The One-Stop Guide To A Delightful Spring Backyard Wedding

Spring is the perfect time for a backyard wedding. The world is turning green, the weather isn’t too hot, and all the flowers are just starting to bloom. A spring backyard wedding is the perfect event for a sentimental, whimsical couple who wants to have their dream wedding on a budget.

But if you haven’t planned a large party before, a wedding can be an intimidating place to start. Here’s our quick guide to getting the most out of your backyard wedding budget, and making an event to remember.

Food and Drink

The first thing your wedding guests will remember is the food and drink. A beautiful backyard wedding atmosphere and fun activities are important, but people will notice if the food isn’t plentiful, or if they have to wait a long time to eat. If you’re having a small party, you may or may not be drinking alcohol: but if you are, people will notice an understocked bar, or a long wait.

If you or a family member are cooking the food for your backyard wedding, remember that whoever is doing the cooking will be working that day. Feeding a large party is a lot of effort, and a lot of time, even for a casual buffet! You or a family member will be very busy making sure that everything is finished on time, and that everyone gets fed.

If you’re looking for a place to invest in your budget, it should be the food. Think about hiring a caterer for your wedding dinner, who can handle the food, the equipment and work of keeping it hot and ready for dinner, and seeing it served.

Invitations and Signage

If you’re planning a backyard wedding on a budget, invitations are one of the best places to go DIY. With a shorter, more intimate guest list, you have so many options for DIY, from hand-crafting your invitations to designing and printing them yourself. For a small backyard wedding on a budget, you can even choose email invitations over physically mailing physical invitations. A small custom webpage and email invitation for your event can be easier, and more budget friendly, than mailing invitations to your whole guest list.

You’ll still need signage at your event. You’ll need to direct guests to the bathrooms, tell them when different events (like the ceremony, cocktail hour, speeches, dinner, or dancing!) will be taking place, or any other details specific to your event. But for a backyard wedding, where the personal touch is so important, this is the perfect time for a little DIY.

Decorations

Wedding decorations are a huge task, but depending on your circumstances, and your personal taste, we recommend a mix of DIY and professional decorations.

Decorations like signs, table centerpieces, and tablecloths can be thrifted, or hand crafted for a charming, rustic feel. A backyard is the perfect place to spread out tables and serving stations, with plenty of space and the romantic feeling of dining under an open sky. 

But, it is spring. It wouldn’t be a backyard wedding without worrying about rain. A tent is the perfect way to designate a reception space, and take the weight of worrying about a little rain off your shoulders. A wedding planner would be able to help you work out how much space you would need to include all of your guests, and dancing.

Another place to invest would be a large centerpiece like a flower wall, balloon arch, fabric drape, or something similar. It can serve as backdrop to your ceremony, and then move to become an eye-catching space for speeches, or dancing. One large, eye-catching decoration can set the tone for the rest of your backyard wedding, leaving you room to decorate with less budget-straining decorations for the rest of the space without compromising your vision.

When Should I Hire A Wedding Planner?

Even for a backyard wedding, the planning can be intimidating. A beautiful backyard wedding is the perfect way to have your dream wedding on a budget, but it is difficult to make that vision real. 

A wedding planner can help you elevate your backyard wedding into a celebration of love your family and friends will remember for years to come, all while keeping your budget under control. Planning on your own means months of stress, hard work, and worry leading up to your wedding. If you’re deciding where to invest and where to DIY for your backyard wedding, a wedding planner is a worthy investment at any scale.

Maroon Goose is a collective of event and wedding planners who specialize in creating unique celebrations that center what makes you, and your partner special. Not certain how a wedding planner could help with your spring backyard wedding? Book a no-strings consultation with us today, and let us show you how we can help bring your vision to life.