Charming Vintage Farm Wedding Theme - Red, Aqua and Pink

I hadn't built an inspiration board for a very long time. When it got down to doing all of the work to plan my own wedding, I just didn't have the time. After the wedding, although I still love all of the "details", I just hadn't found the time and inspiration to get back to it. Recently I received a sweet note from one of my blog readers, Traci. I think she was facing something that most of us brides run into during wedding planning -- feeling overwhelmed by all of the possibilities! She gave me some of the details for her 2012 summer wedding. She and her husband-to-be live on a farm, and that's where they plan to have their wedding celebration. I asked her to give me some words to describe the general feeling of the wedding she's imagined. The words she came up with included:

• country


• vintage


• a bit playful


• cozy


• relaxed

Their plan includes using hay bales for seating, and a BBQ summer feast. She also mentioned possibly using some red gingham as part of the theme.

I hope that some of my ideas here will help to inspire them with their future wedding planning!

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(I would definitely recommend enlarging this one, because there is a lot of detail that is hard to see in this smaller version.)

The DIY Pie in a Jar wedding favors came from Green Wedding Shoes. Nothing says charming vintage farm life like homemade pies!

The beautifully simple dahlia bouquet is from Heather Bayles Photography.

The little girl on the top row in the red gingham dress is from PrimadonnaBride.co.za.

The Vintage Gingham Blue Red and White Flower Bunting in the top right corner is from vintagegreenlimited on Etsy.

The Butterfly Mornings Flag Bunting (with the aqua polka dots, pink gingham and red floral fabrics) is a great exmaple of the color combination I had in mind. It's also shown in the larger picture with the little cutie holding a book. It's from LeilaLou on Etsy.

The bright fuschia colored peonies in blue mason jars are from Shell's Shabby Shack.

Vintage hankies are one of the things that immediately inspired me with this board. The photo of a beautiful assortment of vintage hankies is from JacquieG on Flickr.

I especially love the bunting on the left. It's the best of both worlds -- it's an adorable bunting, and it reminds me so much of vintage handkerchiefs! It's called Photography Prop 9Ft Long Fabric Flag from StarlitNestGifts on Etsy.

The red ranunculus flowers in the blue mason jar on the bottom left corner is from The Bride's Cafe.

The down-home feast is from this wedding on Green Wedding Shoes. I know Traci is a fan of sunflowers, so that ranch wedding might also give her some fun ideas.

The galvanized metal pedestal plate, simple flowers, and those vintage handkerchiefs (this time being used as napkins) come from Flower Mag.

The aqua and red plaid bowtie is from General Knot & Co. The company specializes in ties made in the USA from vintage fabrics.

The red gingham baking cups are from one of my favorite kitschy stores to buy baking supplies from, Layer Cake Shop.

I am currently obsessed with paper straws. I want those vintage looking stripey delights in every color. The red striped paper straws were used here as an adorable little Valentine's Day project that you can download for free from Papermash. If you want paper straws in gorgeous colors and designs, make sure to check Etsy!

Okay, the last thing for me to explain is the mason jar picture in the center of the board. I saved these for last because I think this is so cool -- you can download these for free! You can customize the entire set of mason jar wedding invitation suite, including your save-the-dates, invitations, and RSVP card all for FREE! How cool is that?!

Here is a sample that I made for Traci and Ronnie. I filled in the blanks with generic information, but I loved being able to see a customized sample!


They also have this bunting design that I love! (I just thought the mason jar one went with the theme a little better.) You can also customize and download this invitation suite for free, too!

I couldn't resist, here's the customized one for Traci and Ronnie in that design, too.

To see the other adorable designs available to download and print FOR FREE, please visit The Wedding Chicks!

Okay, so some of my other thoughts on cool farm wedding details:

For wedding favors: little jars of jam or honey, seed packets that can double as place cards, or the individual pie in a jar favors I showed above. This example is from My Eco Wedding.



For flowers: Dahlias and peonies are both great for the most bang for your buck summer flowers. I put an ad on Craigslist a few years ago for a friend's wedding and found multiple local farmers that were willing to sell huge gorgeous flowers for a dollar or less per stem. Sunflowers are always bright and fun if you want to add a little more yellow to the color palette. One of my personal favorites are ranunculus -- they come in perfect shades of reds and pinks for this palette, and I just love how romantic and ruffled they look. Either way, I think there definitely need at least a few of those old pale blue mason jars!

$1 for this big bloom? Heck yeah!


$10 to $15 for a stunning bouquet or centerpiece like this? Sign me up!


I know Traci likes sunflowers, so I chose a few of my favorite sunny bouquets to share. I like sunflower bouquets to look a little wild and loose. My favorite is the one on the bottom right. I like the wheat, the color choices, and look -- vintage hanky!



For guests: Things to help protect your guests from the sun! You can make fans do double duty by having your programs printed as fans. A thoughtful touch that I really like is to have a tray or small table set up with a couple of bottles of sunblock, paper fans (if you aren't doing the program fans), and maybe a few inexpensive paper parasols for extra delicate guests. You can buy those pretty cheaply online at places like Oriental Trading Company. You may also try to find some of those pretty vintage hankies I can't shut up about to give to your bridesmaids or closest female relatives to dry their tears of joy!

I don't love the style of these, but they did kind of use the same colors as my palette, so I'm including these fan programs from Beau-Coup.



I DO love this fan template by Martha Stewart.


I would also highly recommend having at least some ice water available to guests prior to the ceremony to help keep everyone cool. Lemonade would be a hit, too.




For the wedding party: I think it would be really fun to let the bridesmaids (or at least the junior bridesmaids / flower girls) wear patterned dresses. I showed little girls in red gingham dresses, but I also really like something like this dress that I found at Nordstrom.



A couple of summers ago, I wrote about how cool it would be to have someone like Fresher Than Fresh Snowcones at your wedding reception to serve gourmet snowcones to your guests. Traci and Ronnie are in luck, because Fresher Than Fresh is actually located near them!

If you're looking for some more farm wedding inspiration, Green Wedding Shoes had several that I thought were really nicely done.

This one on a goat farm uses a lot of cute touches, including the buntings I can't get enough of, doilies, and hay bale seating.

This one is at a strawberry farm. It's one of the most colorfully fun and whimsical weddings I've ever seen. I love the details, including the rainbow selection of bottled soda pop. My favorite detail are the fruit and vegetable place cards and markers. That is one of the most adorable party details ever, and someday I might try something like that for a garden party. Doesn't that wedding just look fun though? I want to be friends with those people!

This is a page from The Natural Wedding Company about hay bale seating. I think hay bale seating can be a great element, but I definitely think you need some sort of fabric on top to protect your guests. I was thinking about it and I wondered about maybe just watching for some cheap linen sales and using a flat twin or full sized sheet to cover each bale? I've bought flat twin sized sheets for about $4 each, so that wouldn't be too bad. You could also check thrift shops to find a variety of floral patterned sheets for that purpose, too.

This farm wedding from Elizabeth Anne Designs has some good ideas. I especially like the idea of having some games and activities for your guests to do, like playing horseshoes, bocce ball, or a beanbag toss game. They also have some cool hay bale seating ideas, like this one:



Lastly, I had to throw this in for Ronnie. I know he's a John Deere fan, so I thought maybe he could do something like this tractor get-away car, also from Elizabeth Anne Designs:



I hope that my ideas help Traci and any of the other brides that come here searching for inspiration! Thank you for the notes and the kind comments!

Oh!

P.S. These adorable "My Favorite Dresses" notecards from alittlesweetness on Etsy would be sooo cute as bridal shower invitations!



P.P.S. If you liked this inspiration board, you might also like some of these other summery themes:

Light Blue and Red Palette

Aqua, Orange and Yellow Palette

Aqua, Orange and Brown Palette

Melon Inspired Summer Reception

Cherry and Berry Reds

Citrus Punch Backyard BBQ Wedding Theme

Hot Pink and Green Palette

Happy Sweetest Day!

What better day to start catching up on my wedding blogging? If you've never heard of Sweetest Day, you aren't the only one. Google it. I think of it as an October version of Valentine's Day, but more simple. It's a day to celebrate the people who help to make your life sweet.

Besides Dylan, most of the people who help to make my life sweeter were present at my lovely bridal shower, so that's what I wanted to share today.

First, the bridal shower invitations:
(I blurred some of the personal details to protect privacy.)

These invitations were the cutest! They're actually from Martha Stewart, and you customize them yourself. They include the adorable pop-up wedding cake invitations, the printable inserts, RSVP enclosures (which we used as direction cards instead), the eyelet lace belly bands, and envelopes. I added the little daisy embellishments, which were also from Martha Stewart.

The morning of my bridal shower, my maid of honor Melissa, my dear friend Samantha and I all went for mani-pedis at a local beauty school.


My mom and her best friend Amelia hosted my bridal shower at Amelia's beautiful home. They put on quite a spread! Samantha made devilled eggs, and my friend Joanna made the fun cupcakes!

My mom has always been quite the chocolatier, so she made tuxedo chocolate covered strawberries. She also played bartender, and made us huckleberry mojitos!

My mom and Amelia both made different kinds of pasta salads.

We toasted with white peach puree and champagne from Ambrosia Bistro -- Yum! My mom gave a really beautiful toast that sent me right into the ugly cry. Thank you Mom! :-P

My favorite girls! From left to right: Bryne, Joanna, Melissa, me, Kristi and Samantha.

And now with our lovely Pink Mustaches for Girls! (I love this picture the most.)


It was the most beautiful bridal shower I ever could have hoped for!

Hot Pink and Green - Watermelon?

Today's theme is all about bright and summery. I've always liked pink and green together, so I decided to amp up the combination by focusing on the bright and bold side of the spectrum.

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The majority of these pictures came from The Knot. The hot pink bridesmaid dress on the right is by Watters. The fuchsia luster satin pumps with the cute bows and ankle straps are by Electra. The green peep toe pumps are from J. Crew.

I thought this color combination lent itself nicely with this picnic reception idea. When I saw this picture, I swooned a little at the idea of a romantic picnic blanket reception. I'm guessing that particular event wasn't especially budget-friendly, but it certainly has possibilities!

And don't forget the watermelon balls!

Bright Purple, Green and Pink.

Today's theme is a beautiful summer assortment of bright purples, greens and pinks. Or in fancier terms: plum, orchid, chartreuse, and fuchsia. I was speaking to a young bride-to-be a few days ago, and she’s thinking about fuchsia and lime green. This was my own take on that.

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With colors this bold and lively, I tried to keep the details relatively simple. Fresh flowers provide most of the decoration.

I LOVE ranunculus and dahlias for wedding flowers. I love how delicate yet dramatic they look, and both manage to be full and hardy. It’s the best of both worlds! The purple ranunculus bouquets are photographed by Stephanie Williams -- I think they're the best part of this board. (If you haven’t checked her out yet, you should. She’s fantastic!) There is also a unique usage of purple tulips strewn about haphazardly under water in big cylinder vases. Kind of funky, but may be a better way to be able to use tulips since they tend to not hold up as well as you’d hope. Orchids are another obvious choice color-wise, but I know they can be spendy and I try to go for budget-friendly.

Speaking of budget-friendly, I found the pretty purple gown on Amazon of all places. And the bright chartreuse gown is from Spiegel for less than $50! I love empire waist gowns in soft fabrics. They're romantic and figure flattering for most of us! Plus, neither of these gowns look like the traditional bridesmaid / prom dress, which is a bonus in my book.

Melon Inspired Summer Reception: Canary Yellow, Watermelon Pink, Cantaloupe Orange

I made this board after talking to a couple about their upcoming summer reception. They were lucky enough to get married in Hawaii, so now the focus is on a fun, budget-friendly party with family and friends.

Emphasis:

• Fun
• Lively
• Refreshing
• Summery
• Budget-friendly
• DIY
• Simple

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A lot of the ideas on this board are from Martha Stewart and Costco, so it makes the party planning easier and a lot more affordable.

I'm currently enrolled in a floral arrangement class (just for fun), and the instructor there said that Costco actually sells a lot of their flowers for the same price that she has to pay at the wholesale florist -- and often times, the Costco flowers are actually more fresh and look better! I'm all over that tip, so the yellow and orange roses and gladiolus flowers pictured are right off the Costco.com website.

The floral garland (it reminded me of the couple's Hawaii nuptials) is a DIY from Martha Stewart -- you just buy cheap silk flowers, pop the blossom from the stems and slide the flower heads over the light bulbs on a strand of lights! The butterfly lanterns and the DIY dressed-up paper plates are also hers.

The last little touches that I really like:

Using pictures of the couple, especially pictures from the wedding and honeymoon, for the table numbers to make guests feel more included with the big event.

Providing a tray of sunblock, paper fans and parasols for guests to use as needed.

Big pitchers of sangria! A perfect summer drink that's delicious, beautiful, AND budget-friendly. Talk about more bang for your buck!

Is it just me, or is anyone else craving melon right now?!

Hot Pink, Red, and Navy Blue

The feminine patterns of toile and lace meet strong, bold colors for an unexpectedly fun combination! This board balances the spicy colors of passion with classy and cool navy blue.

Emphasis:

• vibrant
• rich
• passionate
• sultry

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