Colorful Backyard Wedding
These two love birds tied the knot in the exact same spot they first met...right in the groom's backyard! Keeping their love as the central focus of their day, Xander and Kylie's friends and family helped them put together a laid back event with DIY decor from beginning to end.
Read on to hear so much more from Kylie about her special day, including details about their budget. You can always view more of this colorful backyard wedding in the full gallery here, all beautifully captured by Katch Silva Photography.
From the Bride:I fell in love with Xander the summer before my nineteenth birthday. I was in his backyard, lying in the grass and staring at the afternoon light filtering through the trees. For no reason at all, we turned to look at each other at the exact same time. He smiled, then I smiled, and that was it. We were in love. Five years later we were married in the exact same spot, on a hot July afternoon with the light filtering through the trees in his backyard.
The moment we got engaged I knew that I wanted to be married in that yard. I had long suspected that it held some kind of strange magic that I could not quite place, but had felt so poignantly on many occasions. By all appearances it was nothing more than a suburban lawn, with a coiled red hose and the skeleton of an abandoned tree house.
Getting married in that yard was the most meaningful decision I made planning this wedding. All the other details, lovely as they were, were secondary. That night I looked around, and I saw all my family and friends dancing and laughing under the trees I knew so well. Their eyes were alight with fireflies, and sparklers, and stars, and they smiled conspiratorially at each other, because they could all feel the secret that Xander and I have always known.
We walked down the aisle to this song (Ripple by The Grateful Dead) , and when I got to the front and looked The Boy in the eye, Jerry sang my favorite line in the world, “If I knew the way, I would take you home.” I smiled, and mouthed the words along, and he smiled back at me, and I was ready to be married.
We smoked meat on site. I will say unequivocally that this was the best wedding decision I made, aside from, you know, the getting married part. I really don’t have any other words about our amazing caterers, except this: those pulled pork sliders, with their delightful little pickle slices, will haunt my dreams.
The meats table had an amazing variety of BBQ meats and sides. We had pulled pork sliders, Texas lollipops (sausage wrapped in bacon on a stick), shrimp skewers, smoked chicken wings, and veggie kabobs. For the actual main courses we had braised brisket, BBQ pork belly, St. Louis ribs and grilled veggies.
My favorite elements of the wedding were all the tangible expressions of love surrounding us. This wedding was truly a team effort, and it meant so much to both The Boy and me that so many people wanted to help out. My sister stayed up late every night the week before the wedding, slaving over our gorgeous chalkboard menus. My dad gleefully put his new saw to work on the easels and chalkboard placemats, onto which my mom painted one perfect pig. The Boy’s mother basically lived in her backyard for five months, planting flowers and waging war on weeds.
Jam jars, mason jars, milk bottles and other mismatched glassware filled with a variety of floral stems made up this eclectic table top.
Maggie, my badass maid of honor and craft goddess, cut and assembled all the banners, photobooth props and paper pinwheels until her fingers blistered. Lorenza, my wonderful officiant, turned hoarded fabric scraps into lovely bunting to hang around the ceremony area, and made the flower crown I wore in my hair. For days before the wedding, that yard was crawling people, all working their butts off to create this day for us. And on July 20th I looked around at all the chalkboards, and pinwheels, and flags, and flowers, and I thought: we are loved.
