DIY Wedding Family Style
This wedding is a bit more intimate than many of our other features. A small, but absolutely sweet, totally unpretentious family affair. I just knew I had to feature it. Plus, today’s weddings are ALL about the personality and the charm, so it totally fit the bill. Oh and did I mention that I love every bit of it? To see lots more pictures from the day, click here.
{to see the full wedding, click here}
Thomas is German and I’m a Jersey girl born and bred. We met while working for BMW and got engaged at Pemaquid Point Lighthouse while visiting my parents in Maine. From the beginning, we both knew that we wanted to get married during the summer in Maine. We decided to celebrate with only our immediate families and create a week-long event that would allow us to spend quality time with the people who matter most. We were fortunate to be able to rent out the entire Maine Stay Inn, one of Maine’s best B&Bs, for the three days surrounding the wedding. The owners, Claudio and Roberta, were generous enough to let us have our dinner reception in their gardens. We also used the Inn’s Chef for all our catering which worked out perfectly.
Our wedding had a lot of DIY touches starting with the Welcome Bag. We had L.L. Bean bags embroidered with each family’s name and stuffed them with Maine goodies: Stonewall Kitchen Blueberry Jam, Moxie, Avena Botanicals Bug Repellant, Walking Maps, Lupine Seeds, Lobster Pops, and handmade Balsam Pillows. I used vintage dishtowels to sew envelopes for the welcome letter and included blank cards with the words “Love Is / Liebe Ist” printed on the top. We asked each guest (kids included) to write down their thoughts and them share during the ceremony.
The ceremony took place at the Vesper Hill Children’s Chapel in Rockport, Maine. The location of the open-air chapel is just spectacular. It sits on top of beautifully manicured gardens and overlooks the ocean. While we were reciting our vows Windjammers were slicing back and forth across the water. The program / wedding CD holder and tissue covers were sewn from dishtowels and tablecloths and edged with bias tape. I used more dishtowels to create bunting for the front and the back of the chapel. Because we weren’t allowed to have birdseed at the chapel, we used vintage noisemakers we found on Ebay. Our guests used them during our kiss and our exit. The kids loved that!
The Love Is / Liebe Ist cards turned out to be the sweetest part of the ceremony – tears and laughter all around. My mother, who was battling cancer and has since passed wrote – “Love is having a hand to hold when you are happy and arms to hold you when you are sad.” My six-year old niece wrote – “Love is amotsanal cous if your writing a love letter it makes you want to kry but then you feel sad but happy at the same tim.” I love these cards because they capture exactly who each person was at that moment in time. I also love that I could have each of my nieces and nephews participate in the ceremony. My oldest nephew did a reading from Kurt Vonnegut, another nephew was the ring bearer, two nieces were flower girls and the other two nieces played a duet of Ode to Joy.
For the dinner reception, I wanted a slightly retro/vintage feel with lots of reds, blues and yellows. I ordered retro tablecloths choosing a floral motif since we’d be outside in the amazing garden of the Inn. Instead of renting napkins, we used more dishtowels (it was actually cheaper) which my niece spent hours ironing into a pretty shape. After the wedding, I gave the tablecloths to my mother, mother-in-law and sister, along with a set of napkins, as a thank you for all their help. To finish the tables, I used vintage salt & pepper shakers purchased on Ebay : a bride and groom, love birds, German beer steins and a cute little German couple we used as a cake topper. I also loved our impromptu cupcake tier. I hit two Goodwill stores before the wedding and got a bunch of plates, bowls and glass candle sticks that my brother-in-law (and a little silicon glue) transformed into a cupcake tier. Total cost $9. And the best part, I pulled it all apart afterward and brought it all right back to Goodwill.
For our flowers we visited Endless Summer Flower Farm a few days before the wedding and picked out the dahlias we wanted for our flowers. They have hundreds of varieties in the most amazing color variations. We picked up the cut flowers the morning of the wedding and my sister arranged the flowers in mismatched vintage vases scored on Ebay. My sister, a jewelry designer, also made my wedding necklace from a piece of blue Maine sea glass.
Photographer: Audra Medunitza / Wedding Location: Vesper Hill Children’s Chapel, Rockport, Maine / Reception Location: The Maine Stay Inn, Camden, Maine
26 Comments about “DIY Wedding Family Style”
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everything about this wedding shouts SMP to me! it is gorgeous, overflowing of love, and full of fun details. nice work.
The wedding is the same as all of the other weddings on here-outdoors, DIY,pictures of root beer... How does this not scream SPM? lol.
love the vintage dishtowels holding the stationery!
LOVE this wedding... those table settings are fantastic. I know you said it's "a bit of a departure," but frankly, this is the first time in at least a week that I ended up reading the bride's whole story. I enjoy this website, but... a lot of the more typical weddings run together in my mind.
So thank you for featuring something more unique!
I'm confused. Why bother having a DIY section on this website if you are reluctant to feature them??
I think this wedding is very pretty and has the sort of touches that inspire brides-to-be reading this website. Just my two cents.
I vote for MORE handcrafted weddings on here. The more handcrafted and personal, the better. Really, who can afford some of the large-scale productions on here? Sure, they are nice to drool over, but they are way out of reach for most brides, I imagine. Thanks for sharing this real Real Wedding with us.
Handmade weddings are the way to go. No one else would ever have the same wedding you did!
And I agree - I vote for MORE handcrafted weddings too!
I love this and more the power to this couple for doing it their way. I don't see how this isn't the typical SMP wedding either.
One great thing about this set of photos is how you can gain inspiration for so many outdoor parties this summer whether it's a birthday, luncheon, shower, whatever..
<3 Isodora
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So charming... I love the ring pillow!
This is a beautiful wedding! The handmade details are what make it so special. Sometimes the platinum weddings look all the same to me....I really don't care how big the diamond is or how "model-like" the couple is. Real, genuine, homemade LOVE is what it's all about. It's weddings like this that keep me coming back to wedding blogs again and again.
so sweet and romantic with the DIY touch! I love the fabric CD holder!
TOTALLY agree:) We need more handmade weddings on this site!!! It's a balance for me...when I do a lot of DIY weddings, I get tons of emails for more traditionally styled weddings. When I do a lot of tradition or high end, we get a lot of requests for DIY weddings. So finding the balance is a hard one...but a fun challange to have!
We actually have a HUGE collection of awesome DIY weddings on here, so that wasn't the part that was a departure. It is just a totally unique, totally colorful wedding style that I don't see very often that was the departure:)
This wedding is very inspiring and authentic! Beautiful pictures. Loved reading the details the bride shared. Delightful.
I echo what so many have said on here -- I love the DIY details of this wedding. Is it a "departure" because there aren't beaucoups of vendors to tout? Maybe that's good! I realize that's what keeps a website going, having advertisers and advertisements for vendors (and I don't deny you those since I love SMP!) but I think this kind of wedding is what a lot of us are looking for, especially in these constrained economic times.
What matters most? Family and friends, and making them an integral, important part of the big day, just like this charming, thoughtful couple did.
Yikes! Didn't mean to start an issue with that...I only meant that it was a departure from our aesthetic. I HEART diy weddings and small backyard affairs, big time. And anytime I find one that is particularly lovely, like this one, I put it right up!
We have a pretty large variety of readers. Lots of different styles and lots of different budgets...I will hunt down some more great DIY weddings that are easy on the wallet for sure (I promise) but I also love to provide eye candy for those that have larger budgets. It's a balance.
Plus, my big "thing" is that I really believe that you can find ideas and inspiration in weddings large and small. No matter what your budget.
I love the greenery that's framing out the guests at the reception :)
This is one of my favorite. The setting is gorgeous and I love all the little DIY details, especially the Love Is cards - what a great idea and one that will be a treasure for years to come.
I agree that I actually read the entire bride's post rather than the usual skim. I think the "Love is" cards are absolutely fabulous. I'm going to steal that for my bridal shower and having "Marriage is." I think those cards will help fill an album and personalize it.
This i so lovely! I adore the "Love is" card, and I cried reading the bride's story. Our invitation actually says "love is what makes two people sit in the middle of a bench when there is plenty of room at both ends," and now I can't wait to incorporate that as a guestbook idea!
what a truly charming wedding... love the floral table centerpieces - looks like they were picked fresh from the garden and then elegantly arranged at each table... LOVE the details of the handmade CD holder and tissue pouch. cute! and that ring pillow is adorable! great wedding!
I love this. So sweet and full of love. perfect.
Really sweet and beautiful. There's something so heartwarming and enchanting about smaller, handmade weddings that the bigger, glitzier weddings don't seem to have. Lavish details can be pretty to swoon over. But love and simplicity trumps "bling" any day!
...One more reason I love BMW... Fabulous company with people who have fabulous taste.
I w ould love to feature this wedding on www.youngmarriedchic.com
I think it would be great inspiration for others planning their weddings, beautiful!
adorable wedding with heart behind it...thanks for the homespun inspirations!
Beautiful wedding and so good to see so many inspiring DIY touches...Wow cool CDs!!! Please please can you tell me where I can get these from?