It Takes A Village

A word about DIY weddings: They're a lot of work! I was tempted to title this post "This Is What A DIY Wedding Looks Like...," but decided that "It Takes A Village" better described the post I was about to write. Because, trust me, it takes a village.

While we were fully committed to DIY-ing much of our wedding, I definitely underestimated how much manpower would be needed to get the whole thing off the ground. I'll share some of the wedding photos in a future post, but first I thought I'd give you a behind the scenes look at how our wedding came together. Thank you, thank you, thank you to all my friends and family who helped make it happen (and to my cousin Judy, who snapped all these shots).

Two days before the wedding: Here I am sweaty as can be moving boxes around in the garage. Our host and floral designer Susan Armstrong is busy creating arrangements and my father and uncle are in the background screwing lightbulbs into the string lights we ordered.

Here my dear friend Elizabeth and I are trying to sort out the table arrangements and the menu place cards.

In this shot my father and uncle are assembling our matchbook and sparkler favors. Across the table out of the shot you'd find my dad's cousin and my husband's brother's girlfriend assembling place cards and rehearsal dinner favors.

My then-fiancé (now husband) and his brother hung the string lights in the tent -- thankfully, his brother was tall enough to reach without a ladder.

My little sister is hard at work folding napkins around the menu place cards and flatware (and my friend Elizabeth is working on another stack in the next room).

The day of the wedding: We hung the Mexican paper flags, assembled tables and chairs, linen-ed and set the tables -- my father, mother, sister, aunt, and my mom's best friend from high school are among the helpers with tent set-up

In the kitchen, limes are being squeezed for margaritas (by my sis, her boyfriend and family friend Sacha) and fresh avocado is being mashed into the store-bought guacamole. Yes, that's a bucket they are filling with lime juice.

These shots don't capture half of the work that went into the pre-wedding prep, which also included tree stump removal, patio furniture moving, outdoor lighting design, many trips to Costco, an epic liquor store run, hours and hours of printing programs, place cards and the like, and a whole lot more. It was a little stressful, but I was also glad to have my family there helping me make it happen.