The Wedding

The wedding day was hot and sunny. We set the ceremony up in the side yard, so most of the guests were in the shade. As you can see the lawn renovation worked perfectly and most of the flowers were in bloom.

I has asked my husband to bring home discarded doors. Hurricane Sandy made that happen. Builders who were remodeling were very generous. We used them for the bar menu, to hold photos of the happy couple growing up and we made an entrance to the aisle. You can see how my clever hubby stood these doors up in the middle of no where in the photo below.  It was a perfect touch.

Pipes pounded into the ground and attached to the doors. Someone asked us if they were just garden art. They really looked nice. And made a perfect entrance for the bride and her dad. 

My crafty daughter-in-law spent hours making all the flower arrangements and bouquets. We had thought about growing flowers for the bouquets, but decided against it. Wise decision. All the flowers we had planted with that thought bloomed a week later. We would have been so stressed out! We ordered bouquet flowers from Fifty Flowers and they were really nice. All the centerpieces were from Shop Rite floral department - two days before the wedding we went in and scooped up $150.00 worth of flowers. It worked.

We didn't bother with an arbor or altar. The Virginia Creeper covering the corner of the fence behind them and the trees made a perfect backdrop.

They did a tree planting ceremony (similar to a sand ceremony or a unity candle) My frined Sheila dug up a dogwood tree from her yard and they used that. It was really nice.

The bridal party went to near by Double Trouble State Park for photos.

The tent covered the lawn from the flower garden annex to the tree line. There was plenty of room under the tent for everyone. The bar was next to the house and they danced on the patio and played games by the garage. That tan building in the driveway is a luxury wedding bathroom trailer. It was airconditioned. It was very popular.

In addition to the flowers we bought at Shop Rite, we had planters with flowers and herbs at each table. We had read that herbs would keep bugs away and it may have worked because everyone said that bugs never bothered them. Hubby made the cute little table number birds. I plan to use the left overs as garden markers next year. I will also use the left-over burlap in the garden. 

The dance floor was so hot that other than the couple and parents' dance, no one danced until the sun went down. 

But then they partied until we had to stop the music because of local noise ordinances! Hubby figured out a way to string lights over the patio and they are going to stay up the rest of the summer. They look so beautiful.

 One nice feature about having a wedding in your backyard is that family pets can join the celebration.

Another is that when the wedding proper is over you can have an acoustic after-party in front of the Potager 'til the wee hours of the morning.
The wedding was lovely. Everyone said they had a wonderful time. I did see one of the photographers shooting pictures of the couple in my garden, but we haven't gotten any pro shots yet - all these were all taken by friends and family.
So all in all I would have to say that the backyard wedding was a success. The yard and the gardens looked lovely. It was a tremendous amount of work, but all my kids and my hubby pitched in and we did it. It was a great day.