Lauren & Zane’s Rustic Vineyard Wedding at Bluemont Vineyard

Another week down as we pummel towards May. MAY!? May. How?! Andy and I get our second dose this weekend of the vaccine (yay but also scared of the side effects!), and then we have a WEDDING to attend next weekend and then a backyard birthday bash for Evie. Let’s hope this beautiful Spring weather continues.

For today we have a REAL WEDDING, not just a styled shoot! It’s somewhat comforting to start to see flashes of pre-pandemic life like this. Hope you all have a great weekend folx.

I really wanted an elegant, rustic farmhouse style wedding venue that didn’t break the bank. Bluemont Vineyard was a perfect location within an hour of D.C., has incredible views, and was luckily within our budget! I didn’t know much beside that, except that the wedding had to be on a Fall day. Being from New England, I am a huge advocate of Fall foliage, and built our style off my vision for a sunny, beautiful day with a simple, elegant, countryside feel. Immediately, we selected burgundy, gold, and navy as our colors. Cream worked its way in too, to break up the dark colors. We used gold plate chargers, dresses for the mom’s, lanterns for centerpieces, and ribbons on the flowers, and burgundy flowers, dresses for the bridesmaids, and boutineers for the gentlemen.

There was definitely some DIY! One of my best friends, Elle Lindley, designed our cocktail menu and other signage, which was so special to me. They came out amazing! We also DIY’d the table garlands, repurposing the artificial flowers and garland from my brother’s wedding. Right before the wedding, we decided to get a flower arch to liven up the ceremony space, and that was repurposed as the flowers for our sweetheart table during the reception. Indoors, we had the beautiful signage from our friends, garland and lanterns on tables, repurposed bouquets from the bridesmaids where there weren’t lanterns, and of course, the signature drapery and string lights that Bluemont uses to decorate the stable. It really brought an element of elegance to the Stable that we couldn’t have done without!

We were able to get gorgeous cafe-au-lait colored garden roses, large burgundy mums, and dahlias, which were absolutely gorgeous. The flowers went perfectly with the bridesmaid dresses, my dress, and the flower arch, and were definitely an important part of our wedding! I loved that the flowers were more red/burgundy, and the bridesmaid’s were more cream colored. They coordinated so well with our dresses, and really added another layer of beauty to our photos.

I realized so much about myself through wedding planning and wish I could travel back in time to tell myself: “Don’t sweat the small stuff. Seriously! Stop That!” My need to please friends and family throughout the entire wedding planning process became so overwhelming that I couldn’t choose bridesmaids dresses until two months before the wedding (a major no-no)! I was so nervous my girls wouldn’t like the colors I picked, when in reality they loved the colors, always had, and just wanted me to make a decision!! On the day of, you’ll be so busy seeing friends and family you’ve missed dearly that you won’t have time to notice the little details (like the color of the bridesmaid dresses or the glue barely showing on the silk flowers, something I also lost way too much sleep over!).