Spring and summer weddings give way to SO many fun ideas and themes. From your own backyard to the beach and even summer camp, there are lots of places from your past and present to draw inspiration from.
If you’re looking for summer wedding ideas, a great place for you to start is to sit down with your soon-to-be hubs and think about your favorite summer memories, either when you were a kid or from the summer’s you’ve spent together. Personally, when I think of summer I remember visiting my Grandma in Buffalo and going for soft-serve and picking strawberries in her backyard. Or as I got older spending hours upon hours playing Marco Polo in the pool with friends or playing Cornhole at sleep-away camp.
Below are a few of my favorite summer wedding ideas, including suggestions for wedding table centerpieces, wedding dresses and groom’s suit, games, and wedding favors (though these are really just the start). Let me know what your favorites are in the comments section, or if you’re planning a summer wedding what your fun ideas are.
Happy 4th of July, everyone!!
I love using fruit for wedding centerpieces in pretty much every season, but you have so many more options to play with in the summer as well. To add a pop of color to your wedding tables, think about using bowls of strawberries with a few spilling out onto the table for an extra rustic touch. Lemons and oranges are always a fun option, too, which you can cut up and put in jars along with inexpensive wildflowers.
For a more casual summer wedding inside OR outside, a groom can’t go wrong with an Irish linen suit. The one bummer is that the fabric wrinkles really easily, but by the end of the day (or night) it just adds to the look.
Having guests send off wish lanterns at the end of the night is always a fun idea. And don’t worry…they’re eco-friendly
Wish Lanterns, $20.99 for a 10-pack
Keep guests happy with fans that pull double-duty, either as a wedding ceremony program or dinner menu if you’re dining al fresco.
When it comes to bouquets, think about using dried herbs, grass, and wildflowers, like the ones in this summer wedding bouquet on Etsy, $39, or my DIY herb boutonniere. Bonus? You can put the dried herbs/wildflowers in a vase and keep them practically forever.
This moss-covered birdhouse could make for a cute wedding table number holder or even a wedding card holder. Find similar birdhouses here.
Instead of wedding cake (or in addition to) rent an ice cream truck for a fun and nostalgic dessert. Typically, it will cost you around $1-3 per ice cream/frozen dessert and the companies typically want a guaranteed minimum of around $100+ per hour. Otherwise it’s really not that expensive when you think about how much a wedding cake costs.
Summer weddings are perfect for vintage-style lace wedding dresses. I love this Claire Pettibone ‘Kristen’ wedding dress from the Three Graces collection.
If you’re having a farm, winery, ranch, or garden wedding, having a couple sets of cornhole around is a super fun idea. Buy it here for $159
Hello mudda. Hello fadda. Who remembers writing scores of postcards or letters each summer from camp? I do! Instead of a typical guest book, have guests sign vintage postcards, or collect postcards from you and your hubs’ favorite locations. Find similar postcards here.
As a useable wedding favor at your summer wedding, treat guests to flip-flops they can wear when their feet are about to fall off from dancing. You can order custom ones, but why not give out a neutral color pair that guys and girls might not wear again? Be sure to order a variety of sizes, and put them in cute wicker baskets they’re easy to sort through. Old Navy, $2.50
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I am having a summer wedding next year Sept 1 2018. And we are having a rustic country barn wedding we are having BBQ food with the traditional food for the quest to enjoy. I have a lot of kids coming to the wedding so I am having a lot of lawn games for them to play some of them include cornhole, ring toss, tic tac toe, and bad mitten. I am having cake and ice cream truck because my fiancé dosent eat cake so we are getting a ice cream truck to use as a surprise. At the end of the night we are having sparklers for the guest to hold up so we can walk through them.