Heather & Spencer's Redneck Chic Wedding

Hey, Folks! Heather here. I was recently the lucky recipient of a My Flip wedding prize from Storymix! We really love the video Storymix created for us and are so happy to have won the contest. After working with Ariane on our video, she graciously invited me to do a guest post about our wedding. Ain’t she sweet? So, here I am to tell you about my favorite day ever.

I’m not generally known for my excellence in brevity, so I’m going to try to keep this from being 47 pages long. But, how can you understand if I don’t start at the beginning? My now-husband, Spencer, proposed to me in October. His exact words were, “Do you want to marry me sometime next spring or summer?” I find this adorable because apparently he wanted to make sure that I didn’t just haul his butt to the courthouse the next morning by including the time frame he had in mind. He was finishing up his degree and I, being a lobbyist, would be busy with legislative session all spring. So, that pretty much settled it that we would wed in June.

The most important things to us were that we liked our own wedding. We wanted it to be fun and to reflect our style (which is basically redneck-chic without the chic). It also had to fit our budget, which was mighty slim. We thought about eloping or going to the courthouse, but I really wanted a wedding that included our loved ones and left us with lots of memories. I searched around on the good ‘ole World Wide Web, just browsing different venues. Eventually, I randomly came across a place that looked promising. It had a small lake with a fishing dock and paddle boats; a covered pavilion; and a lodge with a kitchen. We booked it immediately when Spencer’s mom graciously offered to pay for it as well as cabins for some of the out-of-towners to stay in. If she hadn’t, we probably would have held it at a state park in the area. I hear they rent those pavilions real cheap.

Now, next on the list was food. We knew we couldn’t afford to feed everyone but we did want to have a real meal and not just cake. That left us with few options but I’m nothing if not resourceful (I get it from my grandma). I thought about our lakeside family reunions and the potluck meals we always have there. Those seem to work just fine. So, we asked everyone to bring a dish. In an effort to keep the tackiness levels reasonable, we asked people to bring a dish in lieu of a gift. Then, my family stepped up to the plate! My aunt offered to provide meat and my cousin offered to cook a pig as well as a big ‘ole pot of beans. My mom then said she would pay for the cupcakes (which we thought were more picnic-friendly than a cake). At that point we realized that even if no one brought a dish, we’d probably have enough to make-do.

The internet was a life-saver as far as ideas and inspiration. And my dress! I bought it for $40 at a website that sells used wedding items.

Then began the Great Gathering-Up. I spent the entire time of our engagement watching for wedding stuff at garage sales and thrift stores. We used mismatched yellow sheets as table cloths and mismatched fake yellow flowers in coffee cans as center pieces. I made a few bunting banners and painted a wooden “wedding” sign. I even threw up a few of those kitschy paper wedding bells. My main splurge was the Chinese lanterns. It came out really fun and cute.

We ended up being able to fulfill our wish of not hiring anyone to do anything. Of course, our moms did A LOT, but I don’t think we pressured them to. You know how moms are. We had family doing the entertaining, photography and performing the ceremony. It felt very intimate.

All in all, it was everything I wanted it to be. The only snafus were that I failed to rally the troops for decorating early enough so I had to leave a lot of it up to others while I was getting ready, I forgot to have someone video the dang ceremony, and we have a missing memory card of photos. But, it’s okay. Because I really did love our wedding and that’s the most important thing. Do it the way you want it and don’t worry about the stuff that doesn’t actually matter. In fact, maybe that should be our motto for not just our weddings, but our lives.