The Beauty of Backyard Weddings Ideas for an Intimate Celebration
Hiring your backyard as the venue can save money and give your celebration more intimacy, while simultaneously helping reduce guest numbers without offending anyone’s feelings.
Bring home-style comfort into your backyard by creating cozy lounge areas with white rugs and large photo displays. A campfire can keep guests warm after dinner while providing delicious treats!
1. Embrace the Outdoors
One of the greatest advantages of hosting your ceremony and photos in your backyard wedding is being able to say your vows in an area that holds sentimental value for both of you. Perhaps that spot on your property holds special memories or it could even be your childhood home that could make the ideal venue.
Backyard weddings can still feel elegant with the right decorations. Utilize textural place settings from Madame de la Maison alongside ornate chargers and gilded china for added opulence.
As your guests will likely be wearing heels, they must have a comfortable dancing spot. Include luxurious lounge furniture such as those from Tufts and Toile in colors like pink, ivory, and blue to create cozy seating areas at your reception. Also, ensure you communicate with any neighbors before hosting this event regarding noise or other potential concerns.
2. Make the Most of Your Space 
Backyard weddings provide more opportunities to customize than traditional venues, especially by using nontraditional details. For instance, use a photo from Mijji Cakes of yourself and your guests as table centerpieces – this adds another personal touch!
If your backyard isn’t large enough for everyone to comfortably gather together, use a tent or other structure as an open space. Add curtains or drapes for an inviting entrance by placing it beneath a tented reception.
Use lanterns, layered rugs, or signs made of reclaimed wood as markers on a path for guests to follow after your ceremony, helping them find their seats easily while making it simple for them to exit when the party’s over. Plush lounge furniture adds an eye-catching pop of color for cocktails hour, while blankets create an eclectic vibe if going full picnic-style is what speaks to you.
3. Go Bold with Décor
Backyard weddings provide more opportunities for personalization and nontraditional details, like hanging twine-wrapped grapevine orbs to give an atmospheric boho vibe.
Or use a table with slips of paper next to a potted tree for guests to write their wishes on slips of paper and tie them to its foliage for your backyard wedding, creating more of a party feel and less like a ceremony! This will certainly add charm!
An outdoor wedding offers you an excellent chance to add splashes of color in creative ways. Incorporate your wedding colors in linens or décor items for an instantaneous splash that complements the overall theme of the day – you could even DIY these upgrades from items already around the home!
4. Keep It Simple
Backyard weddings offer many advantages that traditional weddings do not, such as the ease of customization. You can create an intimate lounge area like a yurt tent or add blankets and a fire pit for a more casual ambiance.
Dried flowers make beautiful centerpieces for backyard weddings, too. This bride used pressed blooms as the background for her personalized table numbers while other blooms hung from tree branches as ornaments.
Backyard weddings with smaller guest lists allow for nontraditional details like custom cocktail illustrations. At this wedding’s bar cart was adorned with custom illustrations of each couple’s preferred libation.
5. Add Personal Touches
Though you’re hosting your ceremony at home, that doesn’t mean your décor must take a back seat. Incorporating personal touches that add extra meaning is a fantastic way to give it that special feeling!
Be creative: have your guests type out their thoughts or best wishes on an old typewriter to create a chic yet retro-style guest book you’ll cherish forever. This creative backyard wedding idea works well with any theme and is both simple and memorable – ideal for backyard celebrations!
Custom stationery featuring your signature cocktail can add an extra special touch, like this calligraphed escort card created for this couple’s garden-inspired backyard wedding. Not only will it look lovely on your tablescape, but it also doubles as an unforgettable keepsake.
