1st sneak peek into our wedding details & DIY’s

In honor of a new beginning for our blog, with our new name.. GraceFulfillingLife.com, we thought what better way to start then to start sharing our wedding day with all our readers. Before we decided to make the change, we had been sharing part of wedding plans leading up to our big day! (refer back HERE to see a couple!) We are so excited to share with you all the many DIY’s that went into making our day, a day that was perfect for us and that will forever be in our memories and hearts. When Xavier and I got engaged and our wedding plans started, we knew things we wanted and did not want. We knew that we wanted an intimate wedding with our closest friends and family and we wanted it to be about us and not about the wedding in itself. We felt the setting of our wedding had to reflect who we are and the feeling we wanted for that day. It needed to be personal and we longed for a romantic and genuine feel. We wanted to be true to who we are and our faith and have those feelings be reflected. We also did not want to spend a fortune either, so my handy DIY skills and creativity and a whole lot of pinterest came in handy! A lot of the pinterest ideas we saw, we tried giving them our own personal twist in hopes it would reflect us! We decided first and for most that we did not want a hotel nor a banquet hall setting. For me especially it was important for me to feel relaxed and to feel the calmness of nature around us. And let me tell you this.. the weather was perfect. There was a sense of calm to a lovely cool breeze that day and a natural light so wonderful that all I could think was.. “goodness..God’s presence is truly with us today” and to me that was an unforgettable feeling.

Our theme..  well we really didn’t have one.. we just knew that our colors would be a light grey, white and touches of gold and greenery! Our flowers were a big part of that theme, they were simple, white and elegant. Did I mention they smelled lovely because they were full of seeded eucalyptus?!  The best part of the flowers is that we found a wholesale florist who actually made all our arrangements! So our theme was just for it to be romantic, simple yet have a touch of rustic elegance. So whatever looked pretty, was on sale and I could find something to do with it, it was on our ‘to do’ list.

Our DIY’s included some of these lovely pieces..We used a lot of re-purposed wood that my amazing handy man dad was so gracious to find for us for the aisle boards and I got to staining and using my “wanna-be” calligraphy skills. We also used smaller sized ones as table numbers.

All our chalkboard’s I found at Michael’s arts and craft stores and I never bought one that was not on sale! win!

Our seating chart/Polaroid exchange station was an activity that we did in exchange for a fancy expensive Photo Booth! if you can afford it, they’re fun but it was definitely not in our budget.

One of our favorites was being able to have Xavier’s cousin Cristina who is like a super amazing artist draw us the tree we would marry under and make it be our sign in “guest tree” with fingerprints! And who doesn’t like a good drink in a mason jar while doing it right?

For our ceremony back drop it was all about simplicity for me, the venue  was already so beautiful that it didn’t need much. It conveniently had an amazing swing that was perfect for our back drop. I made the fabric banner myself and the YOU and ME sign I found at Michael’s and spray painted it gold, because anything I could spray paint gold…well I did.

For our ceremony we opted out on the unity candle and the typical unity sand sets.. Before Xavier and I got married we went through pre-marital classes and one of the basis of many of our teachings was the verse, Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, a reminder that we have entered a commitment between Christ, Xavier and I. So we decided on braiding it, with The cord of three strands. I had seen many on easy pre-made but figured I could do it myself for half the price, and I LOVE how it turned out! We now have it in our room and its a constant reminder to keep Christ as the center of our relationship.

Our wedding cake topper and peg dolls were one of our favorite! In the beginning of our engagement, I had been following Goose Grease Shop on instagram, a fair trade company making custom peg doll cake topper’s made from local artisans in Colombia. One day they had a giveaway and I immediately signed up and turned out winning the giveaway! It was exciting for me because it was a unique way to incorporate a little piece of where I am from too, while doing what I love…arts and crafts! So long behold, the lovely peg dolls made an appearance on our cake along with a love sign that I of course painted gold! 
And the most exciting part was… How it all came together. Made with love and wonderful memories.. 

We couldn’t be more happy to share such a special day with you all, we are looking to sharing the rest of our day with you all, stay tuned for more of our photos and story! We could not have had such an amazing day if it wasn’t for our amazing family and friends for all their help! We will forever be grateful. Hope you all enjoyed the first sneak peek into our wedding day!

Love, Jennifer & Xavier

Feel free to ask any questions you all may have.. we are happy to answer!

ALL photography on this post was by: Beca C Photography

Wedding cake by: Eat More sweets by Hailey

Venue: The Cooper Estate