Lake Huron Wedding

We all dream about our wedding day right? Location, flowers, bridal party….

For me I had always dreamt of the location, not so much the flowers, bridal party and all the details. I knew I wanted to get married in my hometown. Home is my happy place, where I feel the most myself and at peace. Isn’t it funny how we all believe that where we grew up is the best (well I guess not all of us but nostalgia helps). So anyways, I always knew that I would get married there. Not to mention Lake Huron is about 2 miles from my mom and dad’s house, another location where my heart feels at home.

So, we planned our little hearts out to have a Lake Huron beach wedding in my hometown and the reception at a small golf course that my family is very involved with. Thennnnnnnnnnnnn Corona happened. We were one month away from our big day when the president of the golf course (aka my father) called and said they would not be able to host my wedding reception. So back to the drawing board we went.

With the help of my family, my husbands family and our bridal party, we pivoted. We all got right to work planning a new wedding. We changed the ceremony location to Lighthouse Park in Port Hope Michigan and the reception would now be an outdoor event on my parents front lawn. I kept saying to myself “I just don’t want it to look like a graduation party” and not to toot my own horn, but I think we accomplished the goal of wedding not graduation.

Although it seems like it was an easy transition, I am here to tell you, it wasn’t. We spent the month leading up to the wedding doing ALL THINGS WEDDING 24/7. My heart goes out to all the other Covid brides being faced with this same struggle.

Needless to say, when I look back on our wedding, it was perfect. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know everyone says that about their own wedding, but I feel it in my soul. Although in the moment, shifting and changing our wedding was hard and honestly heartbreaking, I can now look back and know it was all part of our beautiful plan the universe has for us.

Ceremony

Our ceremony was set to kick off at 1:00 P.M. at Lighthouse Park in Port Hope, Michigan on the shore of Lake Huron. I’ve never witnessed the coloring of Lake Huron quite like that day.

Plant Joining Ceremony

In our ceremony planning we knew we wanted to do a unity ceremony unique to us. My husband is a landscaper and so plants were my first thought. We have our parents collect dirt from each of their properties and bring to the ceremony. We had our fathers present the rose plant and our mothers present a cup with dirt in it, as a symbol of joining of the two families. During the ceremony, we added each cup of dirt, then watered the rose together. If you choose to do this at your own wedding, just a helpful hint, **practice dumping the dirt**. I went for it and dumped it all and my husband (the more precise of the two of us) only added as much as it “needed”.

Wedding Party

We debated having a large or small wedding party, but in the end each person in the following photos means so much to us. We couldn’t have the day without them, they are our people.

Head Table

Our florist knocked our head table out of the park! Since we were going to have an outdoor event I knew I wanted our wedding to have a romantic garden feel. I stuck with white and green to keep it classy and timeless. Our head table had eucalyptus, white roses and white hydrangeas. I wanted to maximize my florals, so I assigned someone to be in charge of taking the flowers off our arch at the ceremony and placing them on our head table to add volume. We also had vases with floating candles to add charm to the table.

*PRO TIP*

On your head table, leave enough empty vases (with a tiny bit of water) that are spread out evenly. When the bridal party arrives, have them each place their boutique in one of the empty vases. This not only adds height to your table, but also gets double use out of those florals! You can see the empty vases on the third picture below, this picture was taken before wedding party arrived.

Here you can see the table after the boutiques were added to the empty vases.

Name Plates on Head Table

Since we had a beach wedding I did want to add a touch of beach to our head table. I found ‘LettersfromEden’ on Etsy who does calligraphy on sea glass. You’re probably thinking, ‘Hey Lindsey, can’t you write in calligraphy and do that yourself’. Yes, I could have, but remember how we had to change everything within a month– so I outsourced!

Guest Tables

I intentionally wanted our guest tables to be more simplistic because I wanted our head table to be the focus. So, I mimicked the eucalyptus from the head table and put them on the guest tables each with three vases.

Cake Table

Our cake table, again, was very simple. We used the smaller floral arrangement from our ceremony arch to put on the cake table ( I love a good multi-use floral). The sign “You’re simply the best, better than all the rest” came from one of our wedding songs. Yes, I know it was originally a Whitney Houston song, butttttt we are big Schitt’s Creek fans. We even used the Noah Reid version of Simply the Best as the song our wedding party danced too.

Signage & Guest Table

Bar Area

Again, the quick change of plans left us without a bar space. Luckily, I knew someone in town that had offered her bar to me before so we were able to rent it and set it up right inside our garage. Thankfully, the bar aesthetic fit right into my romantic garden theme. I added a fake eucalyptus garland and my fabric bar sign to dress it up for the occasion.