Bernardo Winery Wedding San Diego CA / RB + Jacquelyne
Jacquelyne and RB had a gorgeous Bernardo Winery wedding. Both of them are beautiful and together they are unstoppable! RB looks like a supper hero and Jacquelyne a Queen:)! I decided to do this blog post in an interview style! Both of them are marine’s. Jacquelyne was on deployment for 6 months in Afghanistan before they got engaged. I love them and their story!!!
Enjoy it!
1. Where did you meet?
RB and I met on Match.com. I was in NC preparing to move to San Diego for work when I signed up for match to get a feel for the men and the dating scene in CA. I had dated a Marine or two, but it hadn’t worked out, so I was hoping to date a guy outside the Marine Corps. When RB first emailed me on match, I ignored him because he is a Marine. Luckily he was persistent and emailed again. I couldn’t deny we had a lot in common so I wrote back, hoping, if nothing else, to make a good friend once I moved to CA. I had a few dates in San Diego before meeting RB in person, even though we had been texting, emailing and Face-timing quite a bit. Once RB and I met, that was it. I stopped talking to any of the other guys from match and cancelled my subscription.
Our first date started at a steakhouse called Cowboy Star in downtown San Diego. We had a delicious dinner and good conversation. Next we went to a concert on base. Brad Paisley was in the area and volunteered to put on a free concert for the troops at the Bob Hope Theatre on MCAS Miramar. It was a very intimate, fun atmosphere. This is also where our song came from, called “I Hope That’s Me.” Someone requested the song, but Brad didn’t remember all the words, so he asked for a Marine’s help to sing the song. Here’s a YouTube video that captured a piece of that night: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOGaOktPu24 We chose this as our first dance song at the wedding.
2. How long did you date?
RB and I started dating in April of 2013 and were married in June of 2015, so we dated a little over two years. During that time we endured multiple absences from each other due to both of us having to go out of town for work, then my 6 month deployment to Afghanistan. RB proposed shortly after I returned.
3. How would you describe yourselves?
We both work a lot, so when we’re not working we love to have fun and go adventuring. Adventuring for us can be anything from finding a new hiking or running trail, to trying a new place to eat or a new food we’ve never had before, or even going on a kayak adventure on the water. There’s no lack of adventures to be had in San Diego and the surrounding area. If we can, we like to include our pack in our adventures. I have two rescued German Shepherds named Duke and Rico, and RB has Pirate – a fearless little Jack Russell mix of sorts aptly named for the brown patch that surrounds her right eye.
4. How would you describe your wedding day?
Amazing! Our theme was Southeast by Southwest – country, rustic, and romantic. RB and I are both from the country, just different parts of it. He was born and raised on his family ranch in New Mexico. He grew up a cowboy, riding horses, raising cows and chickens, and picking apples and cherries from the trees in their orchard. http://www.nicholsranchorchard.com/ As the child of a retired Marine, I moved around a lot, but my roots are in the South. My Mom is from Georgia, my Dad is from Louisiana, and I spent the majority of my time growing up in Alabama and North Carolina. For our hors d’eouvres we chose food that reminded each of us of home. For RB there were Southwestern egg rolls, and chips with ceviche, and for me there were crab cakes, and little grilled cheese sandwiches with a shot of tomato soup.
The Bernardo Winery already has so much rustic charm that you don’t have to decorate much. To add some of our personality to the venue, however, I made a lot of the decorations, with help from some of my girlfriends. The tables were dressed with a burlap runner with lace accent. The centerpieces started with a round wood plank then had three jars of differing sizes, all decorated with variations of lace, burlap, twine and paper flowers. The jars were filled with Queen Anne’s lace, blush spray roses and hydrangeas. The wooden planks come from cherry and apple tree wood from the Nichols Ranch in New Mexico. When visiting for Thanksgiving, RB took a chain saw to some of the apple and cherry wood to make the planks. The table numbers were cut from smaller pieces of cherry wood, painted with chalk board paint, then numbered with chalk. For the seating chart, I used an old wooden frame that I found at the Ranch, added some metal wire, and clothes pin, and hung the name cards from the clothes pins. Upon entering the venue, there was a welcome table that was decorated with all the treasure chests that RB used for my treasure hunt proposal. We had a ‘wedding day wishes’, and ‘5 year advice’ bottle set up with sketch paper and calligraphy pens, so that our guests could leave us a “message in a bottle.” Also, on the welcome table was a sign that I made from an old piece of wood with lots of character that RB found in a dumpster. I used white chalk paint and sand paper to distress it, then did a paper transfer onto it with the saying “Where ever your heart is, there you will find your treasure” with some anchors. Lastly, I made a burlap and lace ‘MR & MRS’ banner for our sweetheart table using twine and dabbing white paint on to stencils.
5. Any fun facts about you or your wedding day
For the wedding favors we had a Pistachio bar. There were 6 different flavors of pistachios: red chili, green chili, garlic, ranch, BBQ and plain. The pistachios came from McGinn’s pistachio tree ranch in New Mexico just outside of RB’s home town. http://www.pistachiotreeranch.com/
For our wedding cake, we wanted something unique and clever. When we brought our idea to Cute Cakes, they were excited to work with us and make our vision a reality. We chose a Helicopter cake 🙂 Since I am a helicopter pilot who lifts heavy things for a living, it was fun to incorporate that into the cake. The cake was three layers of vanilla cake with chocolate ganache icing, covered in white fondant. It was encased by a black piping ‘cargo net.’ On the top of the cake was the precious cargo- three sugar hand crafted replica’s of our dogs, all being lifted by a sugar, hand crafted replica, CH-53E helicopter being piloted by sugar hand crafted replica’s of myself and RB.
One more fun fact about our wedding rings- RB had my ring specially crafted by Jane at Taboo Studio in Mission Hills. Every last detail has meaning to me/us, right down to the special engraving on the inside. RB, not one to follow the crowd, searched endlessly in stores and online for a wedding ring for himself, without satisfaction. He ended up having his own ring also uniquely and specially crafted by Hyo Silver, to include a matching engraving.
