Outdoor weddings are becoming more and more popular because the settings are always so beautiful. Here, I would like to share a behind the scenes look at my outdoor wedding. We repurposed an old barn on my great-grandparent’s property and turned it into the most amazing venue. Read more to see all the DIY projects we did to make this special day happen.
The Wedding Venue
The barn was built in 1946 by my great grandparents. It’s very old and rustic and sits on a 300 acre farm. When searching for a place to have our wedding, I knew I wanted it to be personal. I decided this barn was a perfect place. There was plenty of room for parking and a tent for the reception. Also, aside from the cost of cleaning and fixing the place up, it was FREE!!
The landscape around the barn needed to be cleaned up before the wedding. The ground was covered in leaves and several trees needed to be cut. We took out a few trees in front of the barn to make more room for people to sit. Although this required some large equipment, it wasn’t too big of a project.
Outdoor Wedding Seating
I knew I wanted to do something different and unique when it came to the seating at our wedding. Church pews at an outdoor wedding was something I had never seen before, so when I found these church pews for sale on Facebook Marketplace I had to buy them.
If you are thinking about doing this, I must warn you that church pews are extremely hard to transport and very heavy!!
I bought 12 of these pews, and since I was planning on recovering them, I requested ones with holes in the fabric in order to save money.
These pews were in terrible shape!! They had horrible mauve/maroon fabric all over them – even the back. Ripping the old fabric off was a nasty job; however, it had to be done! We recovered them with drop cloth, and they turned out beautiful. Drop cloth is a great choice if you are looking for large pieces of fabric at a low cost. We ended up using drop cloth for a lot of things at our wedding including the curtains draping the opening of the barn.
Outdoor Wedding Entrance
Figuring out the entrance of an outdoor wedding can be a bit tricking since everything is out in the open; however, it is also great because the possibilities are endless. We used an old vanity dresser as a sign in table at the entrance. This is where guests signed their name and dropped their gifts. Since it was an outdoor wedding in June, guests were offered bug spray and fan programs.
As guests continued to walk up to the ceremony site, an entryway built out of old doors was set up to partition the sign in table from the ceremony. These doors were taken out of an old house on my parents’ property. My dad used 2×6 boards to build the stand that held up the doors. The old decorative piece on top was found at an antique store in Columbia, TN.
The Wedding Cakes
The goal was a simple, round, white cake with flowers, and that is exactly how it turned out! The grooms cake also turned out very cute and almost identical to the one I showed the baker. Finding a stand to put the cake on was hard until I got the idea to look for a plant stand. Plant stands are usually larger and sturdier than cake stand, and I found this one at Hobby Lobby. The flowers on the cake are eucalyptus, white ranunculus, wax flowers, and white hypericum berries.
Wedding Flowers
Flowers are one of the hardest things to pick for your wedding. Most of the time the florist picks your flowers for you, then you get hit with a huge bill! However, I highly recommend searching pinterest for wedding flowers before going to see your florist. For flowers I chose wax flowers, lisianthus, ranunculus, white veronica, astilbe, anemone, hydrangeas, hypericum berries, seeded eucalyptus, and Italian ruscus. For the larger arrangements, we added a few oak leaf hydrangeas from my parent’s yard.
This giant wreath hanging on the front of the barn was made by my grandmother. She gathered up enough vines to twist it into a 3-4ft diameter wreath. Making a grapevine wreath is not hard, and if you would like a tutorial, check out my blog post on how to make a grapevine wreath. The wreath was decorated with fake flowers because it was placed a few days ahead of time.
Outdoor Wedding Reception
The wedding reception took place in a tent right next to the ceremony. Each table was decorated with a handmade lantern placed atop a mossy slice of wood. It was absolutely beautiful. The table for the wedding party was lined with a eucalyptus garland. Vases filled with water were placed on the table for my bridesmaids and I to put our bouquets.
Sweet tea and lemonade were served in glass decanters on top of a hand built console table. Drinks were served in glass jars with my mine and my husbands initials on them. Guests were asked to take a jar home with them as a wedding favor.
The Details
I hope this post inspires you to think outside the box and get creative with your wedding! Although it took a lot of work and planning, our special day was absolutely a dream come true.
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