Today I’m sharing a sweet and rustic handmade wedding from Holly Cromer. There are tons of great rustic details you will fall in love with! My favorite are the quilted Mr & Mrs signs, so adorable!
When we first started planning our wedding, Chris and I had very different opinions about our “dream wedding.” I wanted a small, immediate-family-only, wedding while Chris imagined something much larger. While a large wedding wasn’t what I wanted, I didn’t want the wedding day to be “my” day, I wanted it to be “our” day and I knew Chris deserved to have as much say in wedding planning as I did (and boy did he!). We sat down and each listed the three things about our wedding day that were most important to us. For me, it was the invitations, the flowers, an overall cohesive look/feel, and my dress (I cheated and picked four things). Chris cared most about the food (especially the cake), providing good times for guests, and sweetly enough, he also cared my dress because he wanted to make sure I felt beautiful.
Though it’s such a small detail, we put a lot of time and work into our invitations and I’m so happy we did. We found a calligrapher on etsy and I worked with her to design our invitation and RSVP postcard. About a year before getting engaged, I started letterpress printing. When I finally bought my own press off of Craigslist, Chris took it apart and restored it piece-by-piece. Once it was back together, our invitations were the first thing we printed. Doing them ourselves was so fulfilling and it was fun to watch everything come together. I scoured ebay for vintage stamps, and it was so much fun to try to customize the stamps to the recipient. For my aunt who owns a Christmas store, we used all Christmas stamps and the nurses in the family got medical-related stamps.
Chris and I wanted and outdoor wedding and decided to get married near my hometown inside Grayson Highlands State Park. I grew up going to the park with my family for picnics and festivals and knew it would be the perfect place. Using a state park helped save a lot of money and provided the laid back feel we wanted for our wedding. The ceremony took place in an open field under a tree. Chris refinished an antique mantle I bought at an auction to serve as an altar. Our reception took place in an area of the park known as the homestead which has original cabins from the 1800s plus the barn we used for our reception. The barn already had picnic tables inside which we decided to go ahead and use to save money on rentals. I was a little worried about using the picnic tables, but I thought that the money saved on table and chair rentals could go towards decorations and allow us to have nice, full centerpieces. In the end, I think we made the right decision. We did provide a few tables with chairs for older guests.
I think my biggest asset during wedding planning was Chris and both of our families. Though planning was stressful and we sometimes had differing views, the day wouldn’t have been nearly as gorgeous as it was without them. Chris refinished my printing press and the mantle we got married in front of; his mom sewed all of the burlap table runners used at the reception; my parents spent a weekend making and canning the jam we gave away as favors; and both families chipped in the day before the wedding to decorate and set up the park. I am so lucky that I have such a close and supportive family and that I got the chance to marry into a family that’s as amazing as my own.
Photography | Holly Cromer Photography | Venue | Grayson Highlands State Park | Cake | Granny Ruth’s Bakery | Florist | Personal Touch Florist | Catering | Blue Moon Catering | Bluegrass Band | Whitetop Mountain Band | Letterpress | Letterpress Expressions | Calligraphy | Calligraphy with Style | Hair | Susie Brown Hair Designs | Makeup | Mearle Norman