Growing up in Western Pennsylvania, weddings were rustic. Drinking-out-of-mason-jars rustic. Burlap-and-lace-table-runners rustic. Line-dance rustic. Wooden-table-numbers rustic. A-cow-was-in-this-barn-5-minutes-ago rustic.
Those weddings are the fodder my wedding planner nightmares are made of. I wanted to erase them out of my brain, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” style. That is, until the 2021 wedding season when I decided to embrace my Texan yeehaw-ness for a dope Texas couple and give them the elevated XO Moreau twist on a barn wedding.
My New Obsession: the Chic Barn Wedding
After swearing to myself up, down, and sideways I would never take on a barn wedding, I decided to do it anyway. (What — you expected Alex Moreau to do something predictable? I’m a bonafide rule breaker, baby.) I woke up one day and decided to embrace my inner cowgirl, with the realization that an XO Moreau barn wedding will undoubtedly shake shit up.
The switch has flipped, and now I’m completely obsessed with taking the tired, rustic barn wedding we’ve seen for 10 years and turning it into a cowboy chic wedding.
What’s cowboy chic? A beyond-badass barn wedding that dreams are made of. It’s an intentional celebration that curates traditional Country Western elements that you won’t see on Pinterest into a high-end, funky-as-hell, cooler-than-cool barn wedding. Like Dryden and Cody’s wedding in the fall of 2021 that featured a mechanical bull front and center on the dance floor for the most sick reception you can imagine. I cannot rave enough about how this wedding turned out — and to think I almost swore off cowboy weddings completely!
Kristen and Rob’s Fort Worth Stockyards Station wedding in early 2022 is another example. I transformed their venue into an intimate, refined space, but called back to its “yeehaw” roots with killer catering from Riscky’s Bar-B-Q, bespoke stationery featuring the couple’s monogram in a horseshoe, and the occasional vintage cowboy boot as a floral vessel. It was straight fire.
How to Create a Cowboy Chic Wedding
So — you’re in love with cowboy chic. I’m not surprised. And now you’re wondering how you can add sass, not sassafras, to your barn wedding line up? It’s all about getting personal, crafting engaging experiences for your guests that come from details of who you are as a couple. You need to intentionally ignore the list of “must haves” for rustic barn weddings and ride that mechanical bull off into the wedding planning sunset:
- Ditch the wooden bride and groom signs, and have a stationer create a bespoke country-inspired monogram instead. Kristen and Rob’s floral horseshoe monogram adorned their bespoke menus.
- Rather than go literal with cactus decor, opt for a chic cactus-shaped ice sculpture instead.
- Kiss the burlap-and-lace cake design goodbye and opt for momma’s home-baked pie instead. Megan and Matt’s favorite is pecan pie.
- You can even take a tip from Sarah + Zach’s wedding and have some gorgeous longhorn cattle in attendance!
And if you’re feeling completely lost when it comes to making your barn wedding more badass than bumpkin, let your pal Al help you out. Let’s yeehaw, giddy up, and co-create the most chic, funky-fresh, radical barn wedding of your dreams!
Top photo by The Brothers Martens; Second photo by Mr & Mrs Archer
