Rustic Real Wedding with DIY Charm

Today we are sharing with you an incredible rustic real wedding with tons of handmade elements and a rustic, homespun flair. We love to hear the details directly from the bride, so take it away, Kendel!

She tells us, “Country, rustic, charming, antique, old-fashion, warm, fun and intimate. Just a few words I would use to describe our wedding day, August 14th, 2010. If I had to describe it in one sentence it would be: The most amazing day that I got to marry my best friend while surrounded by the charming handiwork of my friends and family who all came together to make our day really special and memorable.

Our wedding took place at Balls Falls Conservation Area in Jordan ON. During the reception we had a slide show and several games throughout the evening including the shoe game and the newly wed game, which were a lot of fun. We ended the night with a few fireworks and our car drove through two large fountain style fireworks as our exit.

Our wedding was truly a DIY wedding and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. If it wasn’t something I made personally then it was an item made by a friend or family member, and together everything came out looking great, and it was even nicer knowing it was made with love and hard work from those involved in the day.

We worked with a relatively small budget and yet everything was exactly what I wanted. I hope the images of our wedding inspire other couples to really consider DIY as well as the power of asking friends and family members for their expertise when it comes to planning a wedding. You don’t always have to rely on the ‘experts’ when there are experts all around you amongst your friends and family!

Here are descriptions of just a few things we, or friends and family members, created for our big day:

Wedding Map: Jill Mitchell is an amazing artist that I met while doing my undergrad at Brock University. She has such a unique style of drawing and so I commissioned her to draw a personalized wedding map to put in with our invitations. I just love the end result she came up with – the map included not only directions but also a ‘caricature’ of myself and the groom, along with an image of our ‘getaway truck’ as well as the chapel and our reception barn. Here is a link to her art blog: http://ceilingexplorer.blogspot.com/

Our Wedding program: I wanted a really unique program that fit the country theme of our wedding and that would be an element of entertainment for our guests (as apposed to just a run down of the ceremony order of events). So I made a Mini Newspaper Style wedding program that included a ‘top story’ about us as a couple along with some funny advertisements that fit our wedding theme along with of course the typical ‘program’ break down. I have been busy at creating these Mini Newspaper Programs from brides from all over now as I sell them in my ETSY shop here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/71701996/mini-newspaper-style-wedding-program

Personalize Aisle Runner: My brother’s girlfriend, Meredith, is an artist and so I asked her to personalize our Aisle runner by painting our initial logo and date at the base of the runner! It looked great and all it cost was a small bottle of paint and a brush! Meredith also surprised us with an amazing painting of one of our engagement photos! It is SO beautiful and we featured it on our ‘signing table’ at the reception and it really was a show stopper! We now have the painting hanging in our bedroom and it is so lovely.

Centerpieces: I looked for a year at every garage sale, flea market and antique shop and found various antique tins of all shapes, sizes and genres. We then grew our own garden of sunflowers and zinnias (as well as order a few extra greens and filler flowers) and made our own centerpiece. Each table had a combination of different tins and no one centerpiece was alike.

Handmade Flower Girl Dolls: I asked my grandma to make a ‘Prairie Dolls’ for each of my four flower girls! My mom found really nice sunflower fabric to use for their dresses and each flower girl got to hold their doll down the aisle, they looked really cute in photos, and they was a nice keepsake for them to take home after the wedding.

Silhouette logo: I made custom silhouettes of Ben (the groom) and myself. We used these silhouettes on our invitation as well as on our bottle labels and we even framed them and hung them on the church doors. They really set the theme for the day and were a nice personal touch to the wedding. Interested in getting your own? I offer them in my ETSY shop here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/56325805/personalized-silhouettes

Our Getaway: We really wanted the traditional feel of a fun getaway running through the crow to a getaway vehicle. We went the ‘eco-friendly’ route of tossing birdseed instead of rice or confetti. Our guests had a lot of fun throwing the birdseed and I am sure the birds had fun afterwards. I now offer the same Birdseed tossing bags in my Etsy shop so that other brides can enjoy the same fun tradition at their weddings: https://www.etsy.com/listing/75544335/birdeseed-tossing-bags-with-sewn-on We were also very blessed to be able to borrow my maid of honor’s uncle’s old fashion pickup truck! It was an ideal getaway vehicle and we road away in it while sitting on hay bails in the back.

Our Wedding Cake: Our wedding cake was made by my friend Wilma. She is just getting started with her cake business (link below) and I was telling her how I wanted a ‘Rustic, old-fashioned cake that look handmade’ and she said “I can totally make a ‘handmade’ looking cake” and so she did! It turned out JUST how we wanted it and I had chosen three different types of fabric and we sewed them into ‘bands’ and then backed them with wax paper and wrapped the around the cake. It really gave it a rustic look and added to the handmade DIY feel of the day. Here is a link to Wilma’s Cake Site – Mill Street Cakes: http://millstreetcakes.blogspot.com/

Cake Topper: Our cake topper was an amazing handmade piece by Sarah Neuburger of ‘The Small Object’ and they are featured in her ‘Together Forever’ Etsy Shop. She was so great about using all of my ideas and really created a topper that reflected our colours and the style of our wedding day. She even made the dress on the cake topper doll match mine exactly! I highly recommend working with her to create your cake topper. Here is a link to her ETSY Shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/togetherforever?ref=seller_info

Our Favour: I wanted our favour to be something that my guests would really like and get use out of. I also wanted the favour to go with our rustic theme! I decided I wanted to do honey bottles and so I found really nice bottles and ordered them. Then all I needed to do was find a honey supplier to fill them. WELL to our delight my husband’s aunt and cousins were just getting a Bee farm started and said that the previous year they got lots of honey and would love to fill our favour bottles as a gift to us!! We were so excited to have family honey in the bottles, it made them that much sweeter! I made really cute tags for the bottles and I now design personalized tags for other bride’s favour. You can check them out here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/72867768/wedding-favor-tags-custom-tag-design-for

Guest Seating Tree: I made a really neat ‘guest seating tree’ to hang our seating chart on. I used branches that I collected from around my parent’s farm and I painted them gold. I then found little lanterns and placed battery powered flicker tea lights in the lanterns. I then hung the seating chart, by individual tables, on the tree by tying them on with raffia. I placed the tree in a silver bucket with rocks to hold it down and covered them with moss. I tied a ribbon around the branches to hold them together. Guests walked around the tree to find their name and see where they were sitting. The tree really added to the entry of the reception venue.

Handmade Reception Décor: Friends and family really came together to make our reception décor beautiful and cost effective. We decorated everything ourselves. My pastor’s wife, Bryar, runs a party planning business (link below) and she made amazing tissue pom poms to hang from the rafters of the barn. They were different sizes and were ivory and copper in colour. They really added to the beauty and intimacy of the space! My dad cut out our logo initials, ‘BRK’, and then crackled painted them and we hung them at the front of the barn above the head table. They looked great and really personalized the space, and now we have them as art in our home. We also strung up globe lights that I found in the patio section of a store and they really looked amazing and were a very cost effective way to decorate and give a big impact. http://eventessentials.org/eventessentials/index.html.html

RSVPS: I made my own wedding invitations but was a little stumped when it came to how to make the RSVPs. I came up with the idea to create postcards and pre-stamp them so that my guests could simply pop them in the mail after checking their box and filling in their number on the back. They ended up working out GREAT and really added to the rustic old-fashioned theme of the day. I now offer custom designs RSVP Postcards to other brides VIA my Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/listing/56835917/wedding-rsvp-postcards

Photography: Photography is such an important element of any wedding day, as what good is ALL this DIY work if there is no one there to capture all the small details that help capture the mood and feel of your wedding day. I am a photographer myself, so I had my fellow photographer friends Jenn and Dave Stark capture the special moments of our wedding day. And as you can all see they did a FABULOUS job!! Check out their website for more of their work, they are an awesome team and are great at what they do! http://www.jennstarkphotographers.com/

These are just a FEW of the DIY projects that we included in our day, and are just a few examples of our friends and family contributing their talents and creations for our big day. I hope our wedding inspires you to DIY and to seek out others who can DIY for you to give your wedding a charming and intimate feel.”

♥

Thank you, Kendel, for sharing your beautiful wedding day with our readers!

Photography by Jenn Stark Photographers. All Rights Reserved.