We created a beautiful DIY wedding open house on a budget including a pretty and delicious cake buffet.
This past weekend we hosted a wedding open house in our home for a young man that my husband has mentored for the last 15 years.
For the refreshments I decided to create a cake buffet. Not only was it delicious but it was so pretty too and became part of the decorations.
The wedding colors were yellow, white and robin egg blue so I wanted to incorporate the colors into the decor and into the food.. Fortunately for me I had quite a few things in that color palette so was able to use things I already owned – only adding in a few new things.
The guests entered our front door and were greeted by this little display and an opportunity to sign the guest book.
I used some white frames I already had and pieces of my milk glass collection as well as the blue mason jars I already owned. You may recognize my DIY Moss eggs from Easter! The subway art I made for last summer’s Wedding Carnival came in handy. The only thing I did not already have was the little bunting I made for the front of the dresser.
The bride and groom stood in our living room in front of our fire place to meet their guests. I cut the Mr. & Mrs. out with my Silhouette.
Aren’t they a handsome couple. I love that James wore his Army uniform!
I basically walked around my house and found everything yellow, white and teal that I had and used it in the decor. The vintage books mostly came from the Goodwill bins and the doilies were from the Dollar Store.
Cake Buffet Set Up
After greeting the bride and groom the guests entered our dining room where I had set up the cake and fruit buffet.
The dresser had been one I had gotten from my parents and the boys had used it in their room. I gave it a fresh new coat of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint which I absolutely love and it became the cake buffet. It now resides back in my craft room and holds all my wrapping supplies!
Here is a tutorial on how to make your own party backdrop. I made the fabric pennant banner out of the wedding colors.
That amazing cake buffet menu was made by our dear friend Bill. He is so talented. You may remember that he did all of the chalkboard art for the Wedding carnival too.
Isn’t it amazing?! It is still in my dinning room I love it so much!!
How to Make A Cake Buffet
We had a selection of 7 cakes. I spent the two days before the open house baking away. Fortunately I have some wonderful friends who helped pitch in too. There was a total of 11 cakes made and then another dear friend showed up that evening with two more!
The cafe buffet included the following:
Tropical Pineapple Carrot Cake (brought by a friend)
Key Lime Cake This was so yummy I can’t wait to share it with you!!
Caramel Cake Neighbor said it was the best cake she’d ever had
Double Chocolate Cake (I made it with a chocolate buttercream)
Fresh California Orange Cake (my personal favorite!)
That collection of cake plates I have came in handy! I also made some fun little cake toppers for some of the cakes out of glitter letters, washi tape, straws and fabric. I just raided my craft room.
And a little fabric pennant banner:
I had to have a gluten free option in amongst all that gluten laden cake so I made a batch of lemon macarons.
Even though we had the menu board I wanted to have the cakes labeled on the buffet too. There wasn’t much room left on the buffet for anything so I just typed up the names of all the cakes and used some washi tape to tape them right down onto the dresser.
In addition to cake we also had a fruit buffet on the other side of the room. My yellow side board came in handy! So glad yellow was one of her wedding colors.
Thanks to good friends who purchased and cut up all the fruit for me so I didn’t have to worry about it at all!!
From the dining room they could step through the french doors out onto the back patio. We had had rain all week but fortunately some friends had some tents we could borrow and set up over the patio. The day of the open house it rained and rained and I was so worried that even with the tents people would not be able to sit outside. Luckily the rain stopped 30 minutes before the party started and it didn’t rain at all during the event!!
Wedding Decor on a Budget
We had set up tables with blue mason jars full of white and yellow chrysanthemums we bought at Costco and then all the greenery came from my garden.
More books from the Goodwill bins, doilies from the Dollar Store and candle holders from IKEA (via the Wedding Carnival) I ran out of time before our trip and didn’t have enough books for all the tables and my good friend Marsha braved the Goodwill bins for me and found me enough!!
Wedding on a Budget
This was definitely an event on a budget. It is amazing what you can do with a little creativity, things you and your friends already own, a little elbow grease and good friends!
I could not have done this without all my amazing friends. I am a lucky girl!
Other Wedding ideas
For a tutorial on how I made the party backdrop check out this post.
For other fun wedding ideas be sure and check out The Wedding Carnival.
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