A Mennonite Wedding
If you’re familiar with Mennonites, you probably know that a Mennonite wedding is usually pulled together by a united effort from friends and family. It’s usually pretty simple and the guest count is large.
Our wedding was a typical Mennonite wedding in all those ways. Not a lot of fuss, lots of people, and so many friends and family that pitched in to help.
I love beauty and I knew we wanted lots of flowers and a feeling of celebration, but we also wanted it to be pretty low-key. You know, a good party with delicious food and beautiful tables.
The Venue
We chose a typical venue for a Mennonite wedding, my home church. It isn’t the most gorgeous place for a wedding, but it was only three minutes from my house. We were able to reserve it for the whole week of the wedding for setup so that was a big bonus.
The biggest challenge was knowing how much to dress it up or how much to just let it be as it was. I ended up on the less is more end of the scale for the ceremony and decided that boxwood wreaths on the front doors and pretty guestbook tables were enough.
The reception needed a bit more effort. I wanted a picnic meets café meets neighborhood party feeling for the reception. Not exactly the vibe a church basement gives.
What do you get when a mechanic who loves vintage cars marries a flower farmer? You get a vintage flower truck. This was one of my favorite details of the wedding.
My friend Ilona Troyer put the flowers together for this truck and totally nailed it. We’ve been friends since we were little girls, and there may even be a few photos floating around of the days we played wedding way back when. We share a love of flowers so it felt right that she be the one to deck the truck in flowers.
I wanted to give a nod to Morgan and his family’s love of vintage cars, and this felt like the right way to celebrate that. Thanks to his brother Marshall, we had the perfect truck to fill with flowers.
Church basements aren’t usually known for their wonderful ambiance so we hung café lights, dressed the tables in gingham and Kraft paper, and filled everything up with flowers. Some of my friends made cupcakes for the wedding and we used those as part of the table decorations as well.
Growing My Own Wedding Flowers
How could I afford so many flowers? I grew them, of course. I mean, it’s a bit of a no-brainer. A flower farmer is probably going to grow the flowers for her own wedding. It was fun, because I love the process, but it did have it’s challenges, too. The main one was time. I quit my job a month earlier than I would have needed to so that I could finish planning the wedding. The garden and flowers took so much time during the summer.
We’ve been growing flowers for bouquets here at Root Design since 2015 so planning the color palette and then growing the flower for my wedding was pretty easy. August to me is peaches dripping off your chin, handfuls of glistening blackberries, and lush buckets of flowers. I landed on a peach, rose, and blackberry color palette for the wedding.
With an August wedding, I knew I could plant all the summer annuals a little later than we usually do. That ended up being very helpful since I could wait to plant my flowers until after LaRonda’s wedding in May (get the scoop on her wedding here). The garden was also in great condition from all the compost and nutrients we’ve added over the years. I also had about a decade of growing things in this spot so I knew what to expect.
All that to say, it was probably a lot easier for me to grow my own wedding flowers than for someone just starting out. It was work, but the actual gardening was therapy. The kind of therapy you need for something as stressful as planning a wedding.
The only disappointment with the flowers was that the dahlias weren’t blooming prolifically in time for the wedding. That’s the kind of thing we’re used to dealing with around here, though. I didn’t worry too much about it and just ordered more of my favorite roses.
The Dress & Shoes
In keeping with the low-key theme for our wedding, I wanted a simple linen and cotton dress. Linen and cotton aren’t your typical Mennonite wedding fabrics, but most wedding fabrics don’t breathe well and I knew I wanted to be comfortable. Plus I love linen.
To add something special, I embroidered the bodice of my dress. Hands down, that embroidery project was the most fun I had in the whole wedding planning process. I’ve always loved the white ball gowns in the 2009 film version of Pride and Prejudice, so they were some of the inspiration behind the dress.
My wedding shoes were from Birdies in a rose velvet color. I wanted warm toes and an unusual color, and those fit the bill. They were hopelessly ruined in the dewy morning grass and turned an alarming shade of purple. But they still function ok and may be pressed into duty as house slippers.
Morgan’s Outfit
The man knows how to dress. He’s got just the right watch for any occasion and this one was purchased specifically for the wedding. He’s actually more of a suit kind of guy, but he toned it down and went with a vest for the wedding since we were going for a more relaxed day.
Favorite Moment
The best moment of the day was definitely sitting down to the reception. The ceremony was done, big sigh of relief from this introvert, and I had that delicious feeling of settling down to a good time with my favorite people. It’s an overwhelming and beautiful thing to have in one place most of the friends and family who love you and have done so much to help you through life. That feeling of a party about to begin is also just about as good as the party itself.
Friends from Morgan’s church, Daniel & Carolyn Miller, catered the meal of burgers, Daniel’s special mac n cheese, and Olive Garden salad. It was so, so good.
The cake on our table was made by one of my former students, Kari Miller. She did such a beautiful job, and it was just as delicious as it was gorgeous.
Favorite Memories
A lot of people say their wedding is just a blur in their mind, but not me. I remember so much of the day and it was so much fun. My favorite memories include my first glimpse of Morgan in the field behind our house with the sun coming up behind us, dew on the grass, cows in the field beside us. It was pretty magical.
I also had a quiet moment to myself on the front porch before Morgan took me to the church with time to soak in just how beautiful the day was.
My first glimpse of the flower truck and appetizers was definitely a favorite moment. You know when you envision something and it ends up turning out even better than you thought? That’s how the flower truck was.
Advice
If I’d give any advice on planning a wedding whether it’s a Mennonite wedding or not, I’d say choose what you want to do and delegate the rest. Don’t be a perfectionist about it or feel like you need to get it all done yourself. Plan well, but hold the details loosely and let the good people around you help you.
This Garden Brought Us Together
If there hadn’t been a garden and a Root Design Company, I may never have met Morgan. We didn’t meet in typical fashion at any of the normal places Mennonites frequent. Instead, Morgan discovered our little company online through the photos of his cousin Tiffany Reiff. (Side note, she also captured all these photos for us, and she did an incredible job.)
It wasn’t love at first sight, more like interest at first sight. Then our YouTube videos randomly popped up in his feed. One Sunday evening he got the urge to talk to Tiffany. Thanks to her encouragement, Morgan reached out, we struck up a friendship, then we went on a host of dates, and then we fell in love.
I was thrilled when Tiffany agreed to capture our wedding photos since she helped all of this come to be. Of course we had to get a few photos in the garden where it all began.
