Hello! and Welcome to my most Requested Wedding Post…

The Decor.

featuring my mom, “It’s By Deb.”

Photography: Alicia Fierro ( Aesthetiica )

Let’s jump right into all of these details. There are so many to go through!

When it came to my wedding, and all of its details, there was nobody better for the job than my own mother. Miss creativity herself, It’s By Deb . It’s funny, because she has ALWAYS had this level of creativity, but I just know that she has been counting down the minutes/seconds to throw a wedding and let her true talent shine. Boy, oh boy, did she shine! Disclaimer: Every picture in this post, down to every lantern and/or placed piece of greenery, was done by my mom. 3:00 AM the night before the wedding was when she finally stopped putting the final touches on our venue (and up at 5:00AM for hair and makeup, might I add.) We owe our entire vision coming to life, to my mom, and are forever indebted for making this magical venue come to life.

I must start by telling you that when I say we built our venue from “the ground up,” there is no wiggle room in that statement. We quite literally started with some grass, and my Aunt and Uncle’s beautiful log cabin. THAT. WAS. IT. We built walkways out of wood, pulled weeds and groomed the yard every day for two weeks leading up to our big day. My dad drove out to Morris 5 days in a row at 5:00AM before work to spray the entire property for mosquito’s/bugs to ensure our guests were comfortable. (There was not a bug in sight.) We were VERY hands on. The gazebo that you see was brand new, and roofed by my very own, Kevin Filotto in the dark with flood lights, 48 hours before the big day.

Memories.

We created so many memories BEFORE we even got to our big day. Late night laughs full of Pizza (or 12:30 Mcdonalds runs.) We had SO many hands on deck, I cannot even begin to Thank everyone without getting a little emotional. I wouldn’t take any of the bumps, bruises, or bee stings back for a second. All of the hard work that went into this day for months ahead, was worth it.

Let’s Get Specific.

The Clear Tent.

For our AMAZING clear tent, lights, and chairs, we used Blue Peak Tents . They were awesome to work with, and fulfilled my vision of the Clear Tent.

(The hanging greenery chandeliers were handmade by my mom as well)

Inside The Tent.

Not one, detail left undone. From the drapery on each tent post, to every candlestick on our head table, Deb HANDLED IT. We kept our table setting incredibly simple. There is nothing worse than sitting at an event and not being able to see over, under, or around a centerpiece. Being that our color scheme was neutral, we wanted to keep the tone inside of the tent very simple and elegant as well. Our centerpieces were in fact our ONLY real/live flowers at the wedding. Everything else you see for greenery was fake! We did this for two reasons.. A. We wanted it to be cost efficient. There is NO reason to spend so much money on real flowers when you can find fake floral with great quality. I do understand that it helps to have the talent of someone to put the greenery together in such a way, ( my mom has a floral arrangement background) but this was very cost efficient for us. B. My mom was able to make all of the flower arrangements and greenery add-ons MONTHS ahead of time for time management. Granted, it did take over most of her house for weeks and weeks, but it was something she could check off of our very long list in terms of decor prep.

We bought cheaper items, like our Ikea Picture Frames for our Table Numbers, and added greenery to them to make them look custom. We purchased our table numbers off of amazon. What I am getting at, is that there are ways to be financially efficient and still make it look custom!

Flowers.

As I stated before, my mom was able to do all of the flowers ahead of time. We were VERY picky when it came to the flowers and what we wanted, given that it is my mom’s background. Everything from the bouquet’s to the guys boutonniere’s, was fake. We also perfectly matched all of our potted plants that we had around our venue, to match our fake flowers perfectly. Funny story about that..

We had over 30 potted plants at our venue filled with planted flowers to match our color scheme. MONTHS before our Wedding my mom went to everyone’s houses and planted flowers in their home pots that correlated with the fake florals. Myself, my mom, my sister, my aunt.. we ALL had specific instructions to MAKE SURE we kept these potted plants alive and kept up so they were bountiful for the Wedding reception. It was stressful, but worth it. Check out how well my mom matched the fake flowers to the potted plants…

The Bar.

The bar that gave me 11 bee stings 3 days before my Wedding. Mhm….. 11.

So our bar was VERY custom. This wagon was from an old restaurant in Morris that was closing down, and the owner decided that my Uncle needed to have it for his farm. After years of it sitting in the back of his property, my mom and aunt walked by it and thought…”There’s our bar!!” I am telling you, the creativity is wild. What a statement piece this turned out to be.

When it was time to move the wagon from the back of the property, up to the house, we had to wheel it up very slowly and carefully. Being the type of hands on that we were, the bride and groom, Kevin and Kylie decided that they needed to be the ones to complete this task. So there we were, moving the wagon out from under all the brush and weeds, when suddenly…….. OW OW OW OW OW. Kylie sticks her hand into a wasp’s nest that had been living under the wagon and was stung 11 times in multiple places on her body. LUCKILY, most of the stings were on my legs which were then covered by my dress. They welted, I got a terrible headache, and after many expletives later.. my brother-in-law came to the rescue by scraping out all 11 stingers with his credit card. FAMILY LOVE, I’m telling’ ya!

So, we cleaned up the wagon, got a custom piece of plexiglass and the bar was made! It was so on brand with our venue, that my aunt has since decided to make it her outdoor table and bought high-top stools to go around it! How cool is that?

Added Touches.

The Guestbook.

I was very adamant on doing something fun and memorable for our guestbook. We landed on a Bag Set for all of our guests to sign. We now have these to use for parties at our home with the memory of all that were in attendance for our wedding. So fun!!

Personal Touches.

Lucky for us, we were able to be resourceful as we cleaned up the venue for the event. My Uncle had pre-determined that he was going to take down an old wood fence that he had been wanting to come down for years, and OF COURSE, my mom saw this as an opportunity to make use of the old wood. We used any opportunity we could to make things out of the old barn wood, including our Picture Station. It was so fun to see what my mom did with all of the old fence scraps. Take a look for yourself!

(Notice the Restroom sign we made out of the Old Fence wood)

Another really fun personal element we brought into our reception was having my cousin play Live Acoustic Music at our cocktail hour. He is so talented, and was so willing and excited to do it. We LOVED IT. It was the most perfect personal touch to our cocktail hour.

Memorable Add-On’s.

With keeping on the theme of making our day memorable. We wanted to give our guests something to talk about. We wanted to keep everyone fed throughout the night, and give them an element of surprise. So as a Thank you to our guests.. we brought in a Food Truck. (Best food truck I’ve ever had) and then surprised our Guests with a Firework Show! These little added touches are the things people still bring up to us when we talk about our wedding. No, really…. everyone is still talking about the Grilled Cheese and Tater Tot Truck! We knew with the property we had, we would be able to have a firework display as an element of celebration. It was something I was SUPER adamant on when we initially talked about the Venue. I can remember my Aunt and Uncle throwing birthday parties for my cousins when we were younger and having fireworks, and I knew the ambiance was exactly what I wanted for this type of celebration. It was the second question I asked my uncle, right after I asked him if we could use his property for our reception. “Can we PLEASE have fireworks?”