DIY Bride Part IX: The Wedding Reveal

Well, the wedding has finally come and gone, and I couldn't be happier.  The evening was more fun than I had even expected, and I'm so relieved to not be worried about wedding stuff.  After all the hard work to pull off the DIY wedding, I wanted to show you how everything turned out.  Just bear in mind that even with my DIY contributions, the last 2-3 days before the wedding were pretty much all the handiwork of friends and friends of friends without whose floral and creative expertise this DIY wedding would definitely NOT have come out as beautiful as it did.

Without further ado...

Pre-wedding photo of the bride's and groom's attire.

When I saw this bike rack just outside the bar, I knew I wanted to use it somehow.  Shawn and I are both cyclists, so it was only fitting.  Plus, I wanted people to be able to easily tell where the venue was.

My DIYed welcome sign :)

This ceremony space was so cute and pretty, especially at night when it was lit by string lights and LED tea lights.  The ladies worked so hard to get this just right, and the rain held up so that it all worked out.

This was our unmanned reception table.  There are little globes for travel-themed decor, postcards of Hammie and Freddie from around the world, a wedding post, and favors.

The ladies did a great job with these favors too and arranged them artfully at the reception table (see below).

This was the favors end of the reception table.  I planned the design of the favors and had envisioned placing one at each table, but the ladies made a much more impressive display.

This is the beautiful bouquet that I forgot to carry down the aisle.  It's wrapped in a piece of one of my Dad's ties.  Bouquet had ranunculus, roses, nigella, and greens.  It was really cute and sentimental.

I was most nervous about how the flowers would turn out, but the ladies who did the flowers worked some kind of magic and turned out a bunch of gorgeous arrangements in pretty much any container I had -- Mason jars, handmade wood boxes, store-bought rustic containers, and cigar boxes.

I brought in a few cut zinnias and other wildflowers I had grown, and they actually made an arrangement out of them.  I'm so pleased to have grown some of my own flowers!!!

The menu was Southern BBQ, and the chef did an amazing job.  We had cornbread, corn on the cob, green beans and bacon, Carolina pulled pork, brisket, chicken, cole slaw, and peach cobbler.  The appetizers were good too, but the deviled eggs were gone before I even had a chance to try them!

For part of dessert, we had little ice cream cups with custom Liv Luv Laf labels in honor of Dad.

This was our little Sam's Club wedding cake.  My plan was to put Hammie and Freddie on top, but this cake was so small that they wouldn't fit.  Our wedding planner had this mini Hammie and Freddie made from clay, so Hammie and Freddie had avatars of their own!

Happy bride and groom taking a moment to pose

Happy Hammie and Freddie taking a moment to pose