. The frame that we used for our setting chart now houses all my earrings, using just a mesh screen behind it. The blanket box for the campfire throws now sits at the end our our bed holding our extra blankets. Someday it’ll be our children’s toy chest. I didn’t feel as guilty buying unique and quality things knowing that they’d be put to good use after the wedding.
I worked really closely with Joy from Flower Thyme in Wakefield, RI to get just the right look for our flowers. My inspiration was big ball dahlias, which have a huge pop factor without being too expensive. We filled in with white hydrangeas, fern fronds, hypercerium berries, bright red tulips, and various wild flowers. It was impossible to find an aqua flower so we opted for a bight blue bow on all the arrangements. We loved our photographer Michelle. Loved. MIchelle was so sweet and professional. She even brought her 16 year old son as a second shooter, so he can learn the business, at no extra cost to us.
For my girls I chose a bright poppy color and told them to pick any tea length dress in that color from the Dessy line – in either Nu-Georgette or Duchess Satin. My sister, the MOH, choose a long dress to look a little different. My dress was a great find. I went dress shopping twice, the first just being a quick run through where I didn’t even try anything on. The dress I choose, Abigail by Sophia Tolli, was the first dress I tried on. It was perfect for me and the setting and I never felt more beautiful. My shoes were a $20 find at DSW and I plan on wearing them again and again.
After the wedding many guests changed into their camp tees, yes camp tees, to head over to the campfire for s’mores and sparklers. Since October can be chilly, especially last fall, we knew we wanted blankets for the campfire. I found all the fleece throws, mostly non matching blues and reds, for $1-$3 each everywhere from CVS to IKEA to Joann Fabrics. Everyone was so comfy by the fire we stayed out until the last guests retired to their rooms. "
