Our Wedding at Keyways Winery in Temecula, California

Posted in: Our Wedding
Wow! It’s crazy to think it’s already been two months since my amazing husband and I tied the knot. I figured it might be time to finally share some photos here on the blog! After an incredible amount of planning and diy projects, the celebration was even more amazing than we ever could have imagined. We decided on a destination wedding on the opposite coast, and although it made orchestrating everything a bit more of a challenge, it was beyond worth it. This way allowed us to make a trip out of it (as did nearly 100 guests), and we were able to spend numerous days of festivities with everyone. There were of course a few hiccups along the way (which I am eager to share in later posts — including a very negative review of our venue), but nothing could ruin our day or the excitement of marrying each other. We will forever cherish the memories of this time and have the most beautiful photos thanks to our very talented photographers Ashley & Jay of Ashley Bee Photography. They blew us away with our engagement photos and again for our wedding.

My sister was kind enough to make this wooden sign to welcome guests to our wedding! I hear post-wedding it’s found a new home somewhere amongst the avocado trees at mom and dad’s house!

I thoroughly enjoyed working on our invitation suite! I took a bunch of my own photos along the way for my DIY projects, and will share them, along with tips & tricks, in later posts. I drew the succulents and little stick people, which ended up being our “recurring elements.” You’ll see “us” appear on cookies in a later picture!  And, the stamp that I carved to use on the envelopes was also later used for our bev napkins. I’ll try to share a post with instructions for this later… doing the napkins ourselves saved us a bunch of money!

I loved the wire hangers I’ve seen on Etsy, and decided to try my hand at it. Although I’m happy with how they turned out, I must say I did not enjoy the process. Ouch! On hanger number 6 of 7 I had the genius idea that I should have painted them! Go figure…. but now, I’m sellingcustom painted hangers in my etsy shop!  My mom was so kind to let me not only wear her veil, but to have it altered. Her bright white veil originally had a wide lace headband which I had transformed into this cuff bracelet above, and then a simple prong clip was added to the veil after it was dyed ivory. The garter was my “something blue” and was actually caught by my now-hubby during a recent friend’s wedding (the same night I caught the bouquet).  My floating pearl necklace was my “something old.” Believe it or not, I actually bought the necklace at a thrift store while shopping with my Nana in the Florida Keys when I was maybe 12 years old! I’ve loved it and held onto it ever since. I’ve tried it on a million times, but never had the right occasion to wear it… until now!  And, I’ll let you in on a huge secret: the flower I wore in my hair was actually from Michaels for less than $5! I fell in love with it before I even bought my gown and it just so happened to match perfectly. My Alpha Sigma Alpha pin was hidden away somewhere under the layers of my dress.

Yay ~ my ballet flats! I was thrilled to find these…. especially since silly me sprained my ankle pretty badly on Memorial day and was on crutches for 4 weeks and then in physical therapy right up until the wedding. Eek! So glad I didn’t have to hobble down the aisle!

Brittany of MH by Brittany Lynn was so sweet to do our hair and makeup!


Handsome hubby getting ready and putting on the personalized cufflinks I made for him (and all the groomsmen). Custom ones are for sale in my shop if you’re interested. I’ll have to share photos later of the “For those potentially cold feet” socks gift I gave him too.

Yummy mimosas & re-reading my vows before the ceremony. And, I LOVE my robe from Plum Pretty Sugar. 
Since had guests do a polaroid guestbook guestbook for us, we decided to let guests have a mini polaroid magnet of us in exchange! I used all of our favorite photos.
Sneaking up on my man for our First Look!
This one above is one of my absolute favorites!

hehe … we both have pockets! This was one of my favorite things about my dress (Vera Wang). I’ll never forget the sound of everyone gasping and whispering, “she has pockets!” during the ceremony when I reached to pull out my vows.


handsome men! love this shot.

I love this one with my ladies! I let them choose their own dresses — any shade of color and any style. My only request was to preview their choices first so I could make sure they flowed together nicely. I’m SO glad I did this…. I LOVE the look and love knowing that each girl was comfortable and within their own budget.

I enlisted a talented friend to make these clutches for my girls and I had a great time selecting the patterns to mix and match (the insides are super cute too!) Now I want a sewing machine so I can learn!

Program fans for guests under the hot sun!

Vintage hankies for happy tears, and the welcome sign reads: “Welcome! As two families are becoming one, we ask that you choose a seat not a side!”

I’m so glad I asked Ashely to capture a “Daddy First Look.” I will always treasure that moment when he first saw me, and I love the photos!

My sweet hubby walked mom down the aisle for the ceremony. Look how beautiful she is!

Dad walking me down the aisle 🙂 I love his bright purple tie to match mom’s dress!

Andrew sees me…

… and he hugs dad! I love it.

We were BEYOND thrilled with our amazing officiant, Patricia Coleman.

My dear talented friend Bradford Carson performed our ceremony & cocktail hour music!

Andrew’s beautiful momma!

Nana reads 1st Corinthians.

BUBBLES! Here’s another bubble photo taken on Instagram by my cousin Taylor 🙂

I love the entrance to Keyways! This door is awesome.

This was our “flirt with each other” pose. haha.



I took this LOVE photo after we got engaged and decided I just had to include it at the wedding somewhere!

With all the great ideas I came across on Pinterest for escort cards, I had the hardest time deciding what to do. Then, one night, it hit me. I had bunches of leftover clothespins from the bridal shower game we played! I’ll share full DIY instructions later, but they included names on one side and the table numbers on the back! I enlisted the help of a dear friend to make these small fabric flowers and then I attached them to thumbtacks, strung some backers twine and ta da. And, an extra bonus… I can’t tell you how many guests ending up actually wearing their clothespins as name tags! It cracked me up!



These big coffee cups were another purchase from Michaels and after a little paint and planting of succulents from Mom’s garden, they were ready for our table! The giant dahlias were also grown with love by my lovely Mom just for our big day!


A lovely shot (pre-flowers tho).

Each table had baby’s breath in the blue mason jars, and then the bridesmaids added their bouquets to the center after our grand entrance.

More succulents! About half hour before we left the house for rehearsal, I was outside with garden scissors cutting & collecting! 🙂

These menu cards were quite possibly one of my favorite design pieces from the wedding. On the back of the menu card was a thank you message too. And… since I enjoyed working on the menu cards so much, I’m now offering custom ones in my shop!


And, I loved how the place cards turned out too. Can you tell I love succulents?
Also, a big thanks to Papa Meyer for cutting all the corks for our place cards!

I had so much fun tinting the mason jars, painting the coffee mugs, and replanting the succulents.Also, the lovely wooden table numbers were ordered from this etsy shop. The quality was great, but the arrived as natural wood, so my dad was kind enough to stain them. 
These BAR letters were … wait for it … another find at Michaels. They were in the $1 bin and originally painted black and white, but after some hot glue and a bunch of twine… they fit perfectly (and worked as nice weights for the napkins on our windy day).


 I love love love this photo! When I placed the order for our table numbers, I also ordered the number 24 for us to have as a keepsake. We went on our first date on the 24th, we got engaged on the 24th, and therefore chose to have our wedding on the 24th.


And… what’s a wedding without yummy desserts?!

Recognize the little stick people? I baked the cookies and then used edible markers to draw the same figured that appeared on our invitations.

This amazing clay figurine was gifted to us by a super talented family member. Andrew helped with the concept and it was kept a secret from me. And, since I was in my gown, he couldn’t see it beforehand either. It wasn’t until we were eating our salad that I saw it across the room and rushed over to peek! I LOVE it. He’s standing on a wine barrel, and I’m painting (how appropriate). The octopus picture is actually a replica of our first drawing together, and it’s the same one I surprised him with on his cufflinks!

Our beautiful cake was made by the very talented Debbie at Cakes to Celebrate in Temecula. She was a joy to work with and even used the succulents I picked from my parents’ house.


I was worried no one would use the flip flops, but happily we only had 2 or 3 pairs leftover.

 This, ladies and gentlemen, is called the Shoe Game. I had seen a similar photo somewhere and then did a little research on the game. Then, we tweaked it a bit for our liking (making it a bit more surprise oriented) and it turned out awesome! At the rehearsal dinner we passed around a little clipboard that said, “Danielle or Andrew? Have you ever wondered, who’s the better cook? Who thinks they’re the better driver? Who does the laundry more? Now’s your chance to ask away… we’ll see what the bride and groom have to say on the wedding day!” Then, our parents, grandparents and wedding party added their own questions. I designated one bridesmaid to be my “appropriate-checker” to make sure there weren’t any questions that were not grandma-appropriate.  Then, during the reception (before the bouquet and garter toss) our wonderful DJ (Mark Davies with Sterling Productions) asked away! Andrew and I each held one of our own shoe and the others and then used those to show our answers. Since we hadn’t read the questions beforehand we got to enjoy the shock of some of them, and not being able to see what the other one answered made it all the better. We could only rely on our guests laughter and gasps to hint what the other one answered. We received so many compliments on the idea and the next day everyone was still talking about the game. I’m SO glad we did this. It was a great little addition to the evening!
 I’m SO glad we decided to do the sparkler sendoff! I ordered 20 inch gold sparklers (Wedding Package) from SparklersRus.com, and as we ran down the path of guests I saw the photographers ahead and quickly whispered, “hey Andrew! kiss me!” I’m so glad I did because this last photo is by far my favorite!

 We cannot thank our family and friends enough for joining us in California for our wedding. It was more incredible than we could have imagined, and we will forever cherish these memories. A huge thanks again to our photographers for these stunning photos. We also hired the most amazing videographers, Kroh Media, and should be receiving our videos any day now! I will definitely share!

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