A secret: I especially love when real brides submit their weddings to La Belle Bride. I mean, I love submissions to my little wedding blog…period. However, hearing from brides is a particular treat. Fresh from their wedding day, they’re usually ready to burst with details. Today’s DIY wedding was submitted by Susan Lee, a sweetheart bride from Boston. And she’s just full of great insight from her sweet wedding day

The inspiration for the day is trying to make my wedding modern, relax and intimate. I’ve been to so many weddings that have the exact same feeling – a ceremony at a church and reception at a huge banquet hall. We love our friends but we were so over the traditional wedding. We wanted something “out of the box”. That really made us to decide on having the ceremony outdoors at Hyatt Harborside which had the backdrop of Boston and our reception at Rocca Restaurant and Bar. We rented out the entire restaurant – cocktail hour downstairs and brunch buffet upstairs. It was so intimate because the space was smaller but everyone loved it. People got a chance to bond with other people at the next table. It was great! And most importantly, we wanted our day for us to really BE with our friends. So many brides say they never remember their day because it was so rushed but I remember everything about my day. And my husband and I wanted it that way. We didn’t rush anything and cut out things that weren’t important to us – we didn’t do the bouquet/garter toss, father/mother dance and etc. So with those things cut out, we had time to mingle and really have fun with our friends and family.

Planning my wedding wasn’t the most fun but my sister aka MOH aka wedding .coordinator did most of the work (I didn’t make her do all the work….her ideal job is to be an event planner). I told her what I liked and she made everything happen even with the budget we had. Having all that stress off my shoulders definitely made my life a lot easier and enjoyable.

Our wedding was filled with DIYs. Our photobooth was set up by our photographer and my husband and I made the props for people to use. We glued mustaches on sticks and bought signs to use. My husband went to Home Depot and got thin wood boards, cut out speech bubbles and painted them with chalkboard paint so people can use and write on them. It was awesome! We use birdcages as cards box and used Moo cards for guest books. We designed and created all our Save the Dates, invitations and signage around the reception. I created short and tall centerpieces with hydrangeas purchased at BJS (much like a Costco) and curly willow branches. There might be more but I just can’t seem to remember.

My day was fantastic!!!!!!!!! It was the best day of my life (well maybe there might be better days later) but I felt so loved and I was just ecstatic to marry my man. I knew that no wedding is perfect and mine was not perfect. The ceremony was next to the water and it sooooo windy. My hair was blowing everywhere and I was sure I didn’t look too attractive but I didn’t care. I didn’t let anything that didn’t go my way ruin my day. I just had to not think about it and remember the most important thing. I was going to married to my husband! And that’s why my day was great. And I loved how relax my reception was. People came up to me and said that it was such a fantastic idea to rent a restaurant and that the environment was ‘very us’. I was able to eat and catch up with people and took great photos at the photobooth. To me, my wedding was pretty darn perfect.

Venue and Caterer: Rocca Restaurant and Bar |  Wedding Dress: Allure |  Shoes: Nine West  |  Bridesmaid Dress: David’s Bridal  |  Menswear: JCrew  |  Wedding Cake: 6 different cakes from Dessert Works |  Invitations: DIY  |  Florist: Bumble Bee Landing |  Hair/MU: Hair by Carolina |  Photography: Joshua Behan