Vintage charm at the beach is the best way to describe this handmade wedding from Julie Dreelins. There are so many amazing details to love! The whole ceremony set up is dreamy. How fabulous are the vintage umbrellas on the string lights? And I love all the fun colors and textures in the florals.
We wanted our wedding to feel like us, so we found things that we liked at thrift stores mostly and ended up with a great little collection of decorations. We both love vintage style and I am a sucker for anything bohemian the two styles go very well together and all colors are fair game so it makes it easy. We wanted a backyard wedding and we wanted to be at the beach. The Outer Banks was the perfect spot. We were coming from Colorado, where my husband grew up and even though he had never seen the OBX, I had no hesitations in choosing it for our wedding.
The hard part was the exact venue in the OBX with a backyard. We quickly found out that grass backyards were hard to come by. After an extensive 2 month search we came across The Drake at Founders Ridge. It is an incredible house that easily housed both our families and a few more. The backyard was secluded and had trees which we would need for my vision of string lights and umbrellas. It all worked out way better than I ever imagined. It was very hard work and I have a new appreciation for people in the wedding business. It consumed my life for 9 months and these people do it everyday for multiple weddings! We had a ton of help from family, friends and the few vendors we had really made the difference. I hope they all know how thankful we are for the love and support they gave us.
We collected tons of vintage vases, frames, books and knick knacks from thrift stores. My dad, brother and cousin built a self serve bar for beer. They also cut down bamboo and built the entire arbor that we got married under! My mom hand painted tons of vases, built a photo wall (frames with holes cut inside them so guest can get fun shots), and made our wedding cake. My mother in law decorated beautiful cupcakes, made a gorgeous flower girl dress and made the lace doily backdrop for our guest sign in table. Our brothers and sisters and father in law spent an entire day hanging cables, string lights and umbrellas from the trees in the backyard and it was hot! They also set up all the chairs and tables for the wedding. My aunt made beautiful cake pops, and brought us an amazing collection of vintage items. She and my other Aunt basically took boxes of things we collected and brought it all together for our wedding day décor. All the signage was hand done by my brother and sister in law, who are extremely talented! As you can see I owe everything to these people, our day would not have been possible without them!
Coming back from taking photos on the beach and getting to relax, dance, eat and enjoy an amazing evening with all our friends and family. Most everyone was actually there for the entire week and we had a couple beach days where we set up a tent with food, drinks and had volleyball, cornhole, spike ball and a few surfboards. It was so amazing to get our families and friends, most who had never met before, all together in a beautiful and relaxed environment.
Photography | Julie Dreelins Beach Productions | Venue | The Drake at Founder’s Ridge | Coordinator | Socially Serene Events | Flowers | Blooms by the Box | Caterer | At Your Service | Rentals | Ocean Atlantic Event Rentals | DJ | Bruce Jones “I Do” Entertainment & DJ | Gown | Allure | Officiant | Wedding Heaven & Earth | PR Rep | Magnolia Media Public Relations
