Update On Growing Wedding Flowers

I mentioned in an earlier post that we were planning on using homegrown flowers for at least some of the wedding decorating. We planted the seeds about a month or so ago, and we're hoping that (at least some of them) will end up blooming within a little more than a month when we have the wedding ceremony. And that we'll manage to save a bit on flower costs, with an eclectic mix of blossoming plants to boot.

I don't know if someone should necessarily plan on planting all the flowers for a backyard wedding (or any wedding, for that matter) unless they really know what they're doing and have a lot of experience with making flowers grow. I've been known to have a bit of a black thumb myself, although I've managed to improve it somewhat over the past couple of years. Not to mention the fact that the end of September isn't exactly known for it's display of brilliantly blooming flora (at least not in our neck of the woods). In our case, if the flowers grow, that's great; if they don't, well, I'm sure we'll still have plenty of options for making the wedding just about as floral as we want it to be.

Deciding on the Backyard Wedding Bridal Shoes

Here are our conundrums with picking bridal shoes for the backyard wedding: first of all, we have to worry about the bride navigating in a long dress over grass and dirt. Second, she's never been one for high heels. Third, no matter how good they look, we want to minimize the worry that the bride (who is likely to be too wrapped up in everything going on to think much about her feet) will trip and fall on her big day!

Personally, I'm thinking that a nice shiny pair of flats will do the trick. Or, possibly, wedges; but I think that's stretching it a bit. Of course, the final decision is up to her, and we'll all just have to wait and see what direction she eventually decides to go in.

On a related note, I hope that the guests realize that they should make smart shoe choices. We did mention that it was going to be a backyard wedding, but you never know if people think about things like this... luckily, they're all close enough to us that we'll probably discuss it with them at some point. But maybe we should have some extra shoes on hand just in case someone gets a poorly chosen stiletto heel mired in the dirt.

Got any ideas for how to choose shoes for a backyard wedding? Share them here!

Image source: Flickr.

Backyard Wedding Cake: The First Attempt

I've been super excited to try out cake frosting ever since we went to Joann's and got some Wilton cake frosting decorating tips (although, in retrospect, it might have been better getting a cake decorating kit with instructions and piping bags from Amazon). So I was thrilled when my mom made some cupcakes, and decided to ice them with homemade butter-lemon frosting (made with butter, lemon zest, and powdered sugar).

Here's what the tip looks after we've screwed it onto the plastic bag using some handy accessories that I later learned were called "couplers"...

Backyard Weddings: How To Find an Officiant

The officiant is pretty much the most important part of any wedding, almost as important as the bride and the groom. After all, without an officiant, you don't have a wedding; you just have an awesome party.

Finding an officiant is somewhat easier when you're having a traditional church wedding; after all, he or she usually comes along with the church. Luckily, in most places it isn't too difficult to find traveling officiants who will come to your location of choice. A quick search for "officiant" plus the place where you intend to get married is likely to turn up a good list. Not all officiants are reverends or priests, but if you're looking for one of a particular religion, you can use that to narrow down your search.

Backyard Wedding Flowers DIY: Growing Your Own

I never, ever thought that I would end up trying to grow flowers from seeds for a backyard wedding in September, even though we actually grow a lot of things in our garden over the course of the year.

It's not that we're strangers to flowers in our garden. We were lucky that the previous owners of our house put in plenty of bulbs, flowering bushes, and other types of perennials. Unfortunately from the scheduling side of things, all of these flowers are done by mid-August.

Renovating Your House Before an At-Home Wedding

It's kind of ironic that my family has suddenly decided now, while wedding planning is in full swing, that our house needs to be renovated before the guests arrive. It makes sense, though, because we want our somewhat worn and outdated house to look as presentable as possible. There is plenty of work that needs to be done, and I suppose it's good that we finally have the motivation to do it.

This is definitely something you'll want to think about if you're hosting a wedding at your home. A wedding is one of the most important days you'll ever have in your life, so you want to make sure things that people will come in contact with, such as the yard and the bathrooms, look nice. Especially if you plan on having your wedding guests stay overnight!

Picking the Colors For Your Backyard Wedding

I suppose picking colors for a backyard wedding really isn't that different than picking colors for any other type of wedding. Well, you do have to worry about whether they'll clash with the various types of flora you have growing around outside, and perhaps with the siding on your house. And your home decor, if you want to extend the decorations inside. As you can probably guess from the picture to the right, we chose to go with blue for the wedding colors. Specifically, a light blue and a dark blue (so that the bride and groom each kind of "get" a color).

Shopping for the Backyard Wedding: Fabric Decorations

I have to admit: shopping for backyard wedding decorations is more pleasurable than I expected it to be at first, what with my overall reluctance to help with things before we'd really put a solid plan into place. There may be people out there who don't like shopping for pretty things, but apparently I'm not one of them!

The best part for me was buying yards and yards and yards of tulle. Tulle is a fun, versatile fabric, that makes just about anything look more festive. Also, I haven't had much opportunity to buy tulle in my general day-to-day dealings with the fabric store, so that was fun. We picked up 50 yards of the stuff in three different colors (the wedding colors - light blue, dark blue, and white, of course), which hopefully will be plenty for our needs.

Welcome to the (Formerly) Reluctant Wedding Planner Blog!

My name is Emma Larkins, and I'm happy to announce the launch of my (Formerly) Reluctant Wedding Planner blog.

You see, my sister is getting married this fall, and I'm very happy for her. Unfortunately, though, I've never really been much into the "wedding" thing. I didn't plan my dream wedding as a child, and I still think that a lot of the celebrating is done to excess (especially with how tight the economy has been lately).

Nonetheless, I love my sister, and I want her to have the best wedding ever. So, slowly, over time, I've started to help out with the planning duties. And, along the way, I realized that other people might benefit from our experiences of planning a simple, fun, backyard wedding. That's why I started this blog, to share our joys, our travails, and the ins and outs of our journey.

I hope you enjoy!