When it came to their wedding, Bonnie and Burton focused on family, food and a farm—Codman Community Farm. “When we found the farm,” Bonnie recalls, “it just felt like home.”

To accomplish their goals and stay within their budget, Bonnie and Burton “did all the planning and all the making ourselves,” Bonnie said. The pair borrowed mismatched china from a friend and former bride to use to serve their locally-sourced food. They assembled midnight snacks—sacks filled with cheddar cheese, almonds, apples and chocolate and sealed with a heart sticker. And they collected postcards, encouraging guests on the wedding night to scrawl messages using Bic pens they purchased and labeled as escort cards. “After the evening was over, one of my favorite parts was opening the mailbox and reading everyone’s little notes to us,” Bonnie said. “We’ll keep those forever.”

She said, “The benefit to being on a farm was that nothing had to be fancy. We could have beautiful white table clothes, but use just mason jars for the flower arrangements. It was a lot of work, but we saved a lot of money.