When my future husband and I bought our home together in August 2020, I wore a white eyelet lace sundress that cost me $15 at Old Navy to the closing—so that I could tell Larry, after we crossed our newly purchased threshold together: “I won’t wear this dress again until we get married in our backyard.”

In June 2024, after the pandemic had waned and after Larry had turned our yard into a vegetable and flower garden, we had our wedding.

It didn’t take much to transform our garden into a space appropriate for a ceremony. Our friends brought their outdoor tables and chairs; we filled vases with flowers we bought at Target. I purchased a few extra folding chairs, which have since been put to use at other parties, as well as a set of linen tablecloths and floral-pastel table runners that can be reused for next year’s neighborhood festivities.

Larry and I exchanged vows in front of a bower that he had built to keep our tomatoes off the ground. Afterward, we had a potluck supper and a short surprise performance by our local chamber choir. All in all, hosting a backyard wedding for 60 people cost us about $1,500—and half of that went to hiring the photographer, who took so many excellent pictures of our friends and family that we can give them each a frame-worthy portrait of themselves for Christmas.

After the wedding was over, Larry turned his attention to the next phase of his backyard project. He’s been thinking about building a custom-designed patio in the south corner of our yard for at least two years, starting with a series of concrete molds and ending with a 3D-printed veneer. He constructed his first mold in September; the first round of concrete got poured in late November.

Our goal is to create a space that hints at the lake where Larry and I spend many of our summer weekends. The patio footprint, for example, is curved and undulating (instead of the typical rectangle or trapezoid that might have been easier to design and pour). The retaining wall is also curved, and is likely to be covered with a veneer that resembles the geological striations banking the lake. We’re hoping we can incorporate a water-and-fish mosaic into our patio pavers, although we’ll have to teach ourselves how to craft it.

Luckily, this entire thing is a learning process—including aspects we expected, such as the iteration involved in designing functional molds, as well as aspects we didn’t expect. We learned, for example, that people who pour concrete are extremely busy in the last quarter of the year, as everyone rushes to finish their driveways and outdoor projects before the frost sets in. It took nearly four weeks, between the date we requested the concrete and the date we got it—and Larry kept one eye on the weather the entire time.

However, the project is still on target. In the past year Larry has worked with friends and contractors to excavate the ground where the patio will stand, to build and level molds for a retaining wall and to get the wall poured before winter. Next year he will build and pour the patio, print and install the veneers, and plant the flowers and ground cover plants. My role in all of this is extremely simple; I provide moral support, I ask intelligent questions and I keep the rest of the house going as he gets the outdoor jobs done.

We hope to have everything finished by our first anniversary, so we can have another gathering—and another chance to share something we love with our family and friends.

Top photo by Lisa Wigoda

Related Reading:

How I Threw a DIY, At-Home Farm Wedding

I Used AI to Re-Imagine My Front Yard