Rustic Wedding Decor

Throughout this whole wedding experience I got a LOT of help from my family. These centerpieces were the epitome of a group effort. 

My dad, the master craftsman, hand cut (well I think he actually used a chainsaw) all the wood slices. And along with my mom and sister made the white candles that were placed in the lanterns and on the tables. 

He and my mom spent all morning arranging the flowers and they helped handle the floral fiasco with one of our vendors. More on that whole story later… 

My sister, the maid-of-honor, put together all of the table signs. She wood-burned the numbers into the tree slices, drilled a hole through and hung the numbers on metal stakes. She then filled the mason jars with pea stone and added some twine for decoration. They looked great!

To display the escort cards I used old shutters that I found in a really subtle pink color at a Habitat for Humanity ReStore. The cards fit in perfectly.

I also painted signs for all of the tables on sparkly burlap. Max said he really wanted burlap at the wedding. That was his only decor request. So I gave him his burlap. The burlap pieces were hung on a string by mini clothespins! So adorable. And now I’m left with way too many mini clothes pins. Because you can only buy them in packs of like 100 on Amazon. 

The escort cards were printed on the same card stock used for my invitations. I accented the cards with lace in various color to indicate the meal selections of the guests. I used RIT dye in shades of green, yellow, and pink to dye little pieces of lace before glueing them to the cards.

Our ceremony altar was one of my favorite parts of the decor. We rented some old bourbon barrels and topped them with floral arrangements designed by Daffodil Parker.

This was all my dad’s doing. Somehow he was magically able to string mason jars to all the ceremony chairs and then filled them with fresh roses and baby’s breath. 

I know, I know. This was one of my super, cheesy ideas. But maybe I should credit someone else because I think I found the idea on Pinterest. We asked our guests to write a note giving us their “words of wisdom” and advice for a happy marriage. I saved them all and will definitely pull them out on our wedding anniversary next year! Might be a fun thing to do while we eat our cake!

Obviously, bird cages were strategically placed throughout the venue! I used this one on the gift table for people to drop in their cards. And you see that mirror? I picked that off of the side of the road. I found it while I was out walking Henry. Max is never happy when I come back with side-of-the-road finds. But whatever. I just had to paint it white and clean it up a bit and it turned out great!

Ahhh… the dessert table. Delish. We had this set-up at the end of the night and it was covered with any and everything you could ever imagine: eclairs, chocolate covered strawberries, macaroons, cream puffs, brownies, mini cheese cakes. So, so, sooooo good. I’m getting hungry now just looking at these pictures.

And now that you’ve seen all the pretty stuff, I need to tell you all about the slight floral mishap.

They say that no event goes without its issues. And our wedding was definitely no exception. Our wedding day started with a 7:30 am call from Cost Co. 

I had heard good things about their floral department and in an effort to reduce some costs I had decided to go with them as one of our flower suppliers. I had ordered 10 dozen bunches of baby’s breath and 10 dozen pink roses for this special Valentine’s occasion. The plan was to use these flowers for the table centerpieces and other flower arrangements that were placed throughout the venue on tables and off of the chairs for the ceremony.

The 7:30 am caller was the floral department manager. There was a mishap with the order. They had sent red roses instead of pink ones.

WHAT?!

My heart sank. And I thought “Seriously? Is this really happening right now? It’s my wedding day!”

But the manager was understanding, I had talked to her on the phone multiple times before the big day and she knew that I had wanted the pink flowers. Luckily, it was Valentine’s Day and they had placed a huge order for roses anyway. So she offered to let me come in early, before the store opened in the morning, to sort through boxes in their warehouse for any pink flowers we could find.

Not the most ideal situation. Especially, when you need to start getting ready at 10am.

But we went: me, my sister, my mom, and dad. They snuck us all through the employee entrance and we started sifting through boxes and boxes of roses. I wish I had taken photos of this because it was pretty epic.

We ended up being able to find the 10 dozen roses we needed in a variety of pink colors. So, thankfully it all worked out in the end.

The manager felt so bad about the whole experience that she just gave us the flowers for free. So I guess, you could say my initial plan to reduce costs really did work out. Just not necessarily in the way I had expected.

*Credits: Photography by Laura Zastrow

Wedding