Mark and Kristen's Wedding in Barnesville, Pennsylvania

The story of our wedding

We got married at the most beautiful venue, Catalpa Grove at Lakewood Park, about an hour away from my parents in eastern Pennsylvania. The wedding was nearly entirely DIY and we brought in all of our own vendors and decorations - it was a lot of work, but it was incredibly worth it! We had the most amazing vendor team, including our photographer, caterer, DJ, hair and makeup artists, officiant, and others, paired with the amazing items from our friends and family, including a large majority of the decor created from wood by my father, the cake made by my college friend, and other dessert baked by my mother-in-law! We started off the weekend by decorating the venue the day before with our wedding party, and then staying at the on-site cabins that night. Saturday, the wedding day, brought lovely weather at first, although thunderstorms started rolling in right before the ceremony. Even though we had to have the ceremony indoors to start, the weather cleared up just in time to move the last part of the ceremony to the outside area, and for the rest of the day, the weather was absolutely perfect. Our ~180 guests loved our food stations for dinner, college-themed specialty drinks (Delaware "Blue Hen" G&T for me and Cornell "Big Red" whiskey gingers for him), ice cream truck, outdoor games (cornhole and giant pong), firepit, and of course, the dance floor was absolutely rocking all night long! At the end of the night, most of our guests took our school bus shuttles back to the nearby hotel block for the night. Sunday morning, we had a send-off event at a local brewery, which we rented for two hours so we could share a few last beers with our guests before they headed home. Overall, the entire wedding weekend was even more incredible than I could have imagined!