A Beautiful Disaster

So it's the day before Thanksgiving.  I'm sitting here, watching my husband play with our dog, and I can't help but smile.  I'm a WIFE.  So much has happened this past year - and obviously the milestone that sticks out the most to me is our wedding.

Last year, on the day before Thanksgiving, I didn't even think we would have a wedding.  I got the call I had been dreading.  Our wedding venue had finally made a decision regarding the damage they suffered from Hurricane Sandy.  They would not be able to repair and rebuild in time for our June wedding.  They were terribly sorry for the inconvenience.  Our deposit would be returned to us in full.  Oh, and have a Happy Thanksgiving.

We delivered the news to our families over Thanksgiving dinner: Our wedding was CANCELED.

We very seriously considered eloping.  As much as I wanted a big celebration with all our friends and family, the most important thing to me was marrying Brian.  Neither of us was up for looking at more wedding venues.  We saw practically every venue on the Jersey Shore when we first got engaged and they all just seemed so ordinary.  I have absolutely nothing against a reception hall or fancy restaurant but I envisioned a really unique space for us.  Something laidback and beachy without feeling like a cliché.  Casual elegance.

Our original venue had everything we were looking for -- a small, intimate location for the ceremony, a tented outdoor space with water views for the reception.  I couldn't fathom finding anything like it again.  Here I was - a beaming bride in the middle of planning her dream wedding and then BOOM - all my plans were literally swept out to sea. 

If Hurricane Sandy gave me anything positive, it's perspective.  Brian and I had just survived the worst natural disaster of our lifetime.  We are both born and raised beach kids.  Our connection to the Jersey Shore runs deep.  It has been home to us both separately and as a couple.  In a matter of hours, we watched family and friends lose their homes, local businesses get destroyed, childhood memories reduced to rubble and our beloved boardwalk disappear.  We still had our health, a roof over our heads and jobs to return to - which is a whole lot more than most of the other "locals" we knew.

It was time to hatch a new plan.  It was time for a "Plan B Wedding." 

My parents offered to host our wedding in their backyard.  We would have to cut down our list... A LOT.  We would also have to change our expectations.  Their home is near the beach but it's not on the beach, like we wanted.  Once we said goodbye to a big, expensive beach wedding, we realized the possibilities of a backyard wedding were limitless. 

We treated my parents' yard like a blank canvas - a blank canvas with the potential to have one hell of a party.  We mapped it out into specific sections just like any other wedding venue, only this time we had complete and total control.  The side yard would have plenty of seating and a trellis for the ceremony.  The patio would act as the place for the cocktail hour and then morph into the dance floor.  The wrap-around porch would become the bar.  The backyard would be tented with a massive buffet and lots of round tables for our guests to eat, drink and talk.  The front yard would be for mingling and yard games.  It was actually perfect.

I'm going to be very honest here.  We were totally unprepared for the work that goes into a DIY backyard wedding.  We definitely drove a lot of people crazy, including ourselves, in the process of planning this wedding.  We spent every single weekend doing manual labor to get my parent's 36-year-old home ready for 85 of our nearest and dearest to enjoy themselves.  Brian and my dad laid bricks and put up a fence in 90 degree weather.  My mom and I weeded and planted and raked and mulched until our fingers bled.  And don't even get me started on the stress and full-blown crying fits that ensued in those last days leading up the wedding, especially when the weather called for 70% chance of thunderstorms.

But we also had a lot of fun.  A DIY wedding turned out to be the best outlet for my unbridled (no pun intended) creativity and craftiness.  I had this really specific vision of how I wanted the day to look.  And not only did our wedding turn out just as I pictured, it was even better.  Of all the events I've planned in Corporate America, I had never been more proud of an event than I was at my own wedding.

If Hurricane Sandy had never happened, we would have never had a backyard wedding.  And I never would've discovered my calling as a wedding planner.  And Backyard Bride would never exist.

The whole thing was really just a beautiful disaster.

Brian and I happily exchanging vows right in the yard where I learned to walk as a baby.  So cool.

Cornhole, Anyone?

The first time I ever played cornhole was at a tailgate party before a Giants game.  Even though I admittedly hate football, I definitely loved this new bean-bag-throwin' sport I'd discovered.  The next time I played cornhole was at a different tailgate party before a concert.  I fell in love with the game all over again.

I sort of figured cornhole was a game specifically meant to be played in parking lots due to all the tailgating I was doing.  But then I noticed it popping up at a lot of summer BBQs and pool parties too.  Brian gets pretty pumped any time he can play a game at a party so our names will inevitably be the first on the cornhole sign-up sheet.  Brian and I usually make a pretty good team in that he sinks most of the shots and I run and fetch us fresh beers while I wait for my turn. 

I now equate cornhole with laidback summer nights.  It's a game that pretty much anyone can play.  I say that because if I can play it, anyone can (I'm limited in the hand/eye coordination department).  The rules are simple and the turnaround time between teams is fairly quick so everybody gets a turn.

When it came time to start planning our backyard wedding, I naturally took the lead since I'm an event planner for a living.  Brian didn't ask for much as far as his "must-haves."  Except he insisted that we have cornhole.  I was a bit hesitant but in his eyes, it was non-negotiable.  Cornhole or bust. 

I obliged. We ended up having our neighbor build us two custom cornhole sets (4 boards total) and painted them in our colors - yellow and navy.  We ordered our bean bags from Etsy.  Easy.

Let me just say this - if you're planning a backyard wedding or any kind of outdoors party, and you want an option for your dance-floor-shy guests, cornhole is a MUST.  Since we were blessed with a perfect summer evening, cornhole ended up being the main attraction at our wedding.  Seriously.  The front yard was packed with people ages 2 - 84, all waiting their turn to play, all night long.

 

 

 

 

 

The best part is that we've used the cornhole sets over and over since our wedding weekend.  I'm starting to think people are just inviting us to their summer soirees because they know we'll bring cornhole.

In case you've never played cornhole, here's run down of the rules:

• Cornhole can be played as doubles or singles.
• In doubles play one team members pitch from opposite boards. So each team has one player throwing from the left pitcher's box and one throwing from the right.
• In singles play, a player competes against another player (both pitch from the same board). All other rules are the same for doubles or singles play.
• Every match is broken down into frames of play. Players alternate pitching until all 8 bags have been pitched, completing the frame. The player who scored in the preceding frame shall pitch first in the next frame. If neither pitcher scores, the player who pitched first in the preceding frame shall pitch first in the next frame.

Points

• Cornholes - A bag thrown through the hole in the board. A bag can be pushed in by other bags from either player.
• Cornhole = 3 points.
• Woody or Boarder - A bag that is not in-the-hole but lands with any portion resting on the board.
• Woody or Boarder = 1 point.
• If the bag touches the ground before hitting the board or lands hanging off the board while also touching the ground it is called a "Dirty." Any "Dirty" bags must be removed from play before the next bag is tossed.
• Stanker or Foul Bag - Any toss that is not a Cornhole or a Woody.
• Stanker or Foul Bag = 0 points.
• Bags knocked into foul territory by a foul bag should be returned as closely as possible to their original position. This also applies to bags that are knocked into the hole by a foul bag.

Scoring

Traditional 21 Scoring - In this game opposing players' frame points cancel one another out. Only those points that do not cancel out apply to the total overall score. Example: Team A scores 5 points in a frame and Team B scores 6 points in the same frame. Team B scores 1 point for that frame.

Mason Jars: Passe or Here to Stay?

When Brian and I got engaged in August 2012, I had already been secretly planning our rustic, nautical-themed wedding in my mind for quite some time.  You can't really blame me - Brian and I had been to about 20 weddings collectively before our own and I've been a bridesmaid 5 times (M-O-H once).  We're at "that age."

Although I waited to plan most of the details of our wedding during our actual engagement, I knew for years (maybe before I even met  Brian) that I wanted to have mason jars at my wedding.  When I originally hatched this plan, like I said, years ago, mason jars were just beginning to pop up in craft stores and hip restaurants were using them as drinking glasses.  Pinterest didn't even exist.

Fast forward to our wedding this past June (2013).  My dream of incorporating mason jars into my wedding finally came true.  We gave out adorable mason jars with handles and chalk board labels with each guest's name written in chalk as favors and to use throughout the night.  They also acted as place cards with the table number tied to them. 

They were a hit... but they weren't an original hit.  Not a single guest came up to me and said, "Mason jars!  How unique.  You're so clever."  That's because I guarantee that by the time our wedding rolled around, every single one of our guests had been to another wedding with "mason jar mania." 

Here's the thing about wedding trends and pretty much all trends for that matter... at some point, they will become passé.  As a bride-to-be, you will come up with the most fantastic, creative, mind-blowing idea for your wedding and during the year it takes to plan it and get there, odds are some other bride already beat you to the punch.

I say - if you love an idea and absolutely have to have it at your wedding, don't suddenly change your mind or drive yourself crazy just because it has become the latest fad.  If that were the case, pretty much everyone would stop having photo booths (super trendy at the moment) and those are just too fun for your drunk guests to ever pass up.

The jury is still out on whether mason jars are passé or here to stay.  But the good news is that if you find yourself with an overabundance of mason jars because you hopped on that bandwagon and now want to hop off, you can always use them for their intended use as, ya know.... jars.

See Sparks Fly

I absolutely love sparklers.  They are fun and festive and look incredible in photos.  My husband and I thought it would be fun to end our wedding with a "Sparkler Send-off."  I'm so glad we did!

This was a cheap and easy thing to put together and I highly recommend it for any couple planning a summer wedding. We simply ordered personalized matchbooks (Wedding Things) and sparklers in bulk (Koyal Wholesale).  We let the DJ know so he could make an announcement and also mentioned it on our programs so our guests were aware of our unique ending of the festivities.

We also gave the photographer a heads up and she definitely delivered on capturing some truly amazing shots!

We displayed the sparklers in a pretty glass jar and added beachy touches.

Our matchbooks said "See Sparks Fly" with our names & the date of the wedding.

The guests really got into it!

And we're off...

One of my absolute favorite pics from the wedding.