Part II of Leigh & Dave’s castle wedding in Maryland.  I’m not going to write anything about the wedding because Leigh was kind of enough to do a great write up to share with everyone, don’t miss it below.  And don’t miss part I.  Congrats again you two, all my best.

My intentions for our wedding was to make it as “uniquely us” as possible. Whether that meant forgoing normal tradition or building a lemonade stand, we put our all into making that day an expression of our own creativity. My dad built our arbor out of trees and supplies in their backyard, he made it completely detachable so they could take it apart to fit it in the car for the ride from Ohio to Baltimore. I wanted it to be ours so we could carve our names into it in some secret place and put it in our garden in our future backyard. Now I have something beautiful my father made me for our wedding day and will love looking at it every day. He also made me a tiered cupcake stand out of a tree stump.

My mother personally chose all of the flowers for the table decorations and arranged them herself. I chose yellow and white daisies for the girls bouquets and a couple of large calla lilies for myself. My mom also arranged all of those. All of the mothers and grandmothers wore blue hydrangeas on their wrists, the fathers wore them as corsages. My mom arranged those as well.

My husband jump started his interest in woodworking when I asked him to make a lemonade stand rather than renting one for $600. He made the entire stand himself and spray painted our initials on the front. We both spray painted the stenciled “Lemonade 5c” across the top board. He also hollowed out a tree stump as the envelope “box”. He made a top for it with an envelope slit in it and glued the top and bottom together for the wedding day.

Chef’s Expressions (http://www.chefsexpressions.com/) catered so of course the food was delicious. We were striving for a down home rustic feel so the food selection of “small plates” complimented this theme – mini grilled cheese with a shot of tomato soup, mac and cheese spoons, lamb sliders with boardwalk fries etc. They served John Dalys (spiked Arnold Palmers) out of mason jars at the lemonade stand. For dessert we had mini cobblers, mini cupcakes, Ohio buckeyes (I’m from Ohio), Smith Island cake (Dave is from Maryland), and white chocolate dipped cheesecake lollipops.

Joanna from Padma Salon (http://padmasalon.com/) in Hampden did my hair, Amanda Jung from Bobby Brown did my makeup, and my sister did all of the bridesmaids hair. The bridesmaid dresses and shoes were Jordan purchased from Isabella’s Bridal (no website) in White Marsh (sweetest Italian mother/daughter owners). I did a lot through Etsy including the bridesmaid jewelry, groomsmen ties & cufflinks. I also had 2 bridesmen as they have been 2 of my closest friends in Baltimore and it only seemed right.

My dress was Pronovias (http://www.pronovias.com/). My grandma helped pick it out and bought it for me. I picked up my boots at Clarks in Vegas before a Garth Brooks show. During the last week I was teetering on wearing them or picking out pretty shoes but I really hated all of the shoes and decided to stick with the original “rustic” plan. All of our jewelry (engagement rings, wedding bands, pearls) were from Tiarra Jewelers (http://tiarajewelers.com/) in Towson. I can’t rave enough about Tanya at Tiara. I’ll never buy jewelry anywhere else. My aquamarine earrings were actually a 16th birthday gift from my grandma and Tanya added detachable pearl drops to dress them up a bit. You just tell her what you want, she’ll draw it and it will be beautiful and very fair priced. Dave’s tux was the Legend by Calvin Klein.

I made all of the save the dates, invitations and programs myself and at times dragged my neighbors over to help punch holes or tie twine. My mom and sister did the save the dates. We dragged our dog and our neighbors across the street to take a picture of us sitting back to back drinking a beer. I photoshopped our cat into it and used that as the labels on the beer that Dave and I brewed ourselves at Flying Barrel in Frederick, MD. (http://www.flyingbarrel.com/). We brewed a pale ale, a wheat, and a porter and gave those away as favors along with homemade (and canned) salsa prepared by Dave’s mom using ingredients from her own garden.

I had both of our moms pick 20 childhood photos of us, “polaroided” them, printed them, wrote funny comments on them, and strung them with clothesline clips and twine in the cocktail hour area. I think everyone enjoyed having something nostalgic to look and laugh at.

I found Chris Ousley, a banjoist, on Craigslist who “auditioned” for us via video chat and played old timey tunes with another guitarist while sitting in the middle of the cocktail hour. I think that really solidified the rustic vibe we were going for.

The wedding was held at the beautiful Cloisters Castle (http://www.cloisterscastle.com/) in Lutherville, MD. My friends and family took on a lot of responsibility to make the wedding incredibly personalized so I have everyone to thank for making it a perfect day. And I couldn’t have done it without my husband who constantly tied bows, cut paper, glued ribbon etc whenever I asked until very late hours of the night.