Incredible Handcrafted Wedding in Salt Lake City

Today’s wedding is so full of amazing ideas, you’ll be sure to return to it time and time again. D’Arcy Benincosa Photography captured Ben and Amber’s wedding in Salt Lake City, and as you’ll be able to see from these images, Amber is a natural crafter at heart. She handmade not one but two brilliant backdrop walls, and the rest of the details followed suit with amazing creativity.

From the bride, Amber: I know you’ve heard the saying “I feel like the luckiest girl in the world” time and time again, but guys, I felt like the absolute luckiest lady when my groom slipped that engagement ring on my finger and asked me to be his wife. Not only did I get to marry one of the most wonderful human beings on the planet, I got to plan and execute a wedding! A wedding to me is like a fantasy land where creativity, design, music, fashion, family, and friends all get meshed together in one amazing little package. As a self proclaimed “craftster” & “DIYer”, I was overflowing with ideas as to what my wedding day could become.

My husband and I became engaged exactly one year and a day before our wedding date. The nice thing about being engaged the full year before we were married is that I was able to pick a wedding venue and see what it would roughly look like the next fall. The choice was not hard, as our venue was completely gorgeous on its own, having both outdoor and indoor elements. However, I wanted to add those extra DIY crafty elements that made the space really feel like it was “ours”. In fact, before picking our venue, we had talked about renting out a warehouse space for several months to completely customize, but my mom put the brakes on that idea [and thankfully, mother knows best (sometimes)]. Lucky for us too, our venue was absolutely happy to accommodate any crazy idea we threw their way. I remember when I sat down to come up with the decor/installation elements for the wedding I wrote down “textured.” I love the look and feel of using different materials, sizes, and colors right next to each other. By the time I had finished all of my projects for the wedding I was actually concerned that it all wouldn’t look good or cohesive because I had brought in so many different elements (even so much that we had to rent a U-Haul to get all of it to the venue), but much to my relief everything looked amazing and it felt like it had transformed into our own little wonderland.

My favorite thing about Fall, and one of the main reasons I picked it for us to get married, is all of the beautiful saturated colors. I remember when I told our venue coordinator all of the colors that I would be using her eyes went wide, and she said “that’s a lot of colors.” (Her eyes went even bigger when I told her I was bringing not just one, but two “walls” in.) I should tell you that throughout our wedding planning process I never really listened to the advice that most people or popularity gave me (because everyone wants to give you advice). If you want fourteen colors to your wedding, have them. If you want huge displays, make them. My favorite part of the wedding was that it was distinctly mine, I did exactly what I wanted (budget permitting) and in the end I felt so good about the choices I had made. Now, if you are planning a wedding, I’m not telling you to be a bridezilla, but make sure to make yourself happy! It’s your special day after all!

Our ceremony was wonderful, my legs shook the whole time out of nerves, but luckily it was cold enough everybody thought I was just cold (which it really was). The groom and I wrote our own ceremony with the help of the officiant, which was good because we knew exactly what was happening next and kept our composure for the most of it (we’re both a bit tender-hearted). Our ceremony then led into a Soup Bar dinner, and a marvelous reception. We wanted to make sure that our wedding reception would be one to remember, and that our guests would be thoroughly entertained, so instead of doing a “money dance” the groom and I opted to take a note from Jimmy Fallon and we competed in our very first love song Lip Sync Battle. Our guests absolutely loved the “super secret surprise” and it gave family and guests from far away that don’t know us well a chance to see our hilarious competitive side. For the rest of the night we did what my husband does best, and danced the night away.