A Look Inside One of the Coolest DIY Weddings Ever

Elizabeth and Preston Olson’s wedding was probably one of the most Instagrammed weddings ever for a non Kanye being— or at least certainly one of the first. Pretty much everywhere you turned, there was something so visually appealing it demanded to be documented, from the bride’s red shoes, to the groom’s party’s tie-dyed bow ties.. When Elizabeth, creative director at AFAR Magazine, and Preston, a tax consultant-cum-artist, got engaged, all their friends – and internet followers, they both have a very strong online presence alongside their dog Oscar Beans – got ready for what would surely be a feast for the senses. Six months later, the Olsons became official at a farm in upstate New York, and we’re certain that the next day, #epomg, their chosen wedding hashtag, was the thing to look through on Instagram. We talked to Elizabeth to get the lowdown on DIY wedding planning, how much to let your parents help, and why having friends get involved is the best thing.

YAHOO STYLE: Let’s start at the beginning. How long did you have to plan the wedding?
ELIZABETH OLSON: We got engaged December 29 of 2012 and got married in July 2013, so about seven months.

YS: Six months, wow. How quickly did you spring into planning mode?
EO: We got engaged in California but were still living in New York at the time, so on the flight home on New Year’s Day, I was like “let’s just make a list of everything that we want in our wedding.” First thing was we knew we wanted it outside, and in the summer, which is why we fast-tracked it and did it in July. I just couldn’t think of anything less interesting than being engaged for 15 months. I couldn’t fathom talking about wedding planning for a year and a half.

YS: What were the things on the list that made it to the wedding?
EO: Honestly? A lot of them. We wanted to do a weekend, to be close to New York, so no one felt like they had to make a huge haul to get there. We wanted an outdoor bonfire at some point, after the wedding. We did chuck some things we really wanted though, like we wanted a photo booth. It’s not very easy getting an old school photo booth on a farm. And it was fine, everyone took great photos.

YS: You actually made all the save-the-dates and invitations yourself.
EO: That was pretty fun. I treated it like Preston was the client. He’s very supportive of me, so I knew if he had a really good reaction, then it was the right one. For six months I was staying late at work to work on wedding stuff. On the weekends we put the invitations together, visited locations, scouted things, it was full-on, full time.

YS: At any point, did you hire professional help?
EO: No. I did pretty much everything. You know, my parents paid for a lot, and Preston and I paid for a lot. When we talked about budget, we realized we didn’t want to spend any of that on the planner, like money was too precious. So aside from my mom, who obviously helped a ton, and the family members that helped with making things, most of the planning and figuring stuff out was Preston and I.

YS: Many family members actually made things for your wedding, how did the division of labor go?
EO: There were some people that I knew I could count on, like my sister. She works in fashion and design so I was like “hey would you like to make a bow ties for Preston and for the groomsmen?”
Other things actually happened at my mom’s suggestion. When I had this idea to get vintage doilies and put them together to make table runners out of them, my mom was like “you know my cousin Daisy is great at that, and she wants to help.” I collected a bunch of stuff, made a drawing, and sent it all to Texas, and she made about 40 table runners based on the sketch. I also wanted cloth napkins, but not the crappy ones that you can rent, and my other aunt offered to sew them for me. I found all this cheap fabric and sent them to her in Florida and she made about 200 cloth napkins.

YS: Were you worried about how things were going to turn out, sending them so far away?
EO: Yeah, because I’m a control freak, which I kind of knew, but did not realize the extent of it until the wedding preparations got underway.
We’ll have been married for two years in July and my family’s favorite joke about me – probably until the day that I die – is me going off about square plates when we were at the food tasting. I was like "Listen, this is fine, but if this is what the plates are going to look like I’m going to have a heart attack. I don’t do square plates, and I don’t want rectangles!” I just went off, and my mom and dad were like “you are psychotic person!” Now it’s everyone’s favorite joke, I’ll never live it down.

YS: You were Art Director at Bon Appetit at the time, that must’ve added a bit of extra stress when it came to the cake and the food!
EO: Yes, the food editors there are all amazing cooks and at first I was thinking maybe we could hire some of them to do the food and drinks, but it became super complicated because again, we weren’t getting married in Manhattan. So I had to give in on the food and choose someone upstate to cater it. Also my parents really had an opinion because they’re old school. My mom is Dominican, my dad is Greek, and they’re used to weddings with like 600 people and a ton of food and people judging the wedding on the food and that kind of thing.
I eventually just let them sort of take care of it. My mom found an amazing woman who could just do whatever you wanted, it wasn’t just like “Sample Menu A, B, or C.” I told her I wanted as much local, fresh summer time food as possible. I think we end up with steak and chimichurri, roasted vegetables, and roasted corn salad. I just wanted it to be easy and summer-y.
In terms of snacks and all of that, for the cocktail hour, my parents were actually cracking me up because they were over-ordering food. My dad had two rules, “I don’t want anyone feeling like they didn’t get any food, and I don’t want anyone to wait more than two minutes to get a drink. As long as that’s fully covered, that’s all I care about.” So we had a ton of bartenders and three different drink stations.

YS: You had an unusual cake too, how did that come about?
EO: As for dessert, I knew I wanted to ask my friend Alison Roman, who’s an editor at Bon Appetit, to make my cake. She is an amazing cook, and she makes the most delicious things. I just love her and I knew that she would get it. I told her "I want it to be pink and I want it to look like it was homemade in the 60’s by the best friend.” The special request was that I wanted it to be ombré inside. It just made me happy that someone I work with, who I love as a person would do that for me.

YS: And you also had a dessert table, which I loved.
EO: Alison also made all of those. She made salted chocolate chip cookies that she had done for Bon Appettit, Mexican wedding cookies, a bunch of different pies, candy. There was a ton of stuff.
I feel like at a formal wedding with formal food service, if you happen to be away from your table for a minute, dancing or doing whatever, it’s like “wait I missed salad, wait I missed dessert”. I just wanted everything to be out, I wanted everyone to be able to eat and snack whenever they wanted. It’s little things like that, little changes that can make it so cool.

YS: So you planned everything, but the day of, were you still in “control mode,” or did you cede power to someone else?
EO: I completely relinquished control from the moment I started getting my hair and makeup done. I was very strangely free, I was so excited and I wasn’t nervous. I knew my mom was on top of it, and my best friend from high school offered to help coordinate any last minute things.

YS: How surprised were you at how everyone became obsessed with your wedding afterwards? Even strangers on Instagram followed the #epomg hashtag all weekend!
EO: I was so happy, like, thank God we didn’t put in all this work for nothing. I hit people over the head with the hashtag, from the very beginning. I wanted to be able to see the pictures the next day, because I knew that there would be so much we’d miss, so I was psyched. The next morning we woke up so hungover, and while in bed we searched the hashtag and we saw hundreds of pictures from the wedding, it was the most fun thing ever! I know it’s like such a thing now and it can be something to make fun of but if you really get your friends and family to commit to it, it’s such a fun thing. Even now, I’ll go back and look at it be like “man, that was so much fun”.
I certainly didn’t expect you and I would be talking about it two years later. But it’s feels so good because I put a ton of work into that wedding! I have a wealth of knowledge now on wedding planning, and I have three good girl friends getting married this year so I just told them “I’m here for any and all questions,” because what am I going to do with all this information?

YS: It was the funnest wedding for sure, everybody danced their pants off and it was just an amazing night.
EO: That’s what I like to hear! I loved having my friends involved, I loved having my family involved. Everything from the person who DJ’d, to the person who made the wedding cake, we tried to make it as personal as possible. We wanted everyone involved to be someone we love, adored, or were a fan of to work with us on it. It was the best.