Mike and I had been dating for 5 solid years after meeting at Crossfit. And in 2018, on one of our yearly trips to Maine to visit his dad he proposed to me at the top of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park. He had been planning it for months, and I had no idea – even my parents were waiting at the top of the hike to congratulate us!!

Shortly after getting engaged, I stumbled across a photo of a giant-hat tipi wedding in the UK while exploring Pinterest. It was completely different than anything I had ever seen before and I was hooked. Being outdoorsy folk it wasn’t hard to convince Michael, and so our theme was decided – a whimsy-filled festival with giant-hat Tipis!! We also knew our three doggos needed to have a part in our nuptials. After some research we quickly realized there weren’t any venues in our area (or in the US!) offering the wedding festival we were envisioning without having to hire out every single element, so we set to work putting our own together from scratch.

After 10 months of getting our 20 acre slice of Hill Country heaven ready for “Haws Wedfest” – and tons of encouragement from family and friends – we decided to bring the festival vibes to other couples…at Elm Pass Woods!

If there’s one piece of advice I learned while planning our wedding it’s that this day is supposed to be about you and YOUR love for each other. This means you might be incorporating something in your festival that 99% of couples would never consider – or cutting something that everyone else typically does – and that’s OK! This notion will help keep you sane regardless of where you end up getting married.

<3 Alex, Michael, and baby Theo + Dexter, Riley, and Sam (our puppers)