Rustic and Natural Outdoor Wedding in Manitoba

Today we are featuring the lovely Lana Jenae Photography who is located in Spokane Washington. She traveled up to Canada last summer to capture her cousin’s beautiful outdoor wedding in Manitoba.

A stunning bride with an attitude that every bride should strive to model: open to ideas, less stress, and embracing the idea that what will-be-will-be! Her wedding came together beautifully and it shines through in the wonderful photos below.

Where did you get your inspiration?

“I am naturally a person who knows what she likes. However, having to plan a wedding in the span of three months made the task a little more difficult, especially when I made a choice not to plan my wedding until the day I got engaged! 

To be honest a didn’t have many wedding magazines and I didn’t know of many wedding blogs. So as soon as I had that ring on my finger, I become a savage Pinterest enthusiast! I have a love/hate relationship with Pinterest. Looking at it too much made me overwhelmed since there are SO MANY options, however, I did get a lot of the ideas from Pinterest – like my ceremony and reception backdrop, the rustic doors I walked through, the cheesecake table & trail mix bar, and the candle lit barn.

Thankfully I have many family members who are in the wedding industry, such as Simplyrosie Photography, LanaJenae Photography and Imagery by Vera. They were all very helpful in showing me their biased opinions on what they liked and thankfully I like them too! We all  have a very similar style.”

Tell us about the flowers at your wedding

“Through one of my aunts I heard of a wonderful little company called Academy Florist, which I soon fell in love with. After seeing what talented florists they were I gave them complete control over the centerpieces, bouquets, and boutonnieres. I knew that whatever they did would be better than anything I could have come up with, and I couldn’t have been more right. If I had all the money in the world I would have just gotten them to deck the whole place out with greenery and pretty pink flowers – they did a fantastic job! Their work is so dreamy; my favorite thing about them is all of the scavenging they do. They did that for my wedding and it really added to my rustic wedding theme.”

“I chose a neutral, blush pink, and gold color scheme with lots of candles as decor since I wanted something romantic. Then, I chose to have it at a barn since I wanted something rustic. Add the two things together and you have a “rustic romance” theme! Since my husband is from Texas and I am a country girl we both fell in love with the idea of having it in a barn. We saw this location from another wedding photographer who did a wedding at this location. We could not have been more pleased with the venue we chose! It is gorgeous from the inside out and we really would not have had to do much decor as it was already beautiful!”

What was your budget breakdown for your big day?

We wanted to say as close to the $10,000 mark as possible and here is a breakdown of our expenses:

1. Venue: $2,200
2. Photobooth: $500
3. Catering: $1,200
4. Juice: $75
5. Rentals: $1,200
6. Cheesecakes: $200
7. Stationery: $500
8. Dress with alterations: $600
9. Bridesmaids dresses: $600
10. Flowers: $1,200
11. Grooms suit: $700
12. Groomsmen: $300
13. >Photography: a gift =)
14. Inside Decor: $350
15. Outside Decor: $200
16. Party Favors (trail mix bar): $300

Any tips for brides-to-be?

Tip #1: “Contrary to popular belief, mass amounts of stress during the wedding planning process isn’t necessary. One of the best ways to stop this from happening is give up your idea of a perfect wedding day and focus on the excitement that your marrying the man you love and you want to celebrate it with the people you love! Everything else is simply a bonus.

“I did not have the perfect wedding day and many things did not go according to plan. However I am convinced that I had the best wedding ever simply because it was so meaningful to my husband and I, and we got to share our special day with the people we love most.”

Tip #2. “Don’t worry if you don’t have the “OMG THIS IS THE DRESS” moment. If you feel beautiful in the dress, buy it! I am an extremely picky person. So in order to lower the possibility of me changing my mind once I bought it. I made sure I tried on 60 dresses before I chose my dress. Oh, and I also deleted every picture I had of the dress on my phone so I wouldn’t critique it. It worked. I love my dress.  I loved it even more because I only paid $600 for it – alterations included! Also, don’t be afraid to find a good seamstress and make alterations to your dress if you are really picky (like me). I bought my dress as a strapless with the intent to design the top myself. I did and I loved it even more after.”

Tip #3:
The following is a list of the best ways to cut down on costs:

• No alcohol
• No DJ.  We just had a playlist on an iPhone that the MC played.
• Involve friends and family – I approached talented friends to do the makeup and hair for all the girls; my sister sewed the ceremony back drop and the party favor gift bags; I had a friend teach dance lessons during intermission; and I had family members bake all the cheesecakes.
• No wedding planner. Just tell your maid of honor that’s part of the job.
• Instead of getting a catering company to do the food we asked our favorite taco place if they would make 700 tacos for us. To our delight, they said “Yes” and the food was simply delicious!
• Davids Bridal have beautiful dresses for really good prices. You don’t have to spend $2,000 on your dress!