farm wedding

The Glö-Couple:

Alyssa, a Software Engineer &
Evan, a Technical Support Specialist

Celebration Date & Location:

Courtesy of Bybee Farms

August 2011
Bybee-Nims Blueberry Farm
North Bend, Washington, USA

Tell us how you got engaged:

We had been dating for a little under four years when Evan proposed. He proposed on Valentine’s Day, which provided a good cover for the elaborate plans. Here is how it went down:

Evan had a whole day planned for “Valentine’s Day” full of various activities. I untied a ribbon on the schedule to reveal a special thing that we enjoyed about our relationship, and then we did that thing. For example, I untied “running together” before we ran a Valentine’s day race. While we were eating dinner (another thing we like doing together), I unwrapped the saying, “We can do anything together.” He gave me a photo-frame with two pictures: on the left was a picture of us taken while I was undergoing chemotherapy for a rare type of ovarian cancer, and on the right was a picture of us running in a race a couple months after the treatment. I started bawling. Then, he told me to turn around to see my family walking down to where we were sitting, and when I turned back around he proposed. More bawling from me. And an emphatic, “YES!” of course.

 

What’s the overall ‘feeling’ you’re aiming for with your celebration:

We’re going for a very relaxed feeling (it’s on a farm!), and we’re trying to make decisions that make the wedding very personal for us (the farm is at the base of the first mountain we hiked together). We’re definitely using the skills and talents of our family and friends to pull it off. From pie-baking, to flower arranging, to singing and playing instruments during the ceremony, to simply moving tables and chairs around, our guests will be very much a part of the wedding.

Are you adding any fun twists on tradition:

We plan to serve and toast with smoothies from our most favorite smoothie place instead of serving alcohol (we figure, it’s at lunch, and we’re not big drinkers anyway). We’re also going to play some fun lawn games that are loved by our (rather competitive) families, bake pies instead of serving a traditional wedding cake, and use my dad’s collection of antique jars as part of the centerpieces.

What was the inspiration for your Glövite and Glösite design?

We designed the invitation before the save-the-date or site. We wanted to incorporate the blueberries that reflect the blueberry farm location. We also incorporated our aforementioned love of running (which also hints at the walk/run we’re planning to have the day before the wedding). Finally, we wanted to learn Photoshop, so we used the invites as our first practice project.

How did you make ‘em?

We made everything in Photoshop. We used the “photocopy” filter to create the effect on the blueberries and shoes. We put a texture over the whole thing to make it look kind of like paper.

 

Now show us your Glövites and Glösite

These two even added a timeline of their relationship…from the FIRST proposal (in high school) to the one that stuck. Below is a snippet…

 

 

Any good planning tips and tricks for the couples who are just starting to plan?

For us, with our 1.5 year engagement, we really appreciated being able to plan in spurts and avoid becoming overwhelmed. We worked on a bunch of stuff for a week or two, then we would take a break for a while (up to 3 months) before working on stuff again. It allowed us to have some perspective about what really mattered to us, and what was just a silly detail that wasn’t worth stressing about.

So our advice  is this: think about what matters to you and have fun planning those parts; take some time off of planning when things get stressful and remember how much the details don’t matter. As far as organization, we have been using Google Docs since we can easily share them between us and our families. It’s nice that everyone can collaborate on a spreadsheet or document at the same time, and it’s much easier than emailing attachments all the time.