When Christina and Nathan found their venue—at the edge of a mountain top community in Manitou Springs, Colorado—the couple decided to let its beauty speak for itself. “We really wanted the wedding to be simple, intimate and stress free,” said the bride, who with her groom invited only 20 family members to the vintage-inspired ceremony and meal that followed. “It was important to me that Nathan feel the wedding represented him, too,” Christina said. “I didn’t want an all-pink, frilly kind of wedding.”

As a child, Christina recalled eating off her family’s “make-a-plate creations,” she told Pretty Little Weddings. “Nathan and I decide to carry on the tradition by drawing butterflies for our unique dinnerware,” on which guests enjoyed a country-style buffet of pulled pork, macaroni and cheese and more. The bride also fashioned her birdcage veil, and with help from family and friends arranged a single banquet table with succulents from her mother’s garden and “items we either already had in our homes or found in thrift stores,” Christina said. And the couple gave guests nontraditional favors. “Each female guest received a vintage flowered handkerchief and vintage brooch,” Christina said. “The men received gifts unique to them such as comic books, a pocket-knife, geodes, old postcards and a children’s accordion.”