Rochelle & Matt’s DIY, Offbeat Block Party Wedding in Baltimore City, MD

A couple week’s ago I got invited to this super fun DC wedding vendor party at Eastern Market and got to catch up with Rochelle (one of the editors of Charm City Wed and owner of Hair by Rochelle). She asked me if I would ever be interested in featuring her own wedding – as it was super DIY, super offbeat, and in a park in Maryland. I told her – WELL DUH, of course I would! To make the feature even more special, we decided to feature it today, the 3-year anniversary of when Rochelle & Matt actually got married, in a tiny park between traffic lanes in Baltimore city.

Happy Anniversary you crazy kids and thanks for sharing your awesomely offbeat Maryland wedding with us! Thanks to The Light in Us Photography for the images!

Rochelle & Matt’s Offbeat, DIY Park Wedding in Baltimore City, Maryland

Vendors:

Photography: The Light in Us Photography | Flowers: DIY | Cupcakes: DIY | Decorations: DIY | Bride’s Dress: David’s Bridal | Bridesmaids Dresses: Their Own | Hair & Makeup Artist: Friend of the Bride, Ashley Scheiner | Venue: Eutaw Place Median Park

On their relationship and how they decided to get married:

First of all, we got married really quickly after meeting.  From the day we met to the day we got married was just about 6 months.  We just KNEW.  And no one could tell us other wise.  (Good thing he’s perfect for me! :)

When we started discussing what we wanted for our wedding, we both independently thought, “wouldn’t a community block party be awesome?!” but didn’t want to ask each other.  It took a few days of chatting before Matt just blurted it out, and I said “NO WAY I WANT TO DO THAT TOO!”  You see, him and I met through the church we go to in our neighborhood, which has a huge heart for uniting the surrounding community.  The area we live in has a very affluent neighborhood bordering a poorer neighborhood, and we wanted to have a wedding celebration that invited everyone from all walks of life and in doing so, helping to break down socio-economic and racial barriers.  We don’t see ourselves as “rich white people” trying to help “poor black people”, which is the mentality a lot of white people have and we’re trying to buck against.  We’re merely a family living in the city that wants to build relationships and break stereotypes.

^this is awesome.

We decided that we would have a very non-traditional wedding day.  It wouldn’t be a “ceremony” followed by a “reception”.  We would have a block party, and structure it so everyone could enjoy the block party fun first (bounce house, velcro wall, face painting, barbeque, hula hooping), then we’d break and have people sit for the short ceremony, then we’d recommence the fun stuff along with music and dancing.

Click inside for SO MUCH more of Rochelle & Matt’s offbeat “block-party” wedding in Maryland.

On their venue:

The place we got married in is Eutaw Place Median Park, which is literally just the park area in between the traffic lanes of Eutaw Place in Baltimore city.  It is directly in front of our old apartment where we lived when we first got married.

My flower girls and ring bearer were the 3 kids I nannied for at the time, and that meant a lot to me.

 I had my bridesmaids pick their own dresses, I asked them to just pick a solid color, no prints.  It just so happened that 2 picked purple, 2 picked pink, and 2 picked yellow.  I had them pick a color and stick to it by a certain date because I also made all of the bouquets from silk flowers, and I made the bouquets to color coordinate to their dresses!

Also, because I had 6 bridesmaids and my husband only had 4 groomsmen, 2 of the groomsmen had to walk back up the aisle with a bridesmaid on each arm– and if you look closely, the 2 who did that coordinated their shirts and ties to match the ladies’ dresses.  And how about this… my best friend from childhood, Melanie, who is the super blonde girl in the short hot pink dress, and Matt’s good friend from childhood, Patrick, were paired together at our wedding to walk back up the aisle… and they started dating THAT DAY, AND GOT MARRIED 7 MONTHS LATER.  Oh yeah! :)

The whole day went from 12 – 4pm, and top to bottom, beginning to end, our wedding day cost us $6,000.  Our savings, our parents help and gifts from a few other family members and friends financed the entire thing and we were left with no debt.  THAT was very important to us.

As you can see from the photos, it was a super fun day!! I can’t remember the last time I had gotten to jump in a bounce house or do a velcro wall, and we made sure that the adults who came to the wedding had the opportunity to do them as well.

Rochelle shares her advice on DIYing her own wedding cupcakes:

I also made all of the cupcakes.  If there were one thing that I would recommend to others dong a DIY wedding is to forego doing cupcakes / cake yourself and take that immense stress of your back.

Food is not something you can do weeks/months in advance, so the the 2 days before my wedding were just a cluster of OMG CUPCAKES EVERYWHERE.  I would pay a professional in a heartbeat now.

The picture of Matt “carrying me over the threshold” is on the stoop of our apartment building. (That’s how close the venue was to their home/neighborhood).

Happy Anniversary Rochelle & Matt! Thank you so much for sharing all the awesome details of your offbeat, “block-party”, Maryland wedding! A special thanks again to The Light in Us Photography for the images!