A backyard wedding somehow just seems extra romantic, doesn’t it? Particularly when it happens at the bride’s childhood home in spring on a misty day in May. And an abundance of sweetly-perfumed white peonies and soft green viburnum only adds to the equation!
The Design Concept
While Elizabeth and Jon met living in California, they decided to have an intimate backyard wedding at Elizabeth’s parents’ house just outside of Philadelphia. Elizabeth really loved the garden her mother had so lovingly curated over the years there and knew it would be the perfect spot to say “I do.” But they also wanted to infuse their special day with a touch of Cali flavor. So we kept the color palette crisp and light, used weathered wooden boxes for the centerpieces, and incorporated eucalyptus, succulents and ferns in the florals for an overall earthy elegant Sonoma vibe.
Planning a backyard wedding takes an extra level of attention to detail. Fortunately Elizabeth and Jon hired a top-notch vendor team to make sure everything went smoothly. We were delighted to work with Styled Bride, Sage Catering, and EventQuip on the logistics for this tented backyard wedding. Special thanks to Asya Photography for capturing all the beautiful details of this backyard wedding so perfectly and generously sharing the images in this post with us.
The Bridal Party Flowers
Elizabeth wore her mother’s bridal gown and requested a more traditional rounded all-white bouquet of peonies and ranunculus. It was an incredibly sweet and sentimental combination. Our farm’s peonies were at the perfect stage of bloom to be used in abundance throughout this mid-May wedding.
Elizabeth’s bridesmaids wore sage green dresses. They carried bouquets that were more loosely and organically structured, but still kept within that green and white palette. Their bouquets featured campanula, agrostemma, spirea, peonies, tulips and poppy pods. The dresses and bouquets complimented each other perfectly!
Jon wore a navy suit with a classic white pocket square. His boutonniere included a white ranunculus, lily of the valley, eucalyptus and rosemary.
The Backyard Wedding Ceremony and Reception
Elizabeth’s dad crafted a birch branch arch for the ceremony, which we decorated with lush green and white florals, including heaps of gestural spirea, billowy green viburnum, pearl bush, and those showy white peonies. At the base of the arch, we decorated a collection of stumps (also provided by Elizabeth’s handy dad) with gatherings of matching flowers and lots of candles. These candles lent a warm glow to the ceremony, which took place under the tent during a downpour. Jars of flowers hung from the chairs along the aisle for an added touch. These jars were later re-used to decorate the bars at the reception and cocktail hour.
The reception for this backyard wedding was held under a lovely sail cloth tent. We can’t say enough about how a sail cloth tent really elevates the look of any outdoor wedding reception, but especially a backyard wedding. There’s something so visually appealing about the swoops of the roof and the warm and inviting light that filters through into the tent.
Reception tables were a mix of longs and rounds. For the round tables, we created centerpieces in square wooden boxes that were spilling over with white blooms and lots of textural green foliage. For the long tables, we placed sprigs of eucalyptus and succulents directly on the table down the center and added lots of gold lanterns, pillar candles, votives and taper candles to create a feeling of dining at a table in Sonoma.
On the head table, a truly lush tablescape was created with several long narrow wooden boxes utterly overflowing with romantic green and white florals interspersed with an abundance of taper, pillar and votive candles along with succulents and eucalyptus directly on the table. All that candlelight proved the perfect countermeasure to the misty gray day outside the tent.
We were so delighted to be part of Elizabeth and Jon’s sweet backyard wedding! We’re eager for more of these!
For more spring backyard wedding floral inspiration, be sure to check out this previous post.
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