Category Archives: Eco Thrifty Wedding

Family, Flower Girls, Ring Bearer

Babes-in-Weddingland

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Introducing the youngest members of our bridal party, our nieces and nephews. On his side: Scotty (turns six tomorrow), Brady (will be 5 by the wedding), and Mikey (turns 1 the week after the wedding).

On my side: Annie (3 years old by wedding day) and Matilda (2 years old by wedding day).

Photos by Unfinished Dad

Who says two-colored socks and mullets went out of style in 1992?
I know its a stretch to include anyone under 3 in the wedding, but we’re going to try. Our wedding is all about family, so there’s no way that we could leave any kiddos out. And, I’m not sure if you noticed the twinkle in these girls eyes, but they are all pretty feisty sprouts. Annie + Brady = excitement. I guess we’ll have to expect the unexpected.
Any ideas for incorporating the itty-bitties? I like the ideas of a cute little red wagon, or a vintage trike making their way down the aisle, but when I look at photos wagons seem a bit cumbersome and awkward. Am I crazy for wanting under threes to be in the wedding party? Should it be walking tots only? Anyone have a babes-in-weddingland story of success or utter disaster?
Do you think we will end up with this?
Or this?
Bridesmaids, Family, Groomsmen

We are family- I got all my bridesmaids and me!

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Let’s have a look at the family scales:

First there’s Mr. Veggie’s family. Nice and nuclear. Two parents. One brother. Niece. Nephew.

Notice how we all fit on one couch.

Then there’s my family.

*All photos personal photos.

We don’t even fit in one picture. I’ve got steps, halves, dads, moms, the works.

Why do bring this up? Well, because I am going to have all of my sisters as bridesmaids. Since I have moved around a lot in my adult life I have many good friends from all over. My friendships tend to come in waves, stronger some times with certain people, weaker sometimes, mostly depending on where I’m living at the moment, but my sisters have been a consistent force in my life since as long as I can remember. Plus they’re all really rad, amazing women. Who could ask for better bridesmaids?

That means four ladies for me. Mr. Veggie would like to have his brother stand on his side. 4-1.

I also am really close with my (very tall and shaggy haired) little brother. So, he needs to be in the wedding party. I’d love to have him stand on my side, but that brings the score to 5-1.

I guess it would be o.k. if my bro stood with the other dudes. It would also appease his sense of masculinity. 4-2

My brother-in-law (Veggie Sis K’s hubby) is a second brother to me. We even went on a road trip together this past summer without my sister since she had to work. But I feel like if I include him then I should also include Mr. Veggie’s sister-in-law who I also absolutely adore. 5-3

Wait, who’s going to be watching all those adorable little veggie sprouts while us grown-ups are doing wedding party duties? Maybe best to leave out the in-laws. 4-2

Bridal parties don’t have to be evenly matched. Right?

So, do we leave it at that? Four ladies and two guys? Or does Mr. Veggie recruit two extra dudes?

The problem is that a lot of his “dudes” are actually “dudettes”. He has several close girl friends, but not too many guy friends that he feels super close to anymore. The dudes he does feel close to are childhood friends and live overseas, so he feels bad asking them to take a major role in the wedding. Also, Mr. Veggie is a bit older than me, and many of his friends are older than him. Wouldn’t it be weird for one of his 50+ year old friends to escort my 20 year old sister down the aisle?

I don’t know… what would you do?

DIY

DIY for non-crafters

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I am a non-crafter in a family of crafters.


Veggie Sis K – quilter and sewer extraordinnaire. She made us this quilt as a house-truck warming gift.


MIL Veggie – knitter and sewer. She makes us each something warm and cozy every Christmas and has taken on the flower girl dresses as her special wedding project.


Momma Veggie – baker and overall crafty queen. Some of her famous Christmas cookies made it past customs this year. Shhh… don’t tell them how good the snickerdoodles were. She’s making our wedding cake.


SIL Veggie – photographer. Here’s one of her “just messing around with the kids one day” shots. Amazing.

And me? I can grow a mean veggie garden, but thus far my craftiness has remained untapped. But every now and then I get the urge to release my inner Martha and do a little project.


I was inspired by all these beautiful hand-made notes to do a little thank you card for Shari, our friend who created our gorgeous STD’s. I remembered Veggie Sis K whipping up these cute little fabric flowers in about 15 seconds when I was visiting them over the summer. If it took her 15 seconds, I was fairly sure I could conquer it in under an hour. I’m sure there are better tutorials out there for making these, but here is the tried and true method of an absolute non-crafter.


Step one: Find some fabric scraps. But wait Miss Veggie, if you’re not a crafter why do you have a bag of fabric lying around? Well, because I am a wannabe crafter, so I picked these up at our local recycling center (dump) just so that I’d be ready when the mood struck. Remind me to talk bit more about the recycling center later. It’s one of my favorite places on earth.


Step two: Cut fabric into strips. I didn’t measure, but i’d say mine were about 6-10 inches long and 1-2 inches wide.

Step three: Do a running stitch (ooh look at me and my crafty lingo), in other words, an “up-down” stitch along the edge of the fabric.


Step four: Pull it tight and tie a knot in it. I added an extra stitch in the middle of the flappy part to make the fabric stay overlapped a bit.

I love them! So adorable.

They look super cute with buttons on them.

But, since I’m not a crafter, the only buttons I have are the extra ones from a new sweater MIL Veggie bought me for my birthday. So, I left mine with no buttons. To attach them to the card stock, I just did one single stitch through the bunchy part of the flower and the paper. I suppose you could use glue, but the only sticky things I had lying around were duct tape and packing tape. And here’s the finished product.


Too easy right?


I know I’ve seen these used in weddings before, anyone have any good ideas? Any improvements on my hodge-podge manner of constructing them? Anyone seen a proper tutorial for these little cuties?



Camp Wedding, venue

Double Booked

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Sometimes life just isn’t fair… like when your computer breaks and then your fiance has to go away to a conference for a week and he leaves the same day that your monthly friend comes along and you have cramps so bad you can’t even stand up and then the wedding venue sends an email saying that oops they’ve double booked your venue.

Wait. What?

Oh yeah, I had a melt-down this week. Well, technically several meltdowns. One via Skype with little veggie sis, one via phone with Mr. Veg, and several on my own. These lapses in sanity were prompted by an email from our wedding venue letting us know that our date was no longer available.

Their timing is impeccable. I had actually sent out the last few Save-The-Dates that morning.

This post was supposed to be about our amazing Save-The-Dates, created by the incredibly talented Shari Amos. It was supposed to be about how I was so excited to send them out that I couldn’t sleep the night before. It was supposed to be about doing our first wedding project and having it come out perfectly and just how we (I) imagined. It was supposed to be about getting emails from people telling us what they were going to grow for our big day. But its not.

It is now about me trying to be a calm and peaceful soul. It is about me trying to roll with the punches. It is about being thankful that Skype is only video and not sensory, because I really would have pummeled that camp director in person.

What will happen? Where will our wedding be? When will our wedding be? Is it all ruined (like I was feeling yesterday)? Or is it just clearing a path for a better thing to come along (how I hope to be feeling tomorrow)? Stay tuned. Only time will tell.

Eco Wedding, Save The Date, Thrifty Wedding

E-STD’s

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Things to be aware of when sending out electronic save the dates:

1) If the file name attached to your email includes “STD”, non-wedding-savvy folks on the guest list may be a bit hesitant to open it. And you will be the butt of many family jokes.

2) Yahoo will actually freeze your account for a few hours if you try to send an email to too many people (apparently 300 is too many).

We hemmmed and hawed about sending e-STD’s, but in the end it fit with the overall feel of our wedding. No frills, budget-friendly, and most important, a low environmental footprint.

Our STD’s were designed by our good friend Shari Amos, a graphic designer who does wedding invites (lucky us!). I am in love with them. I couldn’t fall asleep last night because the 18hr time difference meant that people might open our email as early as 1am our time. I might even sacrafice a small tree and print a few up as keepsakes… that’s how much I love them.

Photography, Save The Date, Story

Work it!

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Me: “Look at me and think about how you’re going to feel the day we get married”.

The camera comes out and suddenly Mr. Veggie’s smile looks like the Joker. Me: “Relax your cheeks”. Him: “They are relaxed”

All photos taken by the amazing Ross in exchange for a beer and a bowl of veggie chili.

Which do you like? Which would you use? Hah! That’s a trick question because the one we actually chose isn’t posted here. You’ll just have to wait to see it.

Photography, Save The Date, Story

Dirty Hippies

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Now that we had a venue, it was definitely time to send out Save The Dates. I had wanted to do this in December, but it took longer than I thought to firm up a camp and then we got really busy during our southern hemisphere summer season, and then oops! We have a wedding date and its only 8 1/2 months away!

First step: Find a nice picture of us.

Good picture, scrubby clothes.
Good picture, no faces.

Good picture, scrubby clothes.

Good picture, ah- crazy hair!All pictures personal photos.

“Mr. Veggie, throw on your best pair of overalls. It’s time to get purty for some pho-tography”.

Its nice to have amazingly talented friends who will come by your house after working all day, put up with your shenanigans, and capture you on film. Stay tuned for some shots that our friend Ross took in what I guess could be called our backyard.

Camp Wedding, venue

Found It!

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After months of searching camp websites and Skyping with camp directors at obscenely early hours of the morning (NZ time) I found a venue. Which means that I also know our wedding/ anniversary date. Hooray! Even just typing it I get giddy.

Drumroll please…

Here is the lake.

And the cute little cabins people will stay in.

And the beautiful lodge where we will hold the reception.All pictures from Camp Choconut Website.

Isn’t it amazing? We will have the whole camp for the whole weekend for around $4,000. We are planning on charging people a small fee for accomodation. We figure that they would pay for a hotel anyway if they were coming from out of town. We haven’t exactly worked out the logistics of this yet, but even if we charge $15 per person per night, we will end up getting our venue for “free” and have some money left over to spend on food for the wedding. What a deal!

Eco Wedding, Farm wedding, Thrifty Wedding, venue

Wedding Farmers?

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Remember my Camp v. Farm dilemma? Well, the more farms I looked into, the more wise to the “farm wedding” industry I became.

Most of the farms that I found that hosted weddings were not working farms any more (of course there are exceptions). While many of them used to be farms, they now exclusively do events. Some have a small veggie garden, and a few are actually working farms, but many don’t grow any food at all.

I asked one of the owners about this. He had been farming for 40 years and just started doing weddings 5 years ago. “The truth of it is, I can make more money on a wedding weekend than I can in practically a whole season of growing food. It’s a better investment for me to keep renovating for events than to put money into growing food”. Huh? Wow.

So, if the food wasn’t going to be grown on the farm (in most cases), what were we getting for our money? A beautiful venue. A finely catered meal (generally organic, some local). Great service. All this for a fairly high price tag.

Sigh. Buh bye beautiful farms.

I love your refurbished barns and picturesque settings. I love your waiters and your matching dinnerware. I will dream about being one of the beautiful brides on your website enjoying her elegant wedding. You host gorgeous weddings that I swoon over, but I think we are just too rustic and hippy for you.

Too rustic and hippy for a farm? Go figure.

Of course, this is just our experience. I know that there are some great farms out there that do wedding events. And when you choose to host your wedding at places like these, you are helping to support local farmers (of the produce, not wedding variety). One that I came across is Broadturn Farm.

Any others out there that you know of? I would love to restore my faith in the farm wedding industry by finding other food-producing venues. Or did anyone have a really great experience at a non-food-producing farm venue that might help change my mind?

Groomsmen, Inspiration Boards

Mr. Veggie – Trendsetter?

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So it turns out that Mr. Veggie’s fashion insight is stronger than I give him credit for – apparently vests are very in these days. After a short round of internetting I quickly lost any doubts I had about the vest concept. Heck, I’d marry one of these dudes. They look great!
Image Sources: Top: Left, Center-Left, Right-Center, Right. Bottom: 3rd Base, Shortstop, 2nd Base, 1st Base.

How would a group of such dudes look all together?Image Sources: Top: Left, Right. Bottom: Left, Right.

Mr. Veg, when you’re right, you’re right. Vests for everyone.