Gorgeous Outdoor Wedding at The Willowwood Arboretum

Real Couples, Weddings

November 29, 2022

If you love seeing weddings with rich and vibrant colors, you’re going to love Meghan and Ben’s summer wedding on the blog today. Their gorgeous outdoor celebration at the Willowwood Arboretum was so bright and summery that it’s giving me life just looking at the photos. One of the things I love about the wedding industry is that as winter approaches, more couples get engaged and reach out to plan their weddings. So when I’m not in the “thick” of wedding season (& executing everyone’s gorgeous day of details), I’m working with new couples planning for the next year! If that’s you reading this right now, first let me say Congratulations! I hope you find a ton of colorful outdoor wedding ideas from the wedding I am about to share (which was one of my absolute favorites from the 2022 wedding season!). For more resources to help you through the first steps of planning your wedding, here are a few of my favorite blog posts:

Okay, now back to Meghan & Ben’s gorgeous outdoor wedding day!

Sweet Review from this Summer Wedding

Alane took my vision for my seating chart and brought it to life! She was so easy to work with and responsive – putting my anxious bride mind at ease! She is amazing at her craft and totally down for unique ideas – nothing beats being supported by a vendor who takes pride in their work. Her design advice and execution were perfect for our menus, programs, specialty signs, and seating chart. Highly recommend Write Pretty for Me!!

Excuse me while I blush a little!!

Wedding Ceremony “Must Have” Calligraphy

Although a majority of the design effort is often spent on your wedding reception (after all – it’s where you and your guests will spend the most time!), there are two things I ALWAYS recommend couples have at their wedding ceremony: custom wedding ceremony programs & personalize vow books. Your vow books will be a treasured keepsake of the promises you both exchanged and your wedding ceremony program will act as a keepsake for your guests! Trust me – your guests will want to know who’s standing up there with you (and it will give them something to read before you walk down the aisle). For Meghan and Ben, we were able to use the monogram from their invitations to create a cohesive feel to the day.

A Three-Dimensional Seating Chart for an Outdoor Wedding

If you’ve followed me for a while, you know I love a good seating chart (giant mirrors still kind of take my breath away even after all of these years). What I am loving even more lately, though (and stay tuned for a blog post entirely about this new trend!), are 3D seating chart displays! When you can choose between an elaborate escort card display and a seating chart, these 3-dimensional displays combine the best of both worlds. For Meghan and Ben, we knew we needed something with weight (one of my biggest tips for outdoor wedding decor!) and it was important to incorporate a romantic garden theme. We ended up with this gorgeous seating chart made of garden pots, vases, and bright florals, sitting at the entrance of their tented reception at Willowwood Arboretum. I’ve had this type of seating chart on my bucket list for awhile now and I was so thrilled I could help Meghan bring this vision to life! It’s definitely one of my favorites to date!!

Designing your wedding table decor

As I mentioned above, we took the same floral monogram design and brought it into the reception on the menu cards! I always say, if you are going to splurge somewhere, let it be in decor that your guests will actually interact with. In this case, we started the design with menu cards that complemented the ceremony programs (which worked perfectly with the vintage chargers they had chosen!). Meghan and Ben really wanted a cohesive style without appearing too “matchy-matchy”. For the table numbers, we used paper signs, but mixed and matched the frames to create more of a vintage, boho feel. They also mixed bare wooden rectangle tables with white luxurious tablecloths on round tables. Despite choosing a mix of mediums and styles, everything came together FLAWLESSLY. If you love elevated tablescapes and table decor, make sure to head here for some extra tips.

Keeping it Cohesive with More Reception Decor Details

One of the reasons I’ve designed my wedding day of details packages to include almost everything you need is because having all of your calligraphy and signage created by the same person creates such a cohesive feel EVEN IF you are mixing mediums and not sticking to a strict color palette. Meghan and Ben’s wedding design included a variety of gorgeous outdoor colors and a mix of traditional and fun elements (think gold frame table numbers for traditional elements and a potted plants seating chart display for fun). It ALL works though and looked amazing when it all came together.

For the remainder of their wedding reception, we wanted to keep that cohesive feel with signage that guests needed for a fantastic experience (you can read my thoughts on why signage is so important here!). We created a guest book sign (style matched the table numbers), a card box that seamlessly fit into the garden theme (card boxes don’t necessarily need to be a “box!”, and a hand-drawn signature cocktail sign. It was perfection in a wedding reception!

A Dreamy Summer Wedding Outside

I hope you loved Meghan and Ben’s joyful wedding & colorful design as much as I did. Seriously, these two were incredible to work with and I absolutely loved seeing everything come together in such a fun and lively way. I absolutely love what I do, and I couldn’t be more grateful to have played a small part in this incredible wedding day. If you are reading this and know you are looking for a wedding calligrapher to help make YOUR 2023 wedding unique and beautiful, I hope you will reach out here!