My DIY Backyard Wedding in Seguin, Texas

I can't believe that this past May marked five years since my honey and I tied the knot! Our wedding was all about having fun and just celebrating with our closest friends and family, but honestly, planning it was kinda rough! We DIY'd so much and we changed plans so drastically that I missed a lot of normal wedding things because of it. Luckily, when I look back at everything that we faced to make it to the big day, I'm still so happy that we did it! It also reminded me of what so many of my current brides are facing today amidst the crazy Covid crisis and all that entails.

Just like so many Covid couples, I got word that my wedding venue would not be able to host my wedding! Now, back then this was huge and super unexpected. They had double booked us and we were faced with finding a new venue only T W O weeks before our wedding date!! I was so stressed and honestly mad! How do you replan your wedding in just two weeks?? It was such a disappointment after getting beautiful custom invitations made with, now, wrong information on them and all the planning that went around the venue, but life goes on, and we had to come up with a plan b just like basically anyone that planned to get married in 2020! So what was plan b? Well, it was to DIY our wedding even more than we already were!

My husband's cousin happened to live in a house that was an old daycare center with a huge backyard. It had an old concrete slab that was once used for basketball, a large covered area and lots of beautiful trees. They graciously allowed us to use their home for our wedding after hearing about what happened with our venue. We hadn't been to their home so we had no clue when they offered that it was the daycare we both attended as kids! It was beyond perfect that it was though and makes for a great addition to our wild story. When we saw how overgrown the yard was and how much work we were going to have to do, it felt daunting. We were just ten days out but at least we had our venue. Now it was time to clean it up. We spent more than thirty hours in all working on this yard. It was huge and drastically overgrown. There was pea gravel with years of weed growth that needed to be hand pulled, palm fronds and broken limbs scattered about that needed to be gathered, trash and trinkets from the daycare days, and ivy taking over much of the property. It was back breaking labor but we pulled through and got it all done, just in time too! We worked until midnight just hours before we'd be back up and setting up decor.

I'm so thankful much of my decor was already going to be DIY'd and was in the process or already ready before I found out about the venue change up. I always imagined a fun wedding, even with the other venue, our theme was " till death do us part-y". There was so much that I found, thrifted, or already had that went into this wedding. I used furniture we already had, the glass and vintage decor was all thrifted from multiple trips to goodwill and estate sales, and my golden shopping cart was found abandoned in a lot then spray painted at my bridal shower. I bought my flowers in bulk from a wholesaler - I ordered 3 types of roses and 2 types of eucalyptus. I also purchased my sparklers and real, living succulent party favors wholesale and saved so much! The tattoo parlor sign was painted by me on a large cork bulletin board and I purchased the tattoos in bulk from a company that made designs that looked realistic. My Photo Booth consisted of an instax instant camera and tons of extra film + batteries, a retro school cafeteria chair, a coffee table, tons of party store dress up clothes, multi colored sharpies, washi tape and a scrapbook so people could leave us messages. It was such a hit! I also had an awesome "till death do us party" sign and some gorgeous paper flowers my mom and mother in law helped me make and put up in the entryway. There was also hand dyed table runners and butcher paper on the kids table with tons of different types of crayons, candy and little novelty fireworks. We had yard games, hula hoops, string lights above our dance flood and even a piñata. Everything was so beautiful, simple and fun! I loved it. My biggest decor regret was that we used plastic tables and chairs for guests, it's all that were available with such short notice. It's just a small thing in an overall success though! All of our decor got put up the morning of our wedding by our closest friends and immediate family members.

Now, I'm sure you're wondering "what about food?" Well, our immediate family members happen to all be amazing cooks! My husband's grandma and mom provided rice and beans, my dad grilled two different kinds of fajitas, and we had dozens of homemade flour tortillas! My mom made all of our wedding cakes, yes, cakes! with an S! She made us multiple delicious cakes that were absolutely gorgeous and so special. We even had custom peg doll cake toppers made of our little family! We went crazy buying the food and alcohol at Sam's Club in bulk! It saved us a ton but was still nearly $1000 for enough food and drinks to provide for about 50 people. I got 3, three foot across water troughs from Home Depot and used those as open drink coolers for our single serve beverages - Mexican Cokes, Jarritos, dozens of different types of beer and many, many flavors of wine coolers plus water! I also used a giant wire spool as a drink station with homemade sweet tea, lemonade, fresh margaritas, and a sangria. There was a simple chips and dip appetizer station with all the dips you could ask for!

My night and wedding definitely ended up being a success and a wonderful memory I'll always cherish. We danced the night away, ate, drank, and laughed our hearts out. We both cried saying our vows and then again when we danced to our song. Everything was absolutely perfect in the end. And we are still so happy now!