OUTDOOR ENGAGEMENT PARTY DECORATING IDEAS

Most of you know that my son got married last Fall.  I've shared some bits and pieces on social media but not much here other than announcing the engagement from Fall of '22.  All along I've been planning to and was excited to share everything, there was just so much to share that it seemed daunting and I needed to get my thoughts organized about how I wanted to present everything here.  So, since we're on the verge of "Wedding Season," I thought it would be fun to spread several engagement/wedding related posts out over the next few weeks in a little series to get you all caught up! 

My sister's land/farm is not too far from where Caleb and Kenzi were going to school, and he decided he wanted to designate a special spot there for the proposal.  There's a ridge on the edge of their land that looks down over the rest of the property, and we thought that would be the perfect proposal spot. We planned to have a party with friends and family afterwards, so it worked out well that the proposal could be in one location on the land while everyone else was waiting down at the house. 

We spent a Saturday before the planned day helping to clean up and prep the property, then also worked the day before and most of the day of getting everything set up for the actual proposal and the party.  It was September but it was HOT!!  Here we were on a work day the week before checking out the proposal spot close to sunset-

We took a lot of supplies and decorations from our house to use, and combined it all with a lot of things that my sister already had to set up our party spots. We were trying to keep everything about the proposal a secret as much as possible.  The ruse for the evening was that Caleb was taking her for a picnic dinner out on the land to celebrate their 2 year dating anniversary, and he told her he had found someone who set up picnics and provided a basket of food (he did... ME and my sister, ha!) so she wouldn't be suspicious about the cute set up as soon as she saw it.  So we set up a little "picnic" spot in a clearing surrounded by trees and the view on the other side. 

You all know I have a pretty good stash of disco balls in various sizes, and my sister had the idea to hang them in the trees hoping they would catch some of the sunlight and add some sparkle.  She also had a ton of honeycomb balls left over from her wedding, so we used those in various spots as well.  

I brought a rug that we had used in Emily's dorm room and we used lots of plants, pampas grass plumes, lanterns, and a little vintage chair.  Hot, dirty, wiped out... but prepped and ready! 

Here it is all finished!

After the proposal, they rode down to the house where we had a big backyard party ready and waiting with tons of friends and family.  My sister made this little "arch" with strings of Christmas lights for their entrance, it looked incredible when it got dark! 

I bought giant white balloons that we hung around the property (this thing is a MUST!).  I also got some glow sticks and little LED ball lights (bright white or warm white- I got both to try) that we dropped in the balloons in hopes that they would light up in the dark- the lights worked better than the glow sticks.  

They had a few strands of string lights across their backyard already, but we added a few to cover more of the space.  The tractor makes a handy lift!  :)

Kenzi loves kind of a boho, vintage vibe so that's the loose decorating theme we were going with (along with whatever of my regular event decorations we could use too!).  I had a small stash of pampas grass plumes, but a sweet reader in town offered me hers once they were ready- she said they always cut them off anyway so the seeds don't fly into the pool.  She was so generous and we scored!  I gave them a good shake to try to knock off the loose seeds, then a spray of cheap aerosol hairspray helps to lock them in place so there aren't pieces flying everywhere.

We loaded up our patio furniture and rugs from home too to create more seating around the back yard.  

My sister had an old gate that she thought might be useful.  We printed off a bunch of pictures of the couple and used it for a photo display.  I can't tell you how many events I've hauled my giant disco ball to! 

I was so busy through the evening that I didn't really have time to go around and take the photos of the decorations once everything was totally set up that I would have liked to, but tried to choose some here to give you a good idea of how everything turned out.  We set up seating and a serving line on the porch.  These black and white tablecloths (along with my round ones as well) have been a small investment that have paid for themselves over and over again I've used them so much!  Again, the balloon pump was a workhorse for the balloon garland and we used a variety of other garlands I had, attaching "YES" dollar store balloons and these cutest honeycomb engagement ring decorations to them.  

My sister made some beautiful cut flower arrangements from her garden and we scattered votives and framed photos along the tables as well.  

We served a simple dinner of pulled pork sliders (I made several crockpots full!), chips, baked beans, and condiments.  I used these letter trays from Hobby Lobby as serving dishes, they turned out so cute!  We lined them with some plastic wrap underneath the food.  

We bought basic but yummy cupcakes from the bakery and added these gold glitter cupcake toppers.  Again, it was so hot that evening I'm surprised the frosting wasn't more of a total melted mess- ha!  Memories.  

I found these metal puffy gold hearts several years ago and have used them for several showers and they're great for Valentine's Day. They're an incredible price right now too! 

I don't have a photo with the actual machine, but we had a bubble machine at the end of the porch blowing bubbles all night!  You can see them if you look closely at this photo.  My parents have had a bubble machine at their house for years for parties or just running in the back yard, so that was a fun little bit of nostalgia to have too.  (Tip- if you happen to get one, there are a lot of wands inside that spin and blow a ton of bubbles, which in turn goes through a lot of bubble solution.  My Dad carefully snipped off about half of the circles so there weren't as many and it produced a gentle stream of bubbles floating along instead of a bubble barrage. 😂  But if you have little ones playing with them they'll probably love it as is!) 

The last spot we decorated was a photo booth along the treeline.  I started with this sketch to show my sister my idea of what I wanted to do...  I know, you're jealous of my art skills.  😂

I shared a tutorial here of how I made the sign. It was very important to me that it was hanging perfectly straight- I knew it would bug me in all of the photos if it wasn't! The guys helped with that as I stood back and supervised.  😊

We added some curtain lights behind the sign, and I bought the moroccan stars (this is a good option too) several years ago for Christmas which were perfect to hang here too.  I also had a bunch of white paper lanterns but did not have lights to go in them.  We put several of those tiny LED ball lights up inside the bottom rim so they were lit when it got dark as well.  They worked great! I was curious when I bought them about how long they would last so I tested a few out, some of them stayed lit for almost 2 days!  So they're a fun option to use inside a balloon garland, scattered along a table or whatever you can think of, and should last for at least a day so you can set up ahead of time.  

It was a lot of work, but a beautiful, magical evening and so much fun!  It was worth every bit of effort to celebrate these two and what the Lord did to bring them together.  

This collage is interactive, click on the photo to shop.

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