It was a lot easier than I thought it would be to plan my outside wedding and reception. In fact, it didn’t cost as much as an indoor wedding would have cost us. Since we had the beauty of nature all around us, it wasn’t too expensive to decorate. The first thing on my agenda was to find that perfect place to hold our summer wedding and reception party. I could have had our wedding ceremony on the beach, with a fun filled beach party reception, or an elegant garden party, but I chose a ceremony and reception in the park. I found several perfect parks that would work fine for our wedding day.
Since I never planned a wedding like this before, I needed all the help I could get. When you plan to be married in the great outdoors, it seems you have to have a backup plan just in case the weather turns from sunny to pouring buckets. A tent was suggested just in case the weather turns out badly.
In our original wedding preparations, we had a lovely canopy set up for the reception and a lovely trellis for our ceremony. I mainly concentrated on the decorations for our wedding table and the reception tables. About all I needed were a extra flowers and my table settings, thanks to the already present beauty of the park. I decided to go with artificial flowers because I didn’t want to have our wedding to be the target of a bee swarm. The only way you could tell that the flowers were artificial, was by touch, they were beautiful. Planning this wedding wasn’t all that hard, but there was a little more than I expected. Like, making sure there were citronella candles all around, rest rooms close by and making sure our cake was kept cool until ready to be cut.
There was a variety of accessories available for the outdoor reception. As centerpieces for our reception tables I used citronella votive candles and place them in glass globes with flowers around them, and used park bench place card holders for each guest. I found very decorative favor boxes and used them to package the chrome bottle openers we bought for our friends and family as a summer wedding favor. The most beautiful part of our wedding table was our cake with it’s gorgeous wedding cake topper.
While shopping for my wedding accessories I saw this topper and couldn’t resist it. They were customized toppers for the wedding couple. All I had to do was send in a head shot picture of me and my fiance and they custom made a bride and groom cake topper with our faces. How could I ask for a better wedding keepsake than that? Our friends and family were really loved the cake topper and gave us a lot of compliments on it. Our crystal champagne flutes and silver cake serving set was just a few of the fantastic accessories I ordered for our ceremony and reception. It’s unbelievable all the lovely accessories you can purchase from you computer.
It was the perfect wedding and reception, just like I had hoped for. Plan B never had to be used, since the weather was so beautiful, and thankfully it remained that way through the whole evening. We all loved the super DJ and the fantastic job he was doing, and if I’m right, he probably kept the music and dancing going on for quite a while after we left to go on our honeymoon. A lot of good things were said about our wedding ceremony and everyone said they had a fantastic time at the reception. I’m so glad I decided to go with a wedding in the park. I’d love to do this again and have a wedding renewal in the park, maybe for an anniversary, someday.