Wedding Details

One of the advantages of being an officiant and wedding planner is being able to use some of the ideas swirling around in your head for your own daughter's wedding.  When Kyra and Mike got married last September it was a complete DIY (Do It Yourself) style of wedding.  Not only did we do all our own decorating and flower arranging, we even cooked the meal for 200 guests. (One of my sons is a private chef and my husband is also a fantastic cook.)  The ceremony was a Grace Episcopal Church, our home parish where Kyra was baptized and confirmed, and the reception was at a private farm.   It was a lot of work and as they say "it took a village".  But we saved tens of thousands of dollars by doing all the work ourselves and in the end we celebrated a delightful day surrounded by family and friends.  

Here are photos of a few of the wedding details and a link to a video montage our photographer Lori Compas together, so you have a brief glimpse of how it all came together.  

Most of the photos below were also taken by Lori Compas and a few were by our friend Mary Prior. 

Guests rung bells when the couple kissed and were pronounced husband and wife.

The service was Episcopalian so the ceremony was printed out for the guests to follow so they didn't have to use the Prayer Book (BCP).

Flowers arrangements on the pew candles lining the aisle.

A tent was rented to seat the 200 guests for dinner.

The table runners were made from unbleached muslin. An assortment of different size vases held flowers collected from friends' gardens, the farmer's market and flowers we grew for the occasion.

One of my sons bent 200 forks we used to hold the place cards.

The wedding was in September so gourds, pumpkins, apples, and hay bales from two neighboring farmers decorated the farm. We used the image of a shaft of wheat throughout the wedding.

I found old window shutters at the Habitat Restore and repurposed them to hold the place cards. We also used old windows to display photos of Kyra and Mike growing up.

We used a metal suitcase we rented from A La Crate Vintage Rentals to hold wedding cards and included a framed thank you from the couple.

We rented a few cocktail tables and scattered them around the farm so people had a place to place a drink and appetizers when they first arrived.

We had hundreds of candles we scattered throughout the farm that were lit as the night descended on the farm.

This was a very family orientated wedding with more than 40 children, so we kept the kids busy and happy.

This was the front entrance to the barn where guests entered. The plants were donated by a friend that was a greenhouse grower. And the "welcome" on the pumpkin were rub on stencil letters.

We had a dessert buffet so only had a small wedding cake from Blooms Bakery that was decorated with Scooter and Janis, Mike and Kyra's favorite Muppet characters. The sign in the background "Life is sweet" was made with chalkboard paint on a silver platter purchased at Goodwill.

This farm originally housed 1000's of chickens so the ceramic chicken was a nod to the couple of chickens still there. At the entrance the guests signed a photo book Kyra and Mike put together of their first three years together.

The mismatched dessert plates were rented from A La Crate Vintage Rentals. The framed photos were old photos from previous family weddings.

The buffet was all prepared by family and friends. The signage for the food was chalkboard paint on small balsam wood signs.

We had an assortment of drinks served in Mason jars. We dressed up the lemonade with three different kinds of berry purees.

We decorated the hayloft with globe lights, flowers, candles, quilts, an assortment of wooden chairs and even our sofa for those guests that didn't want to dance.

The night ended with guests grabbing a seat on quilts we had scattered on the grass to watch the fireworks our friends shot off for us.