• Real Weddings

There is no doubt that we love a barn wedding and lucky for us we have Pennsylvania wedding photographer Maria Mack to help us indulge in our guilty pleasure. Offering up a truly excellent handcrafted barn wedding-both the bride and groom are designers, so you know it was was overflowing with stylish accessories and thoughtful details. Handcrafted with love from start to finish.
Although we loved everything about their wedding, we especially loved their honey wedding favors. Nicole and Micheal used local honey from bees around the barn. Each custom printed favor bag was filled with a custom designed honey jar and a honey dipper. Useful and way cute. Read on to hear more of the inside scoop from Nicole, like why you should tell your officiant what to wear. As always be sure to  peruse the full gallery for more detail photos.

From the bride on inspiration behind the wedding-We wanted our wedding to be really intimate and personal. The barn that we had the ceremony in is where I grew up, we actually lived in an apartment in the barn when I was a kid and I have so many memories spending time there with my family and grandparents. Since we're both designers, we wanted all the details to be personal also.

We designed and printed as much as we could ourselves: our table numbers, our programs, favor bags, flags, etc. For favors we gave out local honey from the bees that are around the barn. We found things in the barn and from my parents house to use as decoration for the wedding. When the wedding finally happened and we saw everything together all the hard work was totally worth it. Every detail meant something to us and it didn't go unnoticed by the guests either!

Would we have done anything differently?There's very little we would have done differently, it was a perfect day. I would say the only thing we might have done differently is not done SO much stuff ourselves because the days leading up to, and the actual morning-of the wedding were pretty hectic running around trying to get so much stuff done. Also, we would have been more specific about our officiant's outfit. We assumed he would know to wear a suit, or at least pants, but he showed up in shorts, knee socks and sandals instead.

On their budget-For Budget it's kind of tricky because we did a lot of stuff ourselves or with the help of family and friends. We probably spent around 12k total for the wedding (not including honeymoon).  We also had a lot of the props laying around in the barn or my parents house (like all the mason jars, the crates, tables, etc) so that helped cut down on budget as well.

We also didn't have to rent a venue and since it was hosted at our place, we saved money by buying our own drinks and appetizers too. My budget advice for brides planning weddings with vintage feels: Ebay. I bought so much stuff on ebay.Nicole and Micheal's DIY wedding projects-
Made the flower arrangements, bouquets and boutonnières Designed and made the flags, favor bags, stickers on honey jars, hanging flour sack ceremony backdrop, save the dates, invites, and table numbers.
Hand painted the sign on the barn door.
Made the dance floor (with brother-in-law Dan).
Baked the cupcakes and some of the cookies.
Collected all the plates and glass wear for the place settings.

Photographer: Maria Mack Flowers: Oliver Dogwood Stationery: Nicole Ziegler and Michael McQuade Caterer: Callear's BBQ Dress Designer: David's Bridal Shoe Designer: BHLDN Prop or Furniture Rentals: Maggpie Vintage Rentals Event Designer: bride and groom | DJ: A'Don Allen III