Homegrown weddings?

[Caitlin Couture]

Hi y'all!

    My partner just proposed to me (yay!!) and now I've begun to enter the beginnings of the planning stage. I was hoping some of you had stories from your own weddings and how you made them "homegrown". Did you make your own decorations? Did you cater your own reception (this isn't something I'm particularly keen on but if you did it successfully, let me know!)? How did you keep it earth-friendly? If you have any links to sites or recommended reading, I'd really appreciate seeing those too!

    Thanks everyone =)

[Shellie A. Gades]

Congratulations, Caitlin!

[Christine]

I'm not married, but I can recommend heading over to A Practical Wedding. It's an incredible blog and community of awesome women (and a few men, I think). Lots of sane thinking, plus some great tips for planning a wedding apart from the "wedding industrial complex". And I think they even have a few posts about catering your own wedding! Congratulations and good luck :)

[Cornelia]

Congratulations Caitlin! What an exciting time...I loved planning my wedding, and had very clear ideas about making it homegrown. Here is a blog post I wrote about it. The best part was involving our friends and family in the event - potluck for the good cooks, the MC is a professional actor, my husband (the musician) created the soundtrack, the flowers were designed by my floral designer friends, my mom and her friends made the dessert (no wedding cake, rhubarb crisp!), and, of course, most of the ingredients were sourced from local farms.

I also found a local jewelry designer on Etsy who designed the ring of my dreams using stones from both sides of the family. Have a blast!!

[Cornelia]

OH! I almost forgot. Instead of registering with a store that would only provide a way for people to buy stuff that we didn't need, we had a honeymoon registry and spent two glorious weeks in Italy. HIGHLY recommended.

[Britin Foster, All Good Bakers]

How exciting! Congratulations! It's so much more fun to do this kind of thing DIY and way more economical. We did our wedding 7 years ago almost all DIY. We had it in our postage stamp size urban backyard, hired a local pagan priest, used mason jars with river rocks and dried hydrangeas cut from a friend's yard with wheat and goldenrod picked from a local field for centerpieces (plus an inexpensive trip to the local fabric store for tablecloths). We put candles with river rocks in smaller jars for table lighting. My husband came up with the recipes for our meal himself and enlisted his boss at the restaurant where we was working to prepare it for us (the restaurant owner ended up paying for all of it and his boss wouldn't accept any money). We paid for tables/chairs/place settings rental and the band but those expenses could be easily overcome by borrowing stuff and capitalizing on musical relationships. I designed my dress and had it made for about $100 and wore a feather crown that was from my great-aunt, my husband got new pants and a vintage jacket on the cheap. We borrowed tents because it monsooned for 3 days prior. Had to buy carpet remnants for the backyard at the last minute because everything was so soggy. But the rain cleared up a few hours before the set time and the sun came out and shined right on us as we stepped together to the "alter" (i.e., old rug on the patio). Grand Total: about $3,000 - but if we had been a little more resourceful, I think we could have done it for much cheaper. Best of luck to you both!

[Torry]

First, Congratulations!  Second, way to go choosing a 'homegrown' wedding.  I'd say it's just as easy a conventional one, Allison and I pulled it off rather well.  Advice from the other side:  delegate.  We chose to have all local food by all local people, a friend's band, homegrown flowers and pumpkins, etc.  The one thing we did that made it all great was having someone else do most of the work.  My mom, a school teacher, had her Ag teacher get his students to grow mums.  My then soon-to-be brother in law grew the pumpkins.  We took every opportunity to use local business (most were old family friends or acquaintances) and specifically requested re-usable, recyclable or biodegradable wares, that way everyone got to take goodies home.

[Lauren Klouda]

Congrats! Enjoy your wedding! No matter how you plan it or what the decor looks like be sure to enjoy yourselves. Sounds easy right? But we planned a simple country wedding two years ago. Every guest said it was the best wedding they had EVER been to, but my husband and I hardly remember a thing. It was a beautiful whirl wind.

I recommend setting up reliable people you can trust to organize and implement your plan.  Delegate, delegate, delegate. That means on the day someone BESIDES the two of you makes sure everything goes as planned. Early on make a list of what is really important to you both so that those things happen and the rest is "icing on the cake". Don't rush yourselves. Make a realistic schedule for planning, DIY, etc.  Our wedding was wonderful and for under $2000.00. Yours will be wonderful too!!!