Last year my sister got engaged to her college sweetheart. They’ve been together almost 10 years and recently bought a beautiful home together, so it was time for him to pop the question! When she asked me to be her MOH (duh) I was thrilled and couldn’t wait to start planning! She had mentioned wanting to host the shower at my house, and right away I knew I wanted to put together an outdoor garden party: pretty flowers, tons of greenery, long white dinner tables, with pops of gold and silver. I had about 7 months to plan and put it all together, so I knew I had the time to be patient and make it beautiful.
After finding some inspiration on Pinterest and Instagram and reading a few articles by bloggers I follow, I had the design in mind – I wanted an open structure in the yard, not a traditional tented event. Something kind of vintage looking, that was simple but still beautiful. I saw a picture where someone using old porch posts as a pergola-type structure, and that set the inspiration for the entire party. In total, I think we spent less than $250 on this project, and the final result was amazing.
Step 1: Finding the Materials
My mom and I immediately began searching Craigslist and FB Marketplace for porch posts. My mom found a set of 4 beautiful, 100+ year old posts in upstate NY for $60. I have an uncle who lives a town over, and he was kind enough to pick them up for us. A few months later I found another set of 4 about 30 minutes north from me, and got the guy down to $100 for them. They were all in fairly rough shape and were not the same height or style, but for $160 we would make them work.
Step 2: Sanding and Painting
While planning the shower, my husband I were also in the middle of a huge home project – redoing our ceilings – so my parents were kind enough to take on the posts themselves. I had a lot going on (see my ceiling post here), and I really didn’t have the time at that moment to get these posts done. My parents sanded each post down to the natural wood, and gave them a good wash. They then painted each one using leftover white paint, and after a few weeks and a couple of coats of paint, the posts were beautiful again.
Before Original Condition Posts after sanding First coat of paint
Step 3: Wait, how do we get this to stand?
When it came to actually assembling this in the yard, I was clueless. I mean, I knew how it looked in my head, but I had no clue on how to piece it all together. Thankfully my dad is an engineer and my uncle is a construction project manager, and the two of them took over. They came out a couple of weekends before the shower and took a bunch of measurements, figured out which spots were level, laid down a bunch of strings and measuring tape and jotted down a ton of numbers. Honestly, I have no idea how they came to figure out the best way to build it, but I’m so glad they did.
The first challenge was figuring out how to get these posts to stand upright and not fall over. My uncle made some wooden stakes that sat deep into the ground, and he screwed the posts flush up against the stakes. He used a level along the side to make sure they were upright and level. To secure the posts further, my dad had a bunch of 2in x 4in x 12ft boards from Lowes delivered to my house, which cost about $50. They then secured the boards to the top of the posts all the way around, creating a sturdy “roof.” Once it was standing, they painted the stakes and boards the same white as the posts, and voila, outdoor venue is complete.
Close up of the stake Stakes on all posts My dad painting the top All finished!
Continue on to read how I designed and put the rest of the shower together in “How I Created an Outdoor Garden Party for my Sister’s Bridal Shower: Part 2”
