DIY lovers, listen up. Today’s bride takes us through her tips on throwing down a budget Mediterranean wedding. A wedding and vacation for your family and friends, all rolled into one. Um. Yeah, I’d go for that! Justin Element is our beach wedding photographer today and his style and artistry is very appreciated. LOVE the soft beach light against the deep blue water.  Twinge of vacation jealousy.  Gotta admit it.  There are LOADS of DIY treats from Ressie and Matt’s wedding so I’ll let Ressie take over with all the details:

First of all, anytime you say the word “wedding” prices go up by 00%. Although our group of friends were staying at a fancy 5 star hotel, my family stayed at the house we found for our wedding. We found our venue thru vrbo.com and rented a fabulous Mediterranean house for our beach front wedding.

We went crazy with tissue paper as it provided dimension to our décor. Tissue paper and some fishing line and you can make any house look festive. The flowers…Saturday morning, we found a local open air market selling fruit and flowers. We spend roughly $250 on white, yellow and blue flowers and put them into Ball antique glasses for vases and added some ribbon to tie in our wedding colors. We also bought lemons and artichokes to add some texture to our elements. My aunt was a wizard with flowers and put them all over the house.

I had two favorite elements. The first one was the picture tree. I found tin vases at a thrift store, spray painted them brown and then white washed them. We then took about 50 clothes pins and painted them and added ribbon. We found Cherry blossom tree branches for $30 for 3 bushels, put them in the vases with some sand and rocks to hold them down and then put pictures of Ressie growing up, Matt growing up, and then the happy couple while dating.

My second favorite thing is my wedding gift for Matt. I have a friend that’s an artist that I contacted to see if he would paint a collage that reflected our lives together. He painted a collage that incorporated everything from bicycles to mountains to everything in between. This served as the main focal decoration on the mantle as well as his wedding gift that we now have in our living room! From old navy flip flops that we glue gunned rhinestones on, to the old wood that we found on the way home one day, that we then painted our names, Eat, Drink & Be Married and Barrett Est. 5.1.11. All of these elements tied together to make our wedding very special.

Our wedding was casual and fun. We had bottled beer and sodas down at the beach. We found both Chef Molly, our caterer and Justin Element, our photographer online and couldn’t have been happier with the results! My advice is when you connect with someone, use them in business!

I couldn’t have asked for a more magical wedding that really exceeded my expectations. We could have easily done a hotel wedding, but that’s just not my style. Instead stairs and beach were the name of the game and putting my stamp of uniqueness made it even more special.

Chef :  Molly |  Bridesmaids dresses: Ann Taylor |  Photographer: Justin Element |  House rental : www.vrbo.com |  Wedding dress: Alfred Angelo |  Frames for gifts: Allison Donnahoe 713.557.3198