Backyard // Outdoor Wedding

This is the best time to start planning backyard and outdoor weddings. The weather feels amazing, the flowers are blooming and everything is a lush green. My parents live on top of the highest mountain in Birmingham and have a gorgeous backyard. I have always dreamed that some day I will get married at their house. In fact, my brother and sister-in-law had a backyard wedding there in 2007 and it was beautiful!

They had a custom light pink and green dance floor built for their wedding and placed in the drive way under lights strung from the trees tops. Paper lanterns adorned the branches and the night was perfect for lit luminaries. 

This to me is the ideal wedding and reception. No extra costs for a location, very laid back and of course a GREAT view!

We all know that wedding planning can be stressful. And we all know that every bride wants her big day to be perfect and go off without a hitch. There is a LOT that comes into making a wedding happen and it certainly cannot be done overnight. 

Many brides see these lavish weddings on TV and dream to have a wedding that mirrors Jennifer Aniston's nuptials. And brides will drive themselves crazy on Pinterest trying to plan the ideal wedding straight from Southern Living or The Knot. 

At the end of the day, the wedding is about you. Yes, fancy things and big weddings are nice, but they are not "must haves". A backyard wedding is a great alternative to a wedding venue and it is incredibly budget friendly. 

There are dozens of ways to make a backyard wedding perfect. First, use the natural scenery. For my brother's wedding, we used the trees to hang lights and paper lanterns. It was wonderful and was used as lighting when the sun went down! Floral arrangements can be very expensive so if there are flowers already present, that is a huge bonus! Use what you have and be resourceful! Lighting can be as easy as putting tea candles in mason jars or lighting luminaries along the path. 

Try not to over think anything. Making a backyard wedding have a romantic feeling is very easy. Centerpieces can be flowers/plants from the garden. Decorations can be lights strung through the trees. Make signs. Create your own unique touch to the wedding. Maybe you want streamers in the trees or even a clothes pin photo display. Make it YOU!

For a backyard wedding, buffet style catering is simple and easy to manage! It is very casual and people love it. Simple is the way to go. Try BBQ or a slider bar. Minimum stress with maximum deliciousness.

 

A few extra ideas:

*Loose flower petals along the walkways

*Drinks in tin coolers/drink table

*Hang ribbons

*DIY Photobooth or hire a Photobooth 

More Than Just Flowers

Today's post is a very special one - it features my parents but more specifically, my mom, Jennifer Slaughter. To start, my mom is one of the most selfless, caring, smart and influential women I have ever met. She is so inspiring and I hope to some day be the woman and mother she has continued to become. 

I had one of those childhoods where you went outside when the sun came up and did not come in from playing in the garden or building rock forts until the sun went down. My parents were always piddling in the garden or planting gorgeous arrays of flowers along the perimeter of our home. My parents have dozens upon dozens of flowers growing in our gardens and they decided they wanted to share the beauty with others. After all, flowers are God's gift to us to help us smile. We pick a bouquet of flowers to put in our home because it brightens the room. We send flowers to someone because we love them and want to brighten their day. 

In 2000, they created a flower ministry called Perenity - perennial and eternity combined. It is a ministry that provides flower arrangements to patients in hospice care. Flowers give hope. They rejoice. They renew. They love. And this is why Perenity was born.  Perenity was their way of giving their garden to others. Over the past 14 years, Perenity has provided thousands of bed side arrangements to those patients. The flowers were first coming from their garden then began being donated from weddings, funerals, events and any occasion that had left over flowers. 

My mom is a woman of faith and I believe this was her true calling. She can turn a centerpiece from a wedding into dozens of beautiful individual arrangements that will brighten someones day. She will make up to hundreds of arrangements a week, working diligently to make sure each one is special and unique. 

"When you receive a flower, whether it's an apology or to celebrate an anniversary or whatever the occasion, it just makes you happy," Jennifer says, explaining what she describes as the simple core of Perenity's mission. "You can imagine this very ill person in a dark time in their life, someone brings them flowers, and they're amazed that a stranger cared enough to make an arrangement for them. It lets them know they're not walking through this time alone."

During college, I interned at New Beacon Hospice, the hospice that receives many flowers from Perenity. I went on home visits. I met the patients. I met the families. I began to love them as though they were my own family members. I hurt when they hurt and I cried when they cried. On the days when we brought flowers, I was so excited. I knew that visit would be a special one because it brought happiness. It brought love. I will never forget the joy I brought into the lives of my patients. 

At Christmas, flowers are not as abundant, so she turned her flower workshop into a Christmas tree workshop. She buys 12 inch Christmas trees, lights them and decorates them for the patients. Now these are not just ordinary Christmas trees. They are ornate, delicate, beautiful and most of all, they are specially designed for patients. There are Auburn trees, Alabama trees, cat trees, fishing trees and even trees that are themed for nurses and firefighters. She can turn any hobby into a Christmas tree. Perenity makes about 500-600 of these trees every holiday season. The holidays are always a hard time, especially for those who are battling an illness. These trees are special. Even after the patients have passed on, the family has something very special to remember their loved ones. My family knows this from experience. My mom's mom, my Nana,  passed away while in Hospice care in December 2008. My mom made her an Elvis tree (She LOVED Elvis) and every year, our family brings it out at Christmas time and it is our Nana tree. We will always cherish it. 

My mom has a special story about a patients she likes to share when speaking about Perenity: 

“A few years back I used these cute little glass hummingbird ornaments on a tree that I wanted to keep for myself,” she says sheepishly. “The New Beacon Hospice coordinator Greg called and told me that one of the news channels wanted to do a story on me delivering a tree to a patient. ‘Pick a special tree,’ he said, and I knew immediately it would be that one. The day before, he took me to meet Virginia Hayes, who suffered from congestive heart failure. Once I walked into her small home, I saw she had hummingbirds everywhere, and I couldn’t believe it! The next day, I brought the tree and we just cried. I had a relationship with this woman and took her flowers every week until she died,” she relates.

My mom has dozens and dozens of stories similar to this and she continues to bring happiness through her work. 

Working in the wedding and event industry, I see so many wedding flowers thrown away. They are still gorgeous and could have been used to serve. My request is to help Perenity get the word out about donating your used wedding and event flowers so that they can be repurposed to bed side arrangements for hospice patients. Donations can also be made in the form of vases, buckets, ornaments or even a donation in the memory of a loved one. Please contact my mom, Jennifer Slaughter, at jenniferslaughter@mac.com. 

Together we can make a difference. 

In Memory of my Nana, Mary Hollon