We went to a friend’s wedding in San Luis Obispo this past weekend. It was 12 hours roundtrip but more than worth it to see two people SO in love. The happy couple are recent college grads and were trying to keep the budget under control (sounds familiar!). So instead of hiring someone for every task, they did a lot of things – like the flowers and centerpieces – by hand.

Hand-tied daisies made simple, beautiful bouquets for the bride and all seven of her bridesmaids. She dressed up the guest sign-in table with this easy-to-make tower of flowers. You’d never guess by looking, but it’s just a moss-covered foam tube with flowers and manzanita twigs stuck into it.

The table numbers were big, bold, and easy-to-read (I always hate having to search for those things!). On each side of the number board there were photos of the bride and the groom at ages corresponding to the table number. Here’s the bride at age 16:

The photos also helped break the ice between the guests at each table. And if that weren’t enough, each table had a cute little poem for everyone to talk about:

One of my favorite accents of the day were the stamped placecards. They were white on black in a cute font to match the cozy feel of the wedding.

Of course, the couple did splurge on a few important things…including an open bar and a photo booth. Wise spending, if you ask me! What would a wedding be without copious champagne and lots of photographic evidence? Here’s Nate and I in our fourth or fifth photo booth session. Okay, it was probably our sixth. But who’s counting anyway?