Having our Cake and Eating it too – Our DIY Wedding BBQ
Jason and I have never been conventional people, and when we got married that was no different. One rainy day at the end of December of 2010 Jason called my during his break at work and asked if that approaching Thursday would be a good day to schedule our moment at the court-house.
While the call surprised me the over all conversation did not. We had made plans to get married and we had decided that we would go to the courthouse.
That Thursday came and went, and we did not tell anyone, and before we knew it we never found the right time. When we finally came clean to family and friends, almost 26 months had passed and a handful of people knew our secret – we were married!
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Once the cat was out of the bag, I wanted to commemorate this otherwise private moment. As soon as we began telling people we were asked when we planned to celebrate this happy occasion.
Since Jason and I are all about the simple, we decided on a gathering at my father’s house with Mexican food brought in with plenty of DIY elements.
The first thing I had to decide was on theme. Since we had recently purchased our home near the beach we went with a beach theme. I spent hours on Pinterest and hours on the different web site surfing for ideas.
I decided on a couple unique elements that would be beach themed, while also usable at parties in the future.
These were simple white napkins, with different coastal animals. We decided to limit the stamps to whales, dolphins and other various animals. I wanted to use an ink that would not transfer ink to hands or the cups. I found a solid StazOn ink that once dried, stayed on the napkin and not neighboring items.
The second item I made which also took the longest time to create, was a congratulations banner. I thought it would be a nice added touch to make a banner that said “Congratulations Jason and Jennifer”. I chose two shades of brown cardstock – the darker brown was a base for the lighter colored letters. I used my Cricut to cut the letters and while it took me sometime to complete, the end result was perfect!
As a fun thing for our guests to learn unknown facts about us, I had fans on tables and own the wall throughout the event area with the facts about us. I used such facts as “Jason and Jennifer knew each other when they were in high school, but never dated” and “Jennifer and Jason are Charger and Laker fans”.
To have a cute but functional display for chips, I bought a couple of pails with shovels and mini pails, cleaned them out and poured the chips and candies inside. In addition, at the end of the night we were able to send a couple of kids home with a cute bucket and pail. We saved the rest, and they now make appearances at my father’s annual 4th of July parties.
I made our invitations with some card stock, a couple of stamps and some pens. I had a invitation in mind, but was unable to locate it, so I made my own.
I also encountered this with my Thank You cards, as I wanted to continue the parties beach theme but could not find it in stores. Using card stock, bubble themed vellum and some fish card stock images, it created a Thank You that almost appeared underwater.
The end result was a wonderful party, full of love that Jason and I will never forget. Despite us keeping a huge secret, everybody forgot about that and came together to celebrate our love. There are many reasons we love our family, and this was just one more reason!
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Did you elope? Did you have a big wedding? Tell me below