Last month I attended the beautiful backyard wedding of my sister Kendra and brother-in-law Rob. They live in the picturesque Sierra Nevada foothills of Grass Valley, in Northern California. Whenever we visit my family in California, I’m always enchanted by this place which somehow manages to retain a sense of those long-ago frontier days of the wild west. Traveling up Route 49 through gold country, the road winds around gentle hills covered with evergreens and scrub grass, past ranches and Victorian-era gold-rush towns, before making its gradual ascent toward the Tahoe National Forest. It is this rustic, rural landscape that provided the backdrop and inspiration for Kendra’s and Rob’s wedding decor.
The overall style of the wedding was casual-country chic and filled with personal touches. I loved that Kendra and Rob chose to use lots of personally meaningful elements in their design. It was truly impressive how much of their wedding was DIY, and I know how much hard work they put into preparing their yard to host 100+ guests (it showed!) The main color scheme of the wedding was indigo, accented with lavender and daisy florals, rough-hewn wood decorations and vintage glass bottles.
Pretty white daisies and lavender in vintage glass canning jars provided just the right dose of country-casual chic.
This charming sign, a wedding gift from close friends, was set up to greet guests as they arrived.
A generous expanse of green lawn framed by planting beds and trees set the stage for the wedding. The focal point, where the ceremony was conducted, was an arbor that Rob (who is an incredibly handy DIY’er) built himself out of stripped cedar posts. My help was enlisted to create a canopy for the arbor. We purchased about twelve yards of unbleached muslin and a roll of burlap ribbon. Then, assisted by one of the groomsmen, I spent a couple of hours wrapping, draping and pinning the fabric to the posts to get just the right effect. I was pretty pleased with how it came out (and more importantly, the bride seemed to like it):
Here’s the completed wedding arbor on the day before the ceremony.
We used 4″ wide burlap ribbon to tie the muslin to the corners of the posts. There are also a number of cleverly concealed staples to keep the drapery from flying away with the wind!
Kendra and Rob have a unique hobby: they enjoy going on”digs” where they unearth artifacts such as arrowheads and old bottles from woods and fields in the area. Many of their special finds – beautiful old glass and ceramic bottles – were used as decorations, giving the wedding an extra personal touch.
Rob sliced cedar logs to use as the base for the centerpieces, which were topped with antique bottles and a candle.
