Meghan & Jeremy’s DIY, Backyard Baltimore, MD Wedding in the Woods

A beautiful Baltimore area wedding on the blog this morning. Meghan & Jeremy‘s simply stunning wedding is the perfect example of how understated, handmade details  can still be full of beauty. You will love Meghan’s unique, goddess-like dress, the lovely lavender bouquets, and a TON of details from the bride herself about why those chose to have the type of wedding they did, completely handmade & in the woods of Baltimore!

Thanks to Amie Hauck Photography for sharing the beautiful images!

Meet Jeremy & Meghan:

Jeremy and I met in college.  We didn’t actually like each other and argued in and out of class all the time.  In retrospect, our capacity for finding things to argue about looked a lot like chemistry, and when we did finally get together none of our friends were surprised.  After graduating, we both moved to Annapolis, Maryland, where we reconnected and immediately began dating.  We knew pretty quickly that we felt seriously about each other and talked about getting married (and picked out rings) months before we became formally engaged over a long weekend in another historic little town, Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.

Meghan tells us how they started their wedding planning, reviewing what was important to them, and what kind of wedding they wanted to have:

When we started thinking about what we wanted the wedding to be like, we knew it was important to us to have our friends and family there with us to celebrate.  Neither of us is very traditional, however, so we rethought many of the wedding standards, wanting to keep costs down, keep things simple, and remember that the day is about celebrating our marriage.

It was also very important to us that our guests enjoy themselves.  To keep organized but not have things get totally taken over by the craziness of theknot-style to do lists, we listed everything that really mattered to us in a spreadsheet to track when things needed to be done, when they did get done, and actual and estimated costs.  Ultimately, we wanted to keep things easy and low-stress.

I love Meghan’s simple dried lavender bouquet. Like really love it.

Dried lavender, ribbons & a beautiful vintage brooch – bam, DIY bouquet made by Meghan’s sister:

 She made my bouquet out of leftover dried lavender and ribbon and attached a brooch that belongs to our elderly grandmother, who was unable to travel to Maryland for the celebration.

How dreamy are these portraits in the woods? Gives them almost an ethereal, nymph-like aura

Click inside to see more beautiful pictures from Meghan & Jeremy’s simply stunning outdoor Baltimore wedding (including a lot more details from Meghan!)

More from Meghan on the reception & ceremony venues:

Among the first decisions to be made were our choice of officiant and our choice of venue.  Our good friend John was ordained through the Universal Life Church online.  It meant a lot to us to have someone we were close to perform the ceremony.  We looked at several public parks in the Baltimore area, and Patapsco Valley State Park was by far the most beautiful: the stone structures were built during the Great Depression by the Civil Conservation Corps as a part of the New Deal, and the patio overlooks the beautiful Patapsco River Valley. 

 We also decided to have a local restaurant, Andy Nelson’s Barbecue, cater, and my mom and I made pies for dessert.  The pies sound like a lot of work, but we actually made them over the course of a couple of months and froze them until the day before.  We also found a liquor store willing to deliver a keg and a bunch of boxed wine directly to the venue.

Bride & her mother made the pies for her wedding ~ seriously DIY dessert!

Those decisions really set the tone for the rest of the planning process: we knew it was going to be very casual and that we would have to do the setup ourselves and with any friends willing to help the morning of the wedding, so we didn’t want anything elaborate or complicated.

We wanted to be able to relax in the days leading up to the wedding without a bunch of last-minute projects, so the flower arrangements are dried lavender in mason jars tied with ribbon.

Adore these simple, white cloth banners. The white against the stone is gorgeous, simple but still beautiful

And now the finished effect:

Meghan’s sister made the awesome DIY bunting!

 Most of our decorations were white to simplify color-coordination and to complement rather than detract from the beautiful stone and greenery of the park.  The bunting was something that my sister came up with and made by sewing triangles of white cotton together with a zigzag stitch for my bridal shower; we liked it so much that we made a bunch more and put it all over the park pavilion.

 I LOVE Jeremy & Meghan’s beautifully unique & simple rings! Like … 100% love.

On keeping vendors to a minimum:

Obviously, a lot of these decisions were about keeping things simple: as much work as possible was done months and weeks in advance, and we kept the look simple to take advantage of the beauty of the setting.  We also wanted to avoid wedding vendors wherever possible, just because it was a hassle dealing with them when we did have to.  Amie, our photographer, was the exception to this–she was really a joy to work with and immediately put us at ease.

More on their affordable wedding attire, Meghan used a white bridesmaids dress as her wedding dress & had her sister do her hair and makeup!

Jeremy and my attire was dictated by comfort and cost.  I don’t love wearing big dresses and I wanted something appropriate to a simple outdoor celebration.  I looked at department stores and bridesmaid stores as well as traditional bridal boutiques, and ultimately I found a bridesmaid dress by Joanna August and ordered it in white.  Jeremy wanted a light-colored cotton suit, which we found at an end-of-summer sale at Macy’s.  After my sister found a dress she liked, we bought matching ties for our gentlemen friends (they wore their own suits).  I did my own makeup, and my sister did my and her hair.

Friends & Family were involved in every part of the wedding:

Our friends and family were invaluable.  They brought things to the venue the day of the wedding, set up decorations, and helped us clean up after.  They helped us make the flower arrangements, made a beautiful framed picture of us for people to sign as a guestbook, made music playlists, and tried different pies and wines to help us decide what to serve (tough job, I know); one friend even let us practice using hot rollers on her!

Congratulations Jeremy & Meghan! Thank you so much for sharing all your amazing, handmade & DIY details with us. Your wedding was beautiful. A special thanks again to Amie Hauck Photography for sharing this wedding with us!