Carly and Brad had an amazingly cool and quirky DIY backyard wedding at his family home last summer in Errington, British Columbia on Vancouver Island. The details are beyond creative and fun – after all, any couple that quotes Buffy in their wedding decorations is awesome in my book! Stefanie Fournier Photography captured their fabulous day.
My husband and I met playing hide-and-go-seek-tag in the woods, had an all-nighter board-game-off the first time we hung out, and can name more dinosaurs than you probably knew even existed. We are weird fun geeks and wanted a fun, relaxed day where people celebrated with us that we had fallen into mutual weirdness and were going for the long-haul. From the food to the decorations, everything was home-made and reflected us, and we even had one of our best friends marry us (working in a Greek joke, and dinosaurs, naturally). The result was a quirky day that was so awesome my 91-year-old Granny wouldn’t leave until 2 am. It was perfect.
Groomsmen’s boutonnieres: We used paper leaves I hand-painted, mini cupcake liner flowers the girls and I made, and button stalks my mother-in-law made, adding Volkswagen pins, since that’s how most of the guys met (and it’s a MAJOR addiction of my husband’s family).
Bridesmaids’ bouquets: We tried to mirror the boutonnieres, using larger cupcake liner flowers the girls and I made, the button stalks my mother-in-law made, as well as tissue paper flowers the girls made. They also customized them a bit by choosing the ribbon they tied them with, and each assembling their own.
Groom’s boutonniere: I made his with a hand-painted rose made out of coffee filters, hand-painted paper leaves, and buttons his mum and I assembled.
Bride’s bouquet: This sucker took me all 6 months of our engagement to make – I literally finished binding it all together at midnight the night before the wedding. It contains: origami flowers from pages of a Latin Roman history text; pearl and silver fronds; silk and tulle peonies; copper leaves made by my brother-in-law from my husband’s electrical wire; buttons assembled by me and my mother-in-law, several of which were gifts from my grandmothers; hand-painted coffee filter roses and leaves; starched handkerchiefs my great-grandmother crocheted; one real rose my MIL insisted upon; and a clay octopus my Maid of Honour made, cause, well, cephalopod.
Tarts: Cake is overrated, hard to eat nicely and not easily consumed while dancing; our amazing friends/family provided us with 4 dozen EACH of 8 kinds of tarts. It rocked.
Beer tap: Brad built a keg fridge 2 years ago, and added an island around it after we got engaged (“for the wedding”); this tap handle was a wedding gift, hand-turned by one of his VW friends whose girlfriend mounted the cake topper on top.
Centerpieces: We mirrored the salt from our salt ceremony, added glass pebbles, and then filled each with something that represented us (there was an Italian one, a train one, a dinosaur one, a music one, a sci-fi one, etc.), and then topped them with different quotes about love that were kick-ass and not so sweet you’d barf. – Carly
Artists
- Photography: Stefanie Fournier Photography
