Heidi & Scott's Rustic Backyard DIY Wedding

The offbeat bride: Heidi, Bookshop owner and Seamstress

Her offbeat partner: Scott, Computer Scientist

Location & date of wedding: Our home in Punta Gorda, FL — March 13, 2010

What made our wedding offbeat: The two most important things to us were to: have fewer than thirty people present and stay away from the official, commercial “Wedding Industry” as much as possible. We broke as many traditions as we could!

Heidi & Scott's Rustic Backyard DIY Wedding

My friends and I made the wedding cake. I made my medieval styled dress out of antique silk that my husband's grandmother gave me. One of my friends officiated the ceremony, another did my hair, and another did my makeup. We did not have a traditional bridal party – instead, we asked our parents to stand up with us during the ceremony performing various roles.

In fact, the only wedding industry business that we used was the florist – and she was a friend of a friend, so it didn't really feel like we were going commercial by having her do the flowers. (Plus she did a beautiful job!)

Heidi & Scott's Rustic Backyard DIY Wedding

We had the reception dinner inside our house (with my sister as our iPod DJ), and a friend of my husband's family did all the cooking and planning. As a last minute surprise, he decorated the house with hundreds of palm fronds freshly cut from our back yard!

During dinner, my son (who is five) convinced his friends to dress up as princesses. There's nothing like a little childhood cross-dressing to liven up a party. We wrapped up the evening by playing Cranium with our college friends – everyone had a blast! And that's what we wanted most of all.

Heidi & Scott's Rustic Backyard DIY Wedding

Tell us about your ceremony: We wrote our vows based on The Cure's “Lovesong.” It's always been so special to us and we thought the lyrics were perfect for wedding vows:

Medeival LOTR Wedding Gown

However far away
I will always love you,
However long I stay
I will always love you,
Whatever words I say
I will always love you,
I will always love you.

We also deliberately omitted the famous Corinthians passage (you know, “Love is patient…”). Instead, we had our parents read from Shakespeare, Kahlil Gibran, and Madeleine L'Engle.

Our biggest challenge: Our biggest challenge was getting the house ready in time for the wedding! Since we like to DIY stuff around the house that meant we actually had to finish all our unfinished projects. My husband had been tiling the back porch. He actually tore it up and put it back down again seven times, because “it wasn't good enough” (there was a crooked line that only he could see).

My favorite moment: We were both very happy that each of us had a grandmother who could attend the wedding. They sat with us at our table at dinner and they had special seating for the ceremony.

Heidi & Scott's Rustic Backyard DIY Wedding
Have you been married before and if so, what did you do differently? I picked the right groom this time!

My advice for offbeat brides: The best advice we got was this: If someone offers to help you, say yes and immediately delegate a task to them. Even if it's something really small (I asked one of my friends to pick up a light bulb on her way to the wedding!), you will feel less pressure, and they will be glad they can do something useful when it's obvious that you are totally overwhelmed. They really do want to help, and you really can trust them to do it!

Heidi & Scott's Rustic Backyard DIY Wedding

What was the most important lesson you learned from your wedding? How to get a lot done in a short amount of time. We only had two months to plan, and we were both working full time up til about two days before the wedding, in addition to finishing all our DIY projects around the house. It was INSANE and we still look back and wonder how we did it.

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?

Enough talk — show me the wedding inspo!
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Comments on Heidi & Scott’s rustic, butterfly themed, backyard wedding!

  1. Hah! Best “What I did differently” answer ever! Your wedding looks like a blast — so glad that you had fun!

  2. I heart this wedding!!

    You looked beautiful in both dresses (and the dresses themselves are amazingl!) I love the butterflies and the princess dress up session is too cute lol. Your family looks so happy and your house looks gorgeous, too!! Congrats!! (and where did you get your shoes? Those are kick ass!)

  3. That little boy of yours seems like quite the leader, ha ha. Beautiful wedding!

  4. Heidi, your wedding looks gorgeous and sounds like it was very meaningful! I am planning my ceremony for next month, and FH and I also want to have our parents to play an important role in the ceremony (we aren’t having an officiant). You’re the first person I’ve heard of who has done this. Could you talk more about what your parents did? I can give you my email address if that’s easier. Thank you!

  5. OMG, it’s so amazing to see you featured on Offbeat Bride! Just 2 days ago my mom messaged me saying “hey check out pattern, Simplicity 9891. could be a pretty wedding dress” and I googled the pattern and found the link to your website. Your dress looks absolutely beautiful, as do you in it, and now I’m inspired to try to make my own wedding dress (though also ready to accept defeat if I fail, since I personally am not an accomplished seamstress, haha).

    I love that your son got the idea to dress as a princess, that’s so cute! Congrats on the beautiful wedding!

  6. Congratulations!
    Kahlil Gibran has some nice things to say about love. My father has always had a copy of “The Prophet” around the house it seams.

  7. Yay, a fellow Hello Cupcake fan! My sister-in-law is making the sunflower cupcakes from hello cupcake for my wedding this fall!

  8. What a beautiful wedding! I would love to know what the reading from Madeline L’Engle was, would you be willing to share?

  9. I’ve been at a loss for what to do for vows and ceremony, being that we aren’t religious. I love the idea of using a song and I have the perfect one in mind!

  10. I am really really interested in seeing the wedding porn for your wedding. It is the same theme as my upcoming wedding and I need some more inspiration!! The link isn’t working. No photos show up.

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