Now Reading
Handmade Illinois Wedding

Handmade Illinois Wedding

This young couple is too ridiculously cute for words. Casey and Brett’s wedding was a handcrafted labor of love affair with vintage elements abounding, resulting in a completely untraditional yet perfect day. I don’t know that I’ve ever had such a difficult time narrowing down images for the front page; every picture from Deidre Lynn offers up new crafty ideas and beautiful colors!

handmade Illinois wedding

handmade Illinois weddinghandmade Illinois wedding

handmade Illinois wedding

From Casey, the bride: The style I wanted for my wedding was dreamy, romantic, like a fairy tale in a lovely garden. I wanted to have as many hand made things as possible and for the guests to feel how much time and effort went into every detail. I actually looked at Ruffled every day for the year I was planning my wedding so to have this opportunity to be one of THOSE weddings just makes me melt!

handmade Illinois weddinghandmade illinois wedding

handmade Illinois wedding

handmade illinois wedding

My mom and my Grandma Carolyn were a such a huge help. My grandma has a huge Victorian house filled with antiques and she had anything and everything I needed to decorate. I also have a dear friend who owns a business with her sisters called Etehl Edith. They revamp old furniture to be made shabby chic and I borrowed so many pieces of furniture from them! I am so grateful to have them as friends.

handmade Illinois weddinghandmade illinois wedding

handmade Illinois wedding

I wanted something unique for our venue, and different but I didn’t want to leave town because of my grandparents so I had a few people suggest the Chautauqua building. I was worried because the building is rarely used for anything and there hasn’t had a wedding there in 53 years! It’s also not heated. But I knew we could make it work and we were so happy we did it.

handmade Illinois wedding

handmade Illinois weddinghandmade illinois wedding

handmade Illinois wedding

I already knew I’d be making things because I wanted to make the wedding our own, but I could never guess how much we’d actually make. Our first project was the “ruffled balls” you see above the stage and hanging in the middle of the building. The huge ones in the middle are actually 3 foott balloons we paper mached, let dry for a few days and tea stained coffee filters to later attache to them with hot glue. Same as the little ones they were just smaller balloons. I estimated we used close to 7,000 coffee filters. We’d have “craft day sundays” to work on projects like this.

music sheets candle holder votive DIY

We also punched hearts out of old music sheets to use as confetti on the tables. I got most of my glassware from our local thrift store so I purchased candle holders and dressed them up by decoupaging a few votive candle holders using music sheets. We made these by simply cutting strips of paper and using modge podge. Then attached a flower I made out of an old clothing pattern. There are also paper flowers around the arbor that I made out of tissue paper.

handmade Illinois weddinghandmade illinois wedding

handmade Illinois wedding

handmade Illinois wedding

My mom and I collected vintage brooches for 6 months to make my bouquet and bridesmaids’. I also made my hair flower and garter for myself and a necklace and hair piece to each of my bridesmaids.

handmade Illinois wedding

handmade Illinois weddinghandmade illinois wedding

handmade Illinois wedding

handmade Illinois wedding

View all wedding photos here

Wedding Songs:
Processional: Somewhere over the rainbow by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole
Recessional: I’m yours by Jason Mraz
First dance song: Brett wrote and recorded a song that was played

Wedding vendors (Shelbyville, Illinois):

Ceremony and reception location: Chautauqua building in Forest Park, Shelbyville, IL / Florist: Teri Whalen of Whalens West Side Floral / Wedding Photographer: Deidre Lynn Photography / Wedding Dress: Melissa Sweet Billie / Wedding veil was from Etsy seller Veil Lady Designs and flower was handmade by the bride / Wedding shoes: Etsy seller Paris xox / Earrings: Buckle / Necklace: Charlotte Russe / Hair: done by my bride’s friend and boss Maggie Daniel of Hair, m.d. / Makeup: bride is a makeup artist, so she did her own / Bridesmaid Dresses: Anthropologie / Groom’s suit: Dress pants from Express, Grey Converse, turquoise skinny tie / DJ: Sound source in Mattoon IL (217) 258-8919 / Caterer: Neimergs Steakhouse / Wedding Cake: The Cupcake Cafe in Shelbyville, IL / Videographer: Brad Cook / Transportation: Bride’s grandfather’s pink classic car, also used as getaway car / Photobooth: owned by Brett, the groom – Boothful

View Comments (23)
  • LOVE the pink caddy, too cute for words!
    (even though I said a few!)

    The hairdryer centerpiece CRACKED. ME. UP.! Makes me think of Pink and Rizzo from Grease, eh?

    I am totally impressed Casey and her Mom were able to collect the brooches and pins for her bridal bouquet! I’ve seen those bouquets on Etsy and man are they pricey! I was just wondering where you would even begin to try and collect the brooches for them. Where did you guys go? I have a few pins around, but they aren’t antique or vintage, they are all new, from Anthropologie or Old Navy, H & M, random places like that. That would be an easier way to find them, for sure, but expensive. How expensive are old brooches?

  • Emily, I made a brooch bouquet for myself and found brooches everywhere. Thrift stores, antique stores, flea markets, eBay, Etsy…you name it! But the bulk of my brooches came from friends and family. I put out the word I was looking for brooches and they came through. Some will eventually be returned, but many were just gifted to me. I also supplemented with new brooches, but kept those to strictly rhinestone so they’d blend with the old brooches.

    As for cost, I paid anywhere from $1 to $20 each, depending on the brooch. I probably averaged about $5 – $7 for most of them, and I used fifty in my bouquet. If I found a particularly beautiful one, I’d make sure it was large and would play a focal point in the bouquet.

    I loved my bouquet and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Good luck to you.

  • This is my kind of wedding! So amazing! Each touch is better than the next. I salute this bride and her friends that helped her. I wish I had been to the wedding 🙂

  • FABULOUS, FABULOUS, FABULOUS! I cannot say enough about your creativity, your vision, and your wonderful wedding. Wishing you many, many years together full of happiness and love. With a creative mind like yours, it would be awesome to see what you do with your future:-)

  • Incredible! Unbelievable cute! I absolutely ADORE the teal touches everywhere. GREAT photos!

  • I love the hairdryer! That was so cute! And the ruffled balls were great- they look professionally done.
    P.S> Ruffled- you should make her dress your mascot. It’s kind of perfect.

  • LOVE this wedding! The brooch bouquet, candle holders, ruffle balls…DIY perfection!

  • DIY decorations really add flair to weddings. Love the brooches! I bet Brett’s song was a perfect time to get some great photos of tears, joy, and memories. Congratulations.

  • Absolutely adore this wedding! So much love captured in the photographs, I can only imagine the real deal. Love the color schemes and what you made with the brooches, such creativity!

  • This bride is a girl after my own heart with all the DIY and vintage shabby chicness! She did a fabulous job with that wedding and you can definitely tell she put a lot of thought and work in to it.

  • As a wedding planner I have to say you did a beautiful job!

  • From one Illinois girl to another, this is beautiful! What did you attach the brooches to? Makes me want to make one and I’m not getting married!

  • WOW! I LOVE this wedding!! I know its hard work doing so a lot of DIY for a wedding but I think it’s soooo worth….it makes the wedding so awesome and individual!! Amazing job done here by the bride and groom!!…i’m just bummed I didn’t get to photograph…it looks like it would have been super fun!

  • I love love LOVE all the quirky vintage details about your wedding! thank you so much for sharing! I am feeling very inspired now 🙂

  • Wow! Absolutely amazing. 🙂 Every detail of this wedding is so lovely. I’m getting married in a few short months and would love to make the paper mache balls. (I already have piles and piles of coffee filters for DIY garland.) I’m wondering how you managed to hang the balls… Is that fishing line I see? Also, did you wind the string around the balls, or just attach to the top?

    Eeep! Help! 🙂

  • Hi girls, I made the brooches for all the girls and let them keep them and i kept mine all together as well. As for the ruffle balls, i attached twine to the balloon before i paper mached it. then we tied fishing wire around all three to pull them in tighter. I’d be more than happy to answer any other questions, you can send me a facebook message as well.

    https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=508923789

  • Wow! Are you selling any of your crafty wedding items? I love the huge hanging balls!

  • Very nice & imaginative. As far as I can tell by the pictures it was an interesting wedding, not the same old cookie cutter wedding. I hope your life together will not be cookie cutter either. I enjoyed looking at your pictures. I don’t know how to use facebook but would love to know in more detail how you made the ruffled balls. Many blessings.

Scroll To Top