Our August 2022 wedding included almost exclusively DIY and thrifted decorations. Our venue on the Abiqua river was both gorgeous and free! We had always planned to get married outside and wanted it to be in a dreamy foresty setting, but every venue we looked at was so expensive and required catering minimums, so we landed on making the most of the property my mom lives on. [See post about our venue search add link] They even had this rustic arch lying around! I was thrilled when I saw it!
The wooden arch needed some reinforcement to stand, but we were able to find materials lying around so this part was no cost. My mom offered to paint it but I loved it just the way it was; right down to the moss it was growing! I bought these Curtain Fairy Lights on Amazon because in my head it was going to be darker during the ceremony than it turned out to be IRL. They were so pretty when it did get dark, but I didn’t get any pictures of the ceremony space after dusk.
I thrifted the drapery from the local Goodwill. I had found the most perfect green panels months ahead of time and unfortunately misplaced them *sad trombone sound* Luckily, I found these light sage-y panels in the last few days before the wedding.
I handmade the swag for the arch, and tbh I am super proud of how it turned out. Details on how I pulled it together in this post [link to post].
