Whimsical Woodland Wedding

This is a wedding that I had found about 4 months ago. It was immediately saved in my favorites! There are so many delightful details that I've been itching to post this wonderful wedding! My fiance is an avid outdoorsmen and is literally above and beyond an animal lover. This makes me have a soft spot for wildlife as well. This is why I love this wedding - the raccoons are just adorable. I love a more rustic, woodsy looking wedding - but that's just my style!

More of my favorites and this woodsy brides advice post pictures! : ) Enjoy Sparklers!

Love her bouquet!

I love love love the assorted vests option rather than a suit jacket! so fun!

 

Love the banner! and the seating!

It's so awesome that you can tell that they're having a great time! 

Instead of a unity candle or unity sand, they opted to do something a little bit different (YAY!). They instead had a wooden box made and filled it with a bottle of whiskey and two love letters. The box is supposed to symbolize their love when it was at its peak and whenever they go through a rough patch with their marriage, they can open the box, drink the whiskey and read the love letters they wrote to each other and reflect on why they fell in love. The hope is that they never have to open the box, which is why they had their closest family and friends help seal the box during the ceremony (good ol' hammer and nails poundin' away during the ceremony. I personally would love it! hehe)-- I have also seen where a couple uses an old wine bottle and seals it with the cork and if they haven't had any rough patches where they've had to break the bottle open they would on their 25th wedding anniversary. There are literally so many unique things you could come up with over unity candles/unity sand. I don't like the thought of unity candles because I hate that the flame gets blown out... (I am so weird w/ certain stuff! I don't like flowers either because of the fact that they eventually die. I was given a ceramic rose once because of this superstitious fear. I am no longer w/ the person who gave it to me but it was thoughtful none the less and I guess it goes to show my stupid superstitions are dead wrong sometimes! So go ahead and open that umbrella in the store! Punch a mirror! What do you have to lose? ; )

Yup. I adore mason jars in any setting. Seriously.

Trishia made this curtain of flowers using recycled soda bottles and spray paint. HOW AWESOME RIGHT?!?

EEEK!! LOVE LOVE LOVE everything about this picture below! The lil animal table number holders and the the personalized tea towels for favors!

Advice from the Woodland Bride for those planning now:
Be yourself!  There were definitely moments during our planning stages where we would try to explain some detail or some aspect of our wedding to our friends and family and either we couldn’t explain it well enough or they just couldn’t grasp some portion of it. Don’t let this discourage you - just because they don’t have the image in their head doesn’t mean they won’t be just as impressed by the finished product!
Know your talents and limitations! Don’t try and do everything yourself and ask for help if you need it. Trust other people to do what they do best. I made a concerted effort to NOT do anything I didn’t feel like doing and to say NO if I didn’t have the time, energy, or budget. Needless to say, I have a tendency to overextend myself :) My mom and dad, my sister, Jill, and Justin, were a huge, huge help with keeping me in check and not letting me take on too much.

I love her advice! She starts out saying "Be yourself!" which is what I try to encourage more than anything with weddings! I've said I wanted an Enchanted Forest themed wedding and people have looked at me like I had 8 heads! (we have now changed to Woodland Fairytale which is Brandi and Matthew rolled into one - more fitting!). I have decided to stop sharing ideas w/ some family/future family/even friends because some don't seem to get my vision. They have a hard time picturing what I do so I am going to kind of keep things to myself a bit and let them sit back and be wow-ed on our big day! : ) That's more fun anyway, right?!

Since this is my absolute favorite wedding I decided I better narrow down my absolute 5 favorite details from this whimsical woodland wedding! They are in noooo particular order (I feel like I'm announcing the top 5 candidates for Miss USA): 

1) The wedding invites - can you say ADORBS?! I absolutely love them!

2) The personalized raccoons - they MADE this wedding! I love that their friend/groomsmen had these drawn up to sort of look like them and they created their own "brand" essentially. They were shown on the invites, grooms ring/vest, tea towels that were favors for the guests and the menu cards. You could do this w/ a letter head or many unique hobbies/activities you enjoy as a couple or or even use two to represent you as individual. Truly unique!! LOVE the little animal table holders too : )

3) The butterfly clips in the bride's hair! She threw out the idea of a veil and chose these little beauties for hair accessories! They really help tie in the woodsy theme don't you think?

4) The curtain with the recycled/spray painted soda can flowers!! Time consuming yet near the cost of nothing for something so fabulous! I have to find out how to make these!!

5) The location. Who would have ever thought of a kids camp? It's so awesome that it was one that the bride had attended as a kid!

What were your favorites Sparklers?

Thank You to Jodi and Kurt of Jodi Miller Photography for the awesome pictures of this sweet little woodland union!!