Backyard intimate wedding

There are a lot of rentals involved in hosting outdoors. Something to consider is parking and bathrooms. In my experience there’s never enough of either. Also the physical set up of a wedding without staff takes two days. I had a client insist on having an outdoor backyard wedding and it was literally the hottest June day I’ve ever seen. It was miserable for her guests. Hire a professional to help you navigate the needs of vendors and help you think of things that only a planner would think about. Happy planning!!

We did it! It was amazing! Pros: flexibility with everything! We ordered a huge tent and tables and chairs. We had coolers of our fav craft beers and seltzer’s, pitchers of margaritas and whiskey sours, we ordered fun food, had confetti cannons and luminaries, fire pit, chill timeline, everyone stayed late into the night. Cons: you must be super organized bc it’s a lot of work!! lol Fortunately my entire family pitched in, but definitely have a game plan and make sure parents and best man-maid of honor are all on the same page with timeline. Some stuff will still go wrong though, like the unexpected wind that kept blowing things around and we should have had more trash cans bc my dad kept emptying trash lol. Best decision we made was to hire a videographer, love seeing my childhood backyard all fancy and glowing with the string lights!! One thing I wish I had done (learn from me lol) is to hire a DJ!! The music kept getting neglected lol, would’ve been nice to have an outside person be in charge with fun music all night long. But in the grand scheme that was minor. We are still planning to have big wedding #2 with all of our friends and family but our “real” backyard wedding day was beyond special. Honestly some days we look at each other and want to scrap wedding #2 but aren’t completely there yet.lol We are so glad we did it! Good luck!

You're going to want to check with your local laws about hosting events. Everything from parking permits to liquor laws to restroom requirements might be a thing.

That said, check out the "vendors" tab, above, which can help guide you.

Hi Courtney! Here are a few helpful posts I found where other WeddingWire brides weighed in on backyard weddings and share their experience:

Cancelling wedding and getting married in the backyard?

Last min backyard wedding help!

How to coordinate a backyard wedding?

Backyard Wedding Tips?

backyard wedding inspo