Aiken Backyard Wedding
When you have a bride who’s a mastermind of wedding day paper goods, it should come as little shock that her own wedding day will be a truly shining event. When Liz of Liddabits started planning her wedding, she knew it would be full of bright color, curated design elements, and heaps of brilliant flowers and styling from Juli Vaughn Designs. Thanks to Tulle & Grace for capturing it all!
From the bride, Liz: We wanted casual and colorful. Southern backyard wedding, but in a big bright and funky way. I’m a graphic designer in the wedding paper goods industry, so we knew it would have a LOT of Liddabits paper touches. We also knew I wouldn’t be able to choose just one or two colors, and at the end of the day I narrowed it down to a color collection. As long as a piece fit into/coordinated with that range we approved it. Our florist/designer helped us pull it together by defining our wedding characteristics as milk glass, bright colors, wooden/rustic finishes, pops of gold and a little bit of a geometric/triangle motif.
Bouquet recipe: Yellow poppy, Coral Charm Peonies, Sarah Bernhardt Peonies, Juliet Garden Roses, Peach Campanella Garden Roses, Hot Pink Freesia, Ranunculus, Orange Pincushion Protea, Succulents, Parrot Tulips, Sage, Lamb’s Ear.
My creativity comes from my mom, and since we had the wedding in our backyard, we tackled as much of the event design as possible ourselves including: My husband, father and brother all built our dance floor out of 4×8 sheets of plywood with framing on the underside. We painted each board a different color and then shellac’d it. Beer Bottle Art Installation – I had this concept early enough in our engagement that it was able to be executed. My husband loves beer and I wanted at least one conversation piece / stunner that really incorporated both of us. We saved a few hundred beer bottles, added twine hooks to the top with hot glue, painted a few of them to add some pop, de-labeled the ones that weren’t as colorful or pretty, and then hung them from fishing line through eye hooks. It was exactly what I envisioned in my head, my favorite piece from the wedding, and we saved half of it and now have it hanging in my parents living room! Two tone tables – The property is also home to an old swimming hole (where my best friends grandparents met in the late 40s!) and as a result we were able to scrounge up some vintage farm tables and paint the bottoms of them. They were in rough shape, but since it was only for one day and not for our guests to sit at they worked perfectly. Confetti tossers – we cut, taped, stuffed and glued our own confetti tossers for our exit. They were an homage to our engagement pictures where Whitney came up with the original giant tissue paper triangle confetti idea, and we loved them so much that we heavily leaned on the concept for most of our wedding design theme!
Our ceremony yay flags were very significant to me… when I started my company I made banners and flags and a vendor told me about how she made them for her daughter’s wedding and they used them at the ceremony. I shared that same story with other vendors and got so excited about the idea of everyone you love, looking at you and waving a yay flag, but not making a peep! Talk about emotional (in a happy way)! When my dad and I were about to walk down the aisle we were “hiding” behind some grape vines. When we turned the corner we were a good 100 feet from the last row of chairs. Everyone was turned around, waving their flags at us walking down the aisle. Before that I had kind of forgotten about this special moment that I was so excited about in the past, and it totally made me break down into tears, in that I-have-been-so-exhausted-and-it’s-finally-here-and-it’s-perfect-and-I’m-so-happy, good kind of way. Luckily I had armed my dad with a code word in case I started crying (a code word that would make me laugh immediately – let’s just say another word for breaking wind). The code word worked and I cry-giggled my way down the aisle.
Any advice for couples planning their weddings now? Don’t be afraid to do something that’s you, even if it’s not traditional or your family thinks you’re crazy. The people there love you and they’ll embrace it! Also, everyone freaks out about something at some point, so don’t be surprised when it happens, just breath, and know that in a few days they will be over it. And finally, one of my planner friends gave me this advice about 10 days before our wedding. Something will go wrong, to be exact, three things will go wrong. So when the first thing happens, and you get a little frustrated, just say, okay that’s #1, now there are only two more! I did this and it kept me and my mom from losing it, and looking back they were SO insignificant to the overall day that they weren’t even missed/noticed. My husband’s answer when I asked him was “talk to each other” which I interpreted to mean tell your fiance what’s going on and what the plans are – he probably wants to be more involved than you think.
View all images from this wedding in the gallery
Wedding Music:
I am a control freak and wanted to be in the know about every detail of our wedding, but the one thing Danny insisted on (for three years before we were even engaged) was that our first dance song be a surprise that he picked out. I was completely ok with it… sort of (I had my mom and my VIP bridesmaid confirm that it was a decent selection), and up until the moment the song started I had no idea what it was. “Sleep Walk” by Santo & Johnny was a song we always danced to at weddings when we heard it, and both knew the tune of, but I never knew the name of it. It was a perfect, lovely song, with no words, and I’m so glad that we had a moment that was just Danny’s doing.
Father/Daughter Dance: “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”
Parents/Daughter Dance: “Happy,” Pharrell
Wedding Location: Aiken, SC / Photographer: Tulle & Grace / Event Design, Styling, Wedding Invitations, and Paper Goods: Bride, Liddabits / Floral Design and Styling: Juli Vaughn Designs / Day-Of Coordinator: Jenna Chancey of Signature Weddings & Events / Venue: Private Residence / Wedding Dress: White by Vera Wang / Hair and Makeup: Power Cuts / Groomsmen’s Ties: Me and Matilda / Caterer: Berry’s Catering, Augusta GA / Wedding Cake: Heather Ulmer / Ceremony Musicians: Corelli String Quartet / Post Ceremony Musicians: Andy Fentem and Augusta Jones / DJ: Ed Girardeau