Thank you to all of the lovely people that made our wedding possible. I wanted to take a minute to put a spotlight on my DIY projects as well as our many vendors.

I had a lot of fun with our wedding. The creative process was awesome and I loved getting to put my own spin on everything that we did. I started my DIY with my Save-the-Dates. After we received our lovely engagement photos from Sarah Bush Designs, I was hard at work.

At that point, we really weren’t sure what direction we were taking the wedding— we were happy to be getting married and we knew we needed to get them out fast. GotPrint.com was actually a huge boon to us and allowed us to print postcards at a fraction of the price that a stationary company was offering.

By the time we sent our invitations, we had a much more structured thematic piece in mind. At an awesome tiny shop, (Pumpernak’s in Lakeland, FL) I found our cake topper— a ceramic fox and stag combo from  (seen below). I’ve actually seen the cake topper in ‘Wes Anderson’ wedding idea style boards on Pinterest. Perfect for Ian and me. Our vision? Enchanted Forest meets the City.

Speaking of the cake, our talented in-laws crafted this sumptuous 4-layered cake (the top was a gluten-free almond and it also included, apple spice, pumpkin spice, and snickerdoodle layers— big hit with the guests).

I created my bouquet (I’ve got pretty sensitive allergies and I wanted to be able to keep it) from blooms that felt winter-y. I wanted more of a moody look. My veil is also a DIY, attached to this awesome tiara I grabbed from Amazon.

My bridesmaids (and bridesman) all carried lanterns. I picked these up at Target and they were initially a hodgepodge of colors (red, grey, white, teal), but a handy can of spray primer and gold spray paint created the look I was trying to capture.

Similarly, instead of boutonnieres, Ian’s groomsmen all had Pokemon gym badges.  This was a very hard sell for me. I had envisioned hand crafting some really playful ornamentation with feathers and hatpins, but we compromised in exchange for Ian not wearing a cape.

One of Ian’s unofficial best men (Ian decided instead of having 3, he would stick to the traditional 1) created flasks for all of the groomsmen that said “The Groomsmen” and a nickname for them. It was adorable. Glad I found out about it after the wedding as they were a *little* tipsy.

Our reception centerpieces and favors were also DIY and assemblage. We picked up these neat dodecahedron vases from Target and spray painted them sparkly blue. Our initial thought was to turn them into D12s, but we ultimately decided to leave them just the sparkly blue (after a paint pen fiasco).

The favor boxes we purchased on Amazon for 20ish dollars, and the favors themselves were seedbombs from FreeMountainDesigns.

We had a little bit of a misunderstanding with our cello/violin duo that led us to taking alternative avenues in terms of our music selection. Ultimately, a family friend handled our DJ needs and we were all set.

Our vendors were amazing. I would highly recommend The Piedmont Room, their service was amazing and the food was beyond incredible. Sarah did a great job with our photos and herded us appropriately. I also hired a college friend to be our day of coordinator which took a lot of the stress off of me in those final moments.

We went way over budget, but we had a great time, a lot of laughs and a lot of love from our families. 10/10 would do again.