You can definitely check out my wedding blog, c is for charmed, if you want to grab some insight into how the day was from start to finish. It was full of a whole bunch of ups mixing in a few minor road blocks. But I didn’t even notice, I was to be someone’s bride that day and that was all that mattered. I’ll spare you another few posts of recapping and instead I’ll give you the cliff notes version – a few of my favorite photos of the day.

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The reception is by far the biggest component of most weddings as there are so many details that go into setting one apart from the next. And we could make no exception for ours. DIY was the name of the game for us, because well, I love detail! And because of the wedding blog world, I had a never-ending, sometimes extremely overwhelming source for inspiration and ideas. And I loved that this community could inspire such wonderful elements for my wedding. From the lace votives, to a “sweet love” candy bar to a wedding tree, these little details were what made our wedding so special.

Our candy bar was a combination of our favorite candies. And we displayed everything in a variety of glass penny jars, trifle bowls, and jugs some of which I found online through a restaurant supply company. I was a little skeptical at how much candy we had bought, but it was a huge hit! You never really realize how much grown-ups love their candy until you put a huge FREE spread in front of them!

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Our ceremony was one of my most favorite parts of the day and a huge part of the planning process for us. We really wanted to craft a ceremony that reflected Jon and myself – it was not traditional or religious, but it incorporated a lot of meaning, symbolism, and reflection.

Jon and I had planned our ceremony around an intimate circle seating arrangement – taking cues from the symbolism of unity that the circle represents. It was a beautiful moment having all of our friends and family surrounding us as we stood in the middle of them. I’ve included some of the lines from our ceremony in this post – I just loved the whole program we put together.

“Let this circle be a sign that love has a past, a present and a future. And that whenever there are sorrows, joy will come around again”

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With so much of our wedding being DIY why stop at the flowers right? So I decided to do all the flowers myself and ordered them online from fiftyflowers.com and wholeblossoms.com. I highly recommend this option for brides who have a limited budget and aren’t looking to do anything to formal. My flowers were very wild and whimsical, which made arranging pretty easy. But definitely prepare some mock-up arrangements beforehand to make sure it’s what you want and so that you can have help in re-creating them for the wedding day – because for most brides, you won’t have time to be making bouquets and centerpiece arrangements!

My inspiration for my bouquet was from Flush Designs and thought it would be relatively easy to recreate. It didn’t have to be exact but I loved the fluffy white flowers and contract of the succulents. So I grew some mini succulents, ordered some fluffy beautiful pale, pale peach cabbage roses that would look similar to peonies when opened.

{Flush Designs}

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I must have heard that question at least 50 times, followed by a look of bewilderment when I responded that we didn’t really have one. I know it makes things easier and helps you to visualize a final product, but flea markets didn’t have color schemes. Alas, in the end, one ended up emerging, but it literally wasn’t until the few weeks before the wedding!

It started with my dress, which is “Leah” by Elizabeth Fillmore. I found it on my lunch break with my co-worker (also one of my best friends and bridesmaids). It was not a big event, my mom and sister weren’t there and there was no champagne clinking. It was low-key and mellow, very much as I had wanted. Although, Alana did make me hug her when I said this was the dress.

Then came my three bridesmaids. I never wanted all of the girls to wear matching dresses and I did not want them to spend a lot of money for them. I knew I wouldn’t be getting the dresses from a bridal salon so I hit the internet for cocktail dresses. Nordstrom, Macys, Dillards, everywhere I could think that might have some affordable options that they might actually want to wear again.

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At this point in our planning I was really into this idea of a vintage Parisian flea market wedding. And since our hopes for a destination wedding (first it was Greece, then the Grenadines) wasn’t going to happen, Jon and I set out to find the perfect location for our wedding.

I prepared the itinerary and we set out for a weekend of barn scouting. Yes, barn scouting. To you and I a barn wedding isn’t so peculiar, we’ve seen them all over the wedding blogs, but to my suburban parents, well, they thought we were nuts. But they humored me for a moment.

First stop, High Falls, New York to visit Shadow Lawn, a lovely 18th century stone house with an accompanying 19th century cherry red barn.

{images via Well Wed}

The sweetest house featuring gorgeous period details mixing with modern amenities and the most perfect barn and little brook right across the street. I was getting excited, the house could be used as the staging area, the ceremony could be held by the brook and we could dance the night away in the barn. Reality set in, and having our entire guest list travel to this small town (about an hour and half outside NYC) didn’t make much sense.

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So as I mentioned, I decided it would be fun to make our entire lot of save the dates, invitations and anything else involving paper and our wedding. Why you ask?  Looking back I’m not really sure, but it was an experience! I don’t have any special training or real artistic ability, I just have a mother who was always extremely crafty and have always been striving to be like that.

Our save the dates were nothing novel I suppose, just a take on the calendar idea. I cut file folders down to miniature size (yes, you can buy them in index size, but I already had a whole box). Vintage wall paper and ephemera were used to create a backdrop for a simple printed calendar marking our future wedding date. I used a variety of miniature vintage postcards featuring various scenes of Buffalo to display our wedding website address and the wedding date. The whole package was then clipped together with a mini clothes pin or funky clip. The 125 save the dates took about two weeks to complete, and while definitely not the most cost effective option out there, they were relatively inexpensive.

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I can’t say I was one of those girls who had dreamed about her wedding since she was little. So this left me at a loss for where to begin planning a wedding since I knew I did not want your traditional cookie cutter affair.

So I bought some wedding magazines and I logged on to The Knot and I discovered wedding blogs. Pretty soon I had so many clippings I didn’t know how to keep them all straight. I made a binder (I never used it!) I started a wedding file on three separate computers. I swear I’m an extremely organized person but the world of weddings was messing with my brain.

And one day I thought, why not start my own wedding blog? Even if no one reads it I could use it as a source to keep all of my thoughts and inspirations in one place. And thus, c is for charmed was born. It was a great way for me to interact with the many other wedding blogs and a great resource for the plethora of projects I wanted to do, but wasn’t exactly sure how or where to start.

I made an inspiration board a la Snippet & Ink:

I followed Weddingbee brides which led me to the perfect seating arrangement to compliment our ceremony…

{photo from Weddingbee}

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Ed note: I love featuring real weddings here on EAD, but what I love even more is when brides stop by to give us a full recap of their event, start to finish, in their own words.  This week, the lovely Christine from c is for charmed will be recapping her Buffalo wedding – look out all week for her posts!

Hello all! I’m so excited to be guest blogging this week for EAD. Wedding blogs were my source of overwhelming inspiration and served as my soundboard as my now husband, Jon and I planned our wedding. Jon and I got engaged on a my sister and father’s birthday (June 18th) and were married a little over a year later on August 29th in my hometown of Buffalo NY.

But let me tell you about us. My name is Christine, and my husband Jon and I live in New York City. I work as a publicist while he is a landscape architect. We met on public transportation on our way to work one fateful summer day. Three and a half years have passed since that day and we could not be happier! But let’s move on to some details!

Jumping into the planning process, I set out to create a DIY vintage inspired affair in Buffalo all while planning long distance from NYC. I found my dress on my lunch break, my bridesmaids dresses were from department stores and I made all of the paper products for our big day – anything but what I consider to be a traditional bridal experience!

*photo by Aaron Ingrao, edited by me