Valley Crest Fall Wedding
How amazing is it that today’s bride wore her mother’s own wedding dress and veil from 35 years ago — and didn’t need to do a single alteration? This wedding from With Love & Embers and Little Big Farm (plus a lot of hard work and love from the bride and her mother) is just in time for Halloween, full of pumpkins, gold, and plenty of the fall spirit.
From the bride, Katy: When Mike and I decided to have our wedding on a farm we knew we wanted to incorporate that same fall setting that makes us smile when we go apple and pumpkin picking. We wanted to inspire a fun and easy going vibe for our guests, while still trying to hold onto certain elements that make weddings so classic and elegant. For our colors we started with gold since it is such a rich autumn color and went from there. We featured deep fall colors like burgundy and garnet red and offset them with a delicate blush hue in my bouquet and the bridesmaid dresses. Adding in blush also helped to soften the groomsmen’s black suits and burgundy ties. For all the other décor we really let the vibrant fall colors speak for themselves in the mums, pumpkins and table décor. We took advantage of the produce the farm grows and included those items in our decor, favors and food. In addition to our decor, it was important our food connected with the season to bring a fresh farm to table menu.
For our floral arrangements for the tables we used over 200 zinnias that my grandfather grew himself on his farm in northern New Jersey. We ordered our fillers (baby’s breath, berries, dusty miller and assorted greenery) from our local grocery store. We got huge dahlias from a neighbor and the rest of the flowers were from my parent’s own garden. My bouquet, bridal party flowers and three compote vase arrangements were created by Patti at Little Big Farm, an organic flower farm in NJ. She incorporated dahlias, scabiosa and roses to create a romantic, slightly cascading bouquet for me to hold.
For the head table, my dad and husband built and stained two farm tables. They even nailed the wood together with nails that once belonged to my grandfather (who passed away when I was very young). It’s remarkable to think about all the love that went into making the farm tables alone. My mom, aunt, cousin and I spent a weekend making pickles for favors. We featured them on a “farmers market” table with produce from the farm to help tie together the theme. We also used apples from the orchard as centerpieces next to flower arrangements my mom put together the day before the wedding. My dad spent the morning of the wedding designing the hay barrel display for the ceremony and we created multiple planters to put around the farm, including the two white planters that sat next to the 200 year old oak tree Mike and I got married under. Our friends helped string lanterns and tulle under the patio and tent. My mom, myself and two of the bridesmaids styled the tables the morning of the wedding. We bought forks on the internet and spent nights bending them to design place card holders for the seating chart. We sourced out all the amber colored water goblets since it was hard to find them to rent in New Jersey. We bought a ton of lanterns on sale at Ikea and my mom painted them all white with a crackle paint to look weathered. I’m pretty positive we went through at least ten cans of spray paint covering items in gold. Items turned gold included my grandfather’s old wheel barrel that we filled with ice and drinks for the ceremony. We love vintage and can spend weekends wandering flea markets, so when I looked into renting vintage furniture I was shocked by the cost to rent and/or deliver the items. My grandfather let me borrow some of his antique chairs and marble table, and we also ended up using some of the furniture in my parent’s house to save money. In addition to these pieces, we used my great grandmother’s crystal punch bowl for spiked apple cider.
Any advice for couples planning their weddings now? Be able to brush off when something goes wrong on your wedding day… no one will notice if something goes wrong but you 🙂 If you’re going the DIY route make sure you have a venue that will give you plenty of time to set up. Our venue was absolutely breathtaking, but we only had two hours the day before the wedding (and an hour the morning of) to set up. We brought EVERYTHING in ourselves from furniture down to every last mum and pumpkin. There were plans to put up corn stalks, create a tulle background behind the bar, etc but there wasn’t nearly enough time. We were so busy and time crunched we even forgot to put out half of the fruit and veggies on our farmers market favor table! Luckily we had AMAZING family and friends who all pitched in to put together a wedding more beautiful than I could have dreamed up.
Wedding Music:
Processional: Pachelbel’s Canon in D
Recessional: Mendelssohn’s Wedding March
First Dance: “Leather & Lace,” Stevie Nicks & Don Henley
Everything is so perfect! I love it!