An Appalachian American wedding

A piece of the heritage my fiance and I share has been part of almost every direction I've gone in wedding planning so far -- we're country (you might say "redneck," I say "Appalachian American"). It's not something that we really wear on our sleeves. Most days, I'm wearing casual office clothes to the library and Johnny is wearing a t-shirt, cargo pants, and flip-flops -- we're not "country" in the sense of wearing cowboy hats, boots, and Wranglers. But we both come from long lines of mountain people.
When Johnny and I started dating, it was the first time I'd been in a serious relationship with someone who came from the same background I'm from, and that commonality is behind a lot of what makes us great together. When I started to think about how to our wedding "ours," I wanted to embrace where we come from in the details.
It works out nicely that rustic is in right now as a trendy feel for weddings, and I love looking at all the different ways that couples incorporate rustic aesthetic into their wedding days. But maybe it's because it's become so popular that I'm still working to personalize our rustic details as much as possible.
So what are some of those details?

Apples and apple butter

Apple butter time! (with future-bridesmaid Kristy and flower girls to the left)

When Johnny and I started dating, it wasn't a week before I met his family. I mentioned that I helped out with their apple butter day in my post about Johnny and his great ideas -- what I didn't mention is that we both grew up in families that made apple butter every fall for a long, long time, up until our generation reached being teenagers. Johnny's family used to run an apple orchard, along with farming other fruits and vegetables, which they sold at a family produce stand on the mountain, and he grew up knowing how to identify different apples by taste. I grew up looking forward to the times when my great-uncles and great-aunts would come to my grandmother's family homestead and sit around telling stories while we passed around the apple butter stirrer. Apple butter is time-consuming, expensive, and tedious to make -- it's been hard for our families to get together enough people with the patience to do it -- but Johnny and I want to keep the tradition alive for both our families in the future, and we're looking forward to making a batch to be served at the wedding if we can!

Mason jars

I know, I know... everybody's doing 'em these days, and there's hardly anything that gives such a quintessential rustic feel as these bad boys. My first ever idea for wedding planning involved mason jar centerpieces, and I thought I was being soooooo original (until I saw how they've exploded onto the wedding scene). But their popularity doesn't bother me a bit -- and I'm still looking forward to using them in our centerpieces. When Johnny and I lived together for a (wonderful) six months on the mountain, near his family, we drank out of mason jars -- they remind me of those days. (I suppose I could also add that we both have for-real moonshiners in our family trees, but I don't know if that's quiiiite the association we want to make at the wedding, or my Granny will start preaching about the Evils of The Drink. We have moonshiners and teetotalers.)
Speaking of my Granny, another great reason for using mason jars? We don't have to buy them. She has a cellar-full, even after we do our summer canning. Yay, free decorations that remind me of my Granny!

Fabric

One of the things that made me leap at the idea of making my own flowers out of fabric is that the women of my family have sewn out of neccessity up until my generation. My Granny's clothes were altered and patched to go on her five little sisters, and she made many of my Mom's clothes when Mom was little. Mom grew up knowing how to sew because she saw Granny doing it all the time, because they had to. Mom used her sewing skills in a different way. She makes German-style cloth dolls, and made lots of stuff for me to wear when I was little because she liked to dress me up and take pride in seeing me enjoy what she made. Then I learned to sew... and spent two years making costumes for our college theatre, along with various RenFaire outfits and costume pieces for others along the way. Further back in our family history, we've got quilters -- something I'd love to try eventually (especially since I know that Johnny's grandmother had a quilt frame that someone might let me use, someday). If I had all the time and money to do it, I would love to make a wedding quilt for us!
Fabric is definitely featuring most heavily in our fabric flowers, but I have a feeling it'll be cropping up in some of my other DIY projects, too.

There are some less visible ways that we're honoring our roots in our wedding -- holding it in the church Johnny's family has attended for generations (Johnny himself helped the new fellowship hall), and by doing a lot of "making do." Budget weddings are coming into their own these days, and I like the ways that our spending decisions on our wedding go with the attitude of making the most of what you have without doing things outside your means that my Granny has always shown me.

I took this picture on the Blue Ridge Parkway in November, 2007