A Western Bungalow Wedding
Wedding planning… well where do I start?! Was it stressful? Yes. Did I kind of absolutely love every moment of it? Yes. I seriously took on planning our wedding like a part time job. The majority of my days off in 2022 consisted of wedding planning related activities from shopping for decor, arranging the florals, packaging & sending invites, dress fittings and so on. Any of you who are/have planned a wedding on your own know just how much goes into it!
And to be honest, I had no idea what I was doing. I had never planned a wedding before nor had I been to one in about 6 years. All I knew was that I was 100% capable of ensuring that our western bungalow style was reflected on our big day. I immediately went onto Pinterest and pinned a wedding timeline that broke down what needed to be completed by each month. My mother-in-law also gave me a wedding planning book that was extremely helpful and kept me on track.
My lunch breaks at work consisted of vendor calls and our dining room became my “wedding boutique” as I began to collect decor and staged the floral arrangements and table settings. I opted for a day-of wedding coordinator as I preferred to handle all of the details on my own.
I was at Michael’s one day (in February) and I found dried palm spears and sun palms which I thought would be perfect for the centerpieces. Now the challenging part for me was finding the perfect vase, I searched and searched the internet, visited local craft & home stores but just couldn’t find the right piece. I was getting a little anxious because it was now July and the wedding was in October and I had yet to find the right vase. I finally tried At Home and there it was; a ceramic vase with a touch of boho that was the perfect shade of soft blush. YES! I bought all 4 that they had and ordered the remaining online. FYI a few of them arrived completely shattered but fortunately, they were still in stock so I was able to get them replaced. PHEW.
The vases felt a little empty with just the palm spear and sun palm so I ordered dried bunny tails and amaranthus on Etsy to bring some fun texture. After arranging the florals, I ordered ivory cheesecloth for the tables and found some cute tea lights at H&M to accent the sweetheart and cake cutting table. For the table number signs and place cards, I selected the same suite on Minted as our wedding invitations. Our caterer provided the dish ware & napkins so I selected ivory gold trim plates, gold silverware and a champagne satin napkin.
I ordered some additional vases, decor and pampas to place around the venue, all of which we have re-purposed in our home for decor, along with the cowhide rug from our ceremony. The bouquets and boutonnieres were sourced from Etsy as were the dried palm cake toppers on our wedding cake. Even my earrings were found on Etsy!
I am fortunate to have a very creative sister-in-law who made our arched acrylic drink sign for the bar. For our wedding favors, we had cowhide coasters which were very our western bungalow but also a very budget-friendly & easy option. I loved seeing the coaster collections our guests had in their homes after our wedding.
Our wedding day was perfect and our wedding coordinator did an amazing job bringing my vision together and ensuring everything ran smoothly.