Rustic Chic Wedding Decor

My new sister-in-law Joanna is a huge fan of all things vintage and rustic…as you’ll see when I share her wedding decor with you later this week.  Today, though, I wanted to show you the decorations my mother-in-law and I came up with to give the rehearsal dinner some special touches.  The dinner was held at a restaurant in the area, but they were more than happy to allow us to bring in our own centerpieces and other decor.

First of all, we knew that her favorite kind of flowers are any color and type of wildflowers.  So, we created eight of these arrangements.

Before we left for the trip, my Mother-in-law purchased the mason jars and some raffia.  Our original plan was that we’d go to Walmart to buy some daisies, but instead, we hit the jackpot.  It turned out that the place we were staying was quite far from Walmart {and from civilization in general!} BUT it had an abundance of beautiful wildflowers right in the backyard.

We sent my father-in-law out with some clippers to cut an assortment of flowers while we tied raffia around the jars.  Little Crafter helped to fill them with water, then I trimmed and arranged the flowers.  It was a real team effort!

Since the bride and groom are both chefs {they met while working at the same restaurant}, I thought it would be a fun touch to put the flower jars on top of some stacks of old cookbooks.  We finished off the centerpieces by adding wooden utensils as a tribute to their shared love of cooking.

As for the rest of the decor, remember all the fun things I was able to order from Shutterfly for the bridal shower?  It came in handy again!  We put two of the plates on display, along with one of the flower jars, on top of the restaurant’s fireplace.  I got a ton of comments on them and lots of people were asking where I had them made.

We also set up a table where we displayed the photo of the couple as well as the collage I made of restaurants where they’ve worked and food they’ve cooked.  Joanna’s family members, many of whom live in NY, had never seen the Maryland restaurant where they currently work together, so they enjoyed looking at the photos.  I also used the chalkboard “love” sign I made and more wooden utensils to finish off the display.

Here’s how the room looked all set up for the big event!

Joanna {pictured here with her flower girl and niece, Lily} loved everything and even found ways to use the mason jar arrangements at the wedding the next day.  Now that all the festivities are over, she and Steve can use the plates, photos, coasters, and other goodies in their home.

Rustic Chic was definitely the way to go, given Joanna’s taste as well as our surroundings.  It doesn’t get much more rural than North Blenheim, NY!  You could drive for a good long time without seeing any other cars, and the closest “town” is at least 35 minutes away.  It was a gorgeous spot {as you can see from this pic of our rental house} but I couldn’t live there for sure!  No Starbucks within an hour radius!  Yikes!  Could you do the rural life?