Our Back Patio Wedding Ceremony

When we moved into our new house this March, we had no idea it would be our wedding venue in August! We found out 8 days before our wedding that our venue was forced to close due to Covid. That gave us a little over a week to plan our back patio wedding ceremony!

At first we considered moving all our furniture and getting married in the living room just because it’s HOT in Louisiana in August. But our photographer recommended an outside ceremony for photo purposes. And I think it was the BEST decision.

For the week leading up the wedding, I sat outside on a daily basis around 6-7PM just to see how miserable it was outside. Lucky for us, our entire patio gets covered in shade right around 5:50PM. This was perfect for our 6PM ceremony!

We set our wedding arch up in front of our big windows, and our florist, Meredith at Forage, decorated it with big monstera leaves. My dad built the arch for our original wedding venue, and it was literally my favorite part of the ceremony.

It was the exact vibe I wanted - and actually paired perfectly with our pool. Plus, it really popped against our white house.

We rented 30 chairs for guests to sit in, and had even more guests standing behind the chairs and around the pool.

My original vision for the wedding was for guests to stand during the ceremony, so I like that we were able to still have that. It made it feel more intimate, yet relaxed too.

My bridesmaids and I hid in the pool house before the ceremony, which overlooks the patio. I was able to see everyone come in, which got me excited and helped calm my nerves since I could see what I was about to walk into! I could also see Michael and the groomsmen the whole time even though they couldn’t see us. They looked super cute.

We walked out the backdoor of the pool house then down the aisle. It was fun being able to wave to everyone who was standing around the pool who could see me — without Michael being able to see me yet!

We all walked down the aisle to an instrumental version of Love Story by Taylor Swift, and Michael cried like a baby when I came out.

After my dad gave me away, our wedding officiant asked everyone to remain standing for the National Anthem. At first everyone laughed, then everyone chimed in and it was amazing. I have more here on our America + Taylor Swift-themed wedding.

Our ceremony was short and sweet and perfect! It was all around 15 minutes. My cousin Phillip was our officiant. It was special having someone who knew us perform the ceremony because he could add in personal touches. It was exactly what we wanted!

My friend Kristina streamed the ceremony on Zoom so family and friends could see it who couldn’t travel to get here due to Covid. We were able to go back into the pool house and have a minute online with them, which was really special.

Then we signed our wedding license and made this official!

Stay tuned for our our reception pics — coming up next week!

Photos by Bliss Photography

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KEEP READING: OUR WEDDING THEME: Taylor Swift + America

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