Our Rustic DIY Wedding

I can't believe I'm married!

When I met Jack, he wasn't overly sold on the concept of marriage, and it wasn't until we'd already had two children that he decided to pop the question and ask me to be his wife. It meant a lot to me- to fully declare how we felt to everyone else, as well as joining our families together officially. I'd legally get to take his name and share the name of my children.

We decided we wouldn't wait too long between getting engaged and actually getting hitched, and after viewing just two venues, we booked it for just over a year later! We chose one of the more beautiful sites local to us- The Danish Camp in Willington.. the site is by a river, surrounded by trees and fields and everything a nature lover could ask for. All solid wood and greenery and a huge lodge/marquee. Perfect for the theme we were going for.

We wanted our wedding to reflect us and who we are- we didn't want it to be too fancy, and we didn't want it to seem like we were trying hard to impress. We like the simple things, and we also wanted to keep it budget friendly so we could continue saving for a mortgage.

Much to any pinterest lovers delight, we went for a rustic wood and "forest" feel with all our decor, and re purposed and recycled most of it to fit the theme! Think lots of old jars, hessian, pallets and other wood features... I designed and created everything from invites to favour boxes and other than the clothes, pretty much everything was DIY!

For our flowers, we went to the local Sainsburys and walked out with £50 worth of bouquets- I just picked up colours and combinations I liked, as well as a whole ton of gyposphila. It took hours of trimming but we managed to create two larger bunches, two smaller posies and we had enough leftover to fill the jars and decorate around the room.

Our cake wasn't a hugely important part to us, as it was just the the cutting and I'd read so much can be wasted... I spent £30 on nice cupcakes and a larger "Cupcake" for the top from Tesco, and I think it was perfect! None went to waste as people could just grab them and have them througout the night.

I re purposed four pallets for the occasion. I sanded and stained them (with help from Jack and my Sister) and I used two for photo boards, with old baby and childhood photos of both me and Jack. The third, I used to hold the table plan I designed on photoshop (to match our invites and all the other wedding stationary I created at home!) and the final one I carefully painted to welcome our guests. Other than paint, all of this was free as the frames were donated by everyone we knew as well!

We even managed to find a beaten up old suitcase, which worked perfectly as a free card box once I'd given it a bit of a clean and thrown some flowers at it. We used a polaroid camera for our guest book, and I managed to find bulk sweets online to make a sweetie area for the guests!

It was the most beautiful day. Doing a DIY wedding is definitely straining as it takes so much time, and the end result feels so far away... but now it's over I'd definitely do it again in a heartbeat.