Caitlin & Susie’s Super DIY Literary Themed Wedding in Maryland

Words can’t really describe the feelings I get when I remember Caitlin & Susie’s wedding day this past May. I had the absolute honor of getting to be a part of their big day (as their coordinator) and I knew from the minute I met them, I wanted to be a part of their love, their relationship, and of course, their wedding day. And boy, was I right – their super DIY, complete labor of love, wedding day was something so so special. I have never seen so many family and friends that were so open, so welcoming, and so full of love. I was welcomed in by their families and friends, as if I had been a long-time family friend all along.

This wedding day was so full of happy tears, smiles, hugs, and absolute, blissful joy. I am so happy I got a chance to meet these two wonderful women and share in their special day. A warning ahead of time, this one is PICTURE HEAVY people. It’s nearly impossible to chose between all the gorgeous images Sarah Gormley Photography sent me!!!

Caitlin & Susie’s Ultimate DIY, Literary Themed Wedding in Maryland

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Cait & Susie’s wedding was also featured on A Practical Wedding!

We had a really wonderful vintage-spring-literary-fun wedding. Suz and I both really wanted a wedding that reflected us, both as individuals and as a couple. We are pretty different (opposites attract, yes!) but one thing we definitely have in common is our ridiculous love of books. Suz is an especially large fan of Jane Austen’s writing and I will pretty much read whatever you place in front of me, so when it came time to pick a trend for our wedding, books were an easy choice. The best part was having an excuse to track down every library-estate-book sale this side of the Chesapeake! We both really loved combing through stacks of dusty, old books and giggling at some of the titles. It was a wedding chore that wasn’t so much a chore, as it was an excuse for a fun date with my lovely wife-to-be.

Colors were an easy choice; Susie loves anything bright and vibrant so she went with orange. Turquoise is my favorite and a perfect complement to orange so bam, easy choice. We decided not to be too strict with our color palette so you’ll see many different interpretations of turquoise and orange in our wedding pictures.

Click inside for SO MUCH MORE of Caitlin & Susie’s Super DIY Wedding! Including all the gorgeous book page details and literary themed items!

Our wedding venue was another easy pick. Soon after we moved to the area, we started attending church at a wonderfully historic church in Silver Spring. The space (and the people!) were so welcoming that we knew we HAD to host our wedding and reception in this amazing place. And as it turned out, many of the parishioners ended up playing large roles in our big day!

Our friends and family made our wedding that it was. As recent transplants to D.C., our guest list was made up of mostly out-of-towners. Our entire wedding party is from our home town in Kentucky and they ALL made the trek out here several days before hand and helped put the finishing touches on our big day.

My grandmother, a former florist, flew into town the day before and immediately drove to the church to help me put together our centerpieces. Susie’s best friends from culinary school (and her bridesmaids!) drove up and helped put together the food for the reception. Our fathers and brothers helped hang our ceiling draping and our mothers ran all the erroneous pre-wedding errands that no one else wanted to do!

However, the biggest and best surprise was Susie’s brother, Matthew. He’s in the Navy and had deployed several months before the wedding. We knew he wouldn’t be able to join us at the wedding and though sad, had made plans to honor him throughout our big day. However, the day before our wedding, we arrived at the church to set up and Matthew was there!! His deployment had ended sooner than anticipated and he had come out to surprise us for the wedding; it was by far the most amazing wedding present we could have asked for.

Susie’s shoes totally take the cake for “offbeat” details. She custom designed a pair of Converse sneakers specifically for our wedding. The shoes were orange and turquoise with the words “I Do” embroidered on each heel.

And now for the SUPER DIY part of their wedding:

About 2/3 of our wedding was DIY. We were on a strict budget and many of my Pinterest dreams were not compatible with our realistic budget. However, we dug deep and figured out what we could contribute, talent wise, to our big day. Susie is a classically trained chef; she called in a few favors and we were in business to self-cater our wedding. I’ve worked in floral and event design so I handled all our centerpieces and decorations, with the assistance of friends and family.

We utilized our love of crafting and created lovely paper flowers that adorned our reception tables. Susie even worked with her brothers and found a way to create ceiling draping for our reception hall after I got on this crazy kick about the darn stuff. There were certain things we knew we wanted to leave up to the true professionals, such as our wedding cake and bouquets. The best decision we made as a DIY couple was hiring a coordinator (Bree!) to take care of the wedding day details. There were several small hiccups that I’m glad we didn’t have to sort out ourselves.

We both loved doing our wedding mainly DIY because it really gave us ownership over our wedding. We were able to look out at our guests and know that our hard work and our loving efforts had made this day happen. It’s such a wonderful feeling to not only marry your best friend but have worked together to create that perfect day as a team.