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Country Chic Mountain Wedding in the Tetons | Wyoming

Lucky in Love | Lisa and Lyle

Lisa + Lyle
August 20, 2011
The Tetons (Wyoming/Idaho)

When I saw this delightful Wyoming wedding waiting in my inbox from bride Lisa I felt like the luckiest blogger in town. But not as lucky as Lisa herself, who titled her wedding “Lucky in Love.” And not as lucky as you who gets the full benefit of Lisa’s best hindsight advice for her DIY wedding (Mountain Style.)

 


  

 

Real Hindsight Advice

Tell us about your wedding

A few days before the wedding, my maid of honor, Liz, found a four-leaf clover in a patch of grass near our house and promptly pressed it in my not-used-enough copy of “The Joy of Cooking.” This was an omen, she said. I didn’t think much of it until the day of the wedding when I began to realize just how lucky Lyle and I actually are. We have great families, wonderful friends, and, for this happy occasion, we were blessed with some old fashioned good fortune.

Lyle and I have been together for almost a decade; we own a home together, have a cat and a dog, and are used to having an unyielding companion in each other. Lyle proposed in April 2010, and we began the often daunting task of planning our own wedding.

Our do-it-yourself-style event could not have happened without a great deal of help. It was truly a showing of love and devotion that came not only from family but from friends, our dog and even complete strangers.

Locally, our friends joined together to form a catering/decor-gathering/anything-else-we-needed crew. A creative friend of mine found more aqua mason jars than I could have imagined at yard sales, and her husband created three wood cake stands for our lemon-lavender cupcakes. Another friend and former co-worker performed the ceremony. Lyle’s restaurant friends handled the catering, and a local wine store helped us order regional wine made in Boise, Idaho.

A local lavender farm provided fresh and dried lavender bunches that were a perfect compliment to the scenery at the lodge that evening. A gardener friend supplied home-grown herbs and flowers for our aisle decor.

Lyle’s family is artistically inclined, and my now sister-in-law offered to make these beautiful luminaries out of white string and glue. She and Lyle’s mom and a team of helpers assembled dozens of these delicate lanterns in a matter of days and hung them generously on the trees near our reception tent. For an alternative to a guest book, my mother-in-law, an artist by trade, drew a large tree with our names and even our cat and dog in the scene for people to place their thumbprints on. The tree now hangs beautifully in our living room.

After the local nursery gave us our bulk flower order, even more relatives made centerpieces post-haste. And when they found the next day that the flowers had suffered a bit of frostbite in the refrigerator (see: what we wish we had done), friends from Maine to Salt Lake City joined forces to collect wildflowers from around the property. My mom used some of those flowers to make boutonnieres.

It gets better. At some point during the planning process, I became addicted to finding off-the-beaten-path wedding blogs and ideas that would suit us. On one such blog I came across a photo contest being offered by a young photographer in Greenville, South Carolina. So I entered. I included information about Lyle’s and my journey toward marriage and some not-so-subtle hints about how beautiful the Tetons are. We won!

I didn’t truly believe it until I saw Jennifer Stuart at our rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding; this woman flew across the country to photograph our Alta, Wyoming wedding out of the goodness of her heart.

I was most touched by the fact that our dearest friends from across the country managed to find their way to Alta for our wedding that wonderful weekend. It was such an honor to have them celebrate with us and to introduce our friends from way back when to those new to our hearts.

Our wedding day was filled with love, and Lyle and I were able to enjoy this celebration without much worry about how things would turn out. Our dog, Bella, even served as our ring bearer and was as well behaved as any loyal companion standing up there with us.

Gloomy clouds did allow a few drops of rain to fall just before the ceremony (another good omen, said Liz), but they cleared and blue sky returned until the sun set over a field to the west of our reception site.

It was all much more than we could have asked for. Our wedding was perfect, thanks in no small part to friends, family, lots of love, and a little bit of luck.

 

What we’re glad we did:

  • Though we did go slightly over budget, I must say we were pleased with the easy-going feel of our wedding day and being able to plan it all ourselves. I’m also glad we enlisted the help of friends and family to get things in order!
  • I never was a girl who dreamed about her wedding day since the time she was little, but I am pleased that we were able to have an outdoor wedding, something I find more freeing than a church ceremony, for instance.

 

What I wish we had done:

  • I wish I had gotten a few more detail-related items done ahead of time (such as tying sparklers in bunches for guests, cutting out place cards and printing the program (which I did on my own computer the night before the wedding!). Everything eventually got done, but it could have been a little less stressful on us and our wedding party had we planned a little bit further in advance to take care of the little things.
  • Looking back, we should have stuck to our budget a little better, because we’re still paying for it almost a year later!
  • Also, we should have checked the basement fridge in the lodge where we stored our flower arrangements the night before the wedding. The tenants before us had set the fridge to a very cold setting, and our flowers suffered a bit of frostbite.
  • Other than that, we were completely satisfied with our big day!

 

What we wish we hadn’t done

Aside from drinking a little too much at the reception, we don’t have any regrets!

 

Things we wish we hadn’t worried about

I am a worrier, and I worried and worried and worried about keeping all of our diverse guests entertained throughout the night. I kept thinking we needed to add more activities to the day so people wouldn’t get bored … but let’s face it … when you put a bunch of great people together for a love-oriented celebration, the fun times take care of themselves!

 

Best Hindsight advice:

Stick to your budget, no matter how tempting it may be to do otherwise. A few hundred dollars here and there can add up, and then you’re left with the bill once the celebration is over.

 

Team DIY

  • I was Mason jar obsessed, and I knew with our modest budget that we could make a country-chic wedding with these as a central tie in. Aqua mason jars served as centerpieces, and I found Mason jar salt and pepper shakers on Ebay for all of the tables. Place cards were made of aqua-blue paper cut in the shape of mason jars and threaded with local lavender.
  • I printed Dover utensil art on Kraft policy envelopes to add to the rustic décor, and we included burlap table runners from Etsy in the mix.
  • Family and friends helped arrange flowers, make boutonnieres, make place cards and luminaries for the event.

Team Wedding