This rustic beauty is all kinds of enchanting but, really, would you expect anything less from KT Merry? Her photographs are always such a dream and this city meets country chic wedding just sparkles in front of her lens. Of course, this is not your average rustic backyard wedding. It is a little glam, a little girly, a little country, a little DIY and all kinds of sensational. A little DIY is an understatement. This bride and groom transformed the bride’s family’s riding arena into a magical outdoor ballroom. It’s hard to believe this luxe affair was a DIY labor of love by the sweet couple and their families. Check out all the gorgeous details in the full gallery!
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From the Bride…Our wedding was pretty much a complete DIY project – other than the catering, photography and some rentals we did everything ourselves. From the beginning we knew that we wanted to do a city meets country theme since I’m originally from the city and Randy grew up half an hour outside of Kamloops on a working cattle ranch. We wanted the feel of our wedding to be fun and comfortable but also with a bit of formality and glitz where people could dress up and be in beautiful surroundings. I got a lot of my ideas from looking online on the Knot wedding website at their real wedding photos. We saw the bright green and hot pink colour theme on there and it was perfect because I love hot pink and Randy coincidentally really likes bright green. I spent hours and hours on the computer looking through pictures of other weddings to get some ideas of how to transform our riding arena and to see what would be plausible for us.
We decided on doing our wedding at my parents’ acreage because it is a beautiful property where we love to spend free time but a big incentive was that the riding arena provided the perfect venue for us with lots of space, light and acoustics. It also gave us the opportunity to create the feel of a surprise outdoor ballroom because we knew people would not be expecting to find what we had in mind inside a riding arena so we were excited to be able to surprise our guests with our plans. To create more of a roomy feel in the arena Randy had to build walls as we weren’t utilizing all the space. He also dug in the dance floor and then we suspended a light feature above the dance floor – we got the inspiration for the light feature from the movie Twilight. We also had to lay the turf in there with the help of six of our friends to create the ‘outdoorsy’ feel. Two more of our friends were kind enough to volunteer to paint our head table ‘feature’ wall black while I was preoccupied with sewing sleeves on each end of 88 organza fabric panels that we suspended from the light feature and connected to the walls to create a romantic canopy. I love the gauzy look! I also sewed together the green satin panels that were behind our head table to fancy it up a bit. With the help of a lot of our friends we picked up the rentals and got the place decorated in the two days before our wedding.
My aunt used to be a florist and she was kind enough to do our flowers and decorate the arbor that we were married in front of (which Randy also built and stained along with our beautiful speech podium). For our table centrepieces we knew that we wanted to use wheat grass because it provided the bright green to go against the pink table cloths in a more casual manner that went with the country aspect of the theme. To accomplish that look, Randy even helped mill the wood that he later used to make the wheat grass centre piece containers, which we also stained ourselves. We even grew our own wheat grass in the two weeks before the wedding after doing a couple test runs in the early part of the year – I don’t have the best green thumb. I made all of the individual guest menus, table seating display, table number placards and “Meet the Maids and Gents” cards all in the two weeks before the wedding. With the help of my bridesmaids, we tacked up pictures of us and our guests so that they could write any messages or well wishes on a picture of their choosing instead of doing the traditional guest book. Our friends also helped us with the finishing touches on the yard by laying the bark mulch trails, mowing all the grass and helping Randy build the two trellises in front of the riding arena a couple days before the wedding. The whole experience of planning and getting ready for our wedding was lots of fun and I had a great time letting my imagination take me away in the whole romance of the day.
Wedding Photography: KT Merry / Catering: At Your Service Catering / Rentals: Rogers Rentals + Magical Moments / Bridesmaid Dresses: Sophia Tolli via The Wedding Bell / Groom’s Suit: Zegna via Harry Rosen’s / Hair + Make-up: Sukhi Dhaliwal
Beautfiul DIY wedding! i love the vibrant pink colors and the ceremony site is breathtaking!
Where can I find those fabulous shoes? I can't tell who the designer is.
I couldn't believe it...but I am wearing the same exact pair of Airat boots for my wedding on October 1st. I love them!!!! Good choice!!!!
Beautiful! Who are the pink shoes by?
What a beautiful wedding! Where did you get your reception dress?
The shoes are by Jessica which is a Sears Canada department store brand. Not sure if they're still selling them or not. I have two pairs in silver tho that I bought and were the wrong size for my girls. I got the reception dress online from Nordstrom's.
It's lovely! I'm glad Style Me Pretty has a blog for Canada!
Hey Chrissy!! Your wedding is stunning! We are considering a coverall wedding - and I was wondering If I could get some tips and help from how you guys did yours! Ours is already wired for lighting but I definately would want a nicer light fixture like you guys had! What we have now is just lightballs dangling from the top. Also how did you make walls? and the sod- was it messy/expensive? ( I mean messy during your wedding- trust me I know laying sod is no fun!)How early did you have to do it? What we have to work with is gravel floor - and it will have to be gravel when we are done using it as a wedding venue but sod seems such a good idea for a dance floor - it just pulled together the whole look! I really do not want people walking and dancing on gravel if we don't have to! Any help would be so appreciated! We are having a hard time deciding but would love to get married on the farm if we can! Thanks so much,
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[...] Today we travel to Canada for a beautiful fusion of city and country. Glamorous colors and decor meet the great outdoors on this family’s riding land and arena. Not only is this wedding a vision of beauty, it brings the term “DIY” to a whole new level. This bride and groom built walls, light fixtures, a dance floor, a canopy, and an arbor for the ceremony. The result was the perfect combination of glamorous and rustic. A bright color combination and glitzy features complemented a backdrop of rolling hills and farm life to perfection. Read on for all the fabulous pictures and find the full gallery of images at Style Me Pretty. [...]