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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

See Also

Elegant Black and White Ashton Hill 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.

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