Trendy Ideas for Planning a Country Wedding

One of the more popular wedding themes trending today is the country wedding. Country weddings can run the gamut from having an outdoor ceremony and reception near a field to planning a downright cowboy country wedding with cowboy boots, hats and horses.

A country wedding theme may be one of the least expensive themes to plan, especially if you live in a rural area where there are a lot of countrysides and farmland. You might even live on a farm yourself, which can save you a good deal of cash when it comes to renting a venue.

Obviously you have to plan for the weather as best as you can, especially for an outdoor wedding.

Some ways to help with this is to find a venue where there are covered areas in case of rain. When my daughter got married, they used the groom's family homestead. It was in a rural area on the outskirts of the city with two large covered picnic areas.

They had a tent out in the grassy area with a beautiful backdrop of green trees and a running creek. Unfortunately, it drizzled most of the day, but everyone was under cover and still had lots of fun.

Country Wedding Ceremony and Reception Location Ideas

• Horse farm
• Open field area on any farm
• Barn or barn-styled building
• "Big top" tent in an open field

Depending on where you're having your country wedding, the natural decor should save you money on decorating. You can probably get away with the least amount of extra decorating expense if you choose a location with any of these things already on the property:

• Post & rail fence
• Horses
• Bales of hay
• Tractor and farm equipment

Using Paper Flowers in Your Wedding Theme

Crafty Brides looking to save money can make their own bridal bouquets from paper flowers. Using a variety of papers and scrapbooking items, you can create a beautiful full and colorful bouquet for pennies, and these flowers won't ever die.

Why Paper Flowers and Not Silk?

Using paper flowers really isn't that different from buying a silk flower bouquet, except that you'll be making them yourself, so you can get as creative as you like.

Paper Flower Bridal Bouquets
A lot of bridal bouquets have a mixture of different flowers and different colors. So you can use one or two of the egg carton flowers and surround it with some tissue paper flowers.

Add a couple of origami flowers to the mix and you can create a one-of-a-kind bridal bouquet.

Then whatever colors you've used in your bouquet, make each of the bridesmaids slightly different. The bouquets for the bridesmaids can match their dresses. Mix up the flowers that are in their bouquets and change up the arrangement, and each bridesmaid will have a different but coordinated bouquet of her own.

Where to Get Ideas
A great way to figure out how to make different paper flowers is to take a walk through the silk flowers at a local department or craft store. You can see how the layers of silk are arranged in the different flowers, then go home and copy the design using your paper.

And you can use just about any type of paper too. I helped my cousin make coffee filter flowers, both roses and carnations, for her bridal shower centerpieces.

If you're really good with origami, you can make some origami flowers for the bouquets for you and your bridesmaids.

The Five Biggest Wedding Preparation and Planning Mistakes

Just as with any big show, your wedding day will not be perfect - but that's okay. While you cannot plan ahead for every little detail or problematic situation that may arise, you can arm yourself with some helpful advice to be prepared at all times for any potential wedding mistakes. But before you begin planning your special day, consider these five biggest wedding preparation and planning mistakes that amateur 'wedding planners' often make.

1. Not Budgeting Costs

It's hard to believe, but true - many couples do not create a budget when it comes to wedding preparation and end up in a deep hole of debt. The very first thing you should do to avoid disastrous (and bankrupting) wedding mistakes is devise an itemized budget, allowing for the necessary requirements, such as a venue for both the ceremony and reception, food and drinks, flowers, favors, decorations, etc. If anything is left over, either use this money for your honeymoon or spend it on something a little more frivolous, like a horse drawn carriage for your departure from the reception.

Budgeting ahead of time also involves your acknowledging the fact that you may surpass the total by at least 10%. Surprises do happen, so cutting back on other needless things will ensure that you don't go over budget too much. In these initial wedding preparation stages, you and your fiancé need to discuss who will be paying for what. It used to be that the bride's parents paid for everything, but this ideal is slowly fading away. If you're still coming up short on funds, there are literally hundreds of ways to cut costs for your wedding day, including having fewer guests, choosing an off-season date, selecting flowers that are in season, and having friends and family play a bigger part by making the wedding cake or trying their hand at photography.

2. Not Giving Yourself Enough Time

The image of the harried bride has been engrained into the psyche through a number of television shows that hype up the combination of little to no time and a 'my way or the highway' attitude. This is why giving yourself ample wedding preparation time is necessary to ensuring that your wedding flows seamlessly. If you want a large, extravagant wedding, you need to begin planning at least a year and a half in advance; for a smaller, more intimate wedding of about 50 guests, eight months to a year is fine. You need to take into account what your plans are for your wedding and adjust your schedule accordingly to prevent costly wedding mistakes from occurring.

Giving yourself more wedding preparation time allows you to order your cake, dress, wedding favors, flowers, decorations, etc. well in advance so that you don't come up empty-handed from last minute rushing. Allotting enough time also applies to your wedding ceremony and reception. Don't keep your guests waiting at the reception venue while you and your wedding party are taking hundreds of photos - consider taking a majority of the pictures before the ceremony and the all-important couple, wedding party, and family pictures after the vows have been exchanged.