Jilyian and Christian initially met as interns at URENCO USA in the summer of 2011. Other than group settings, they never really spent much time together that summer. Jilyian returned to URENCO in 2012 and Christian in 2013 after graduating undergrad. They reconnected as friends and spent a lot of time in each other’s company, while working in the desert. After a year of friendship, Jilyian and Christian decided to accept the fact that their friendship was growing into something more, and began dating. Dallas became the center of their relationship as their weekend getaway from rural West Texas and eventually, the next step in their journey together after relocating to the city. On July 14, 2018 after four years of dating, Christian literally took Jilyian’s breath away with a surprise proposal 14,000 feet above sea level, on top of Mt Evans in Denver,Colorado.  

Jilyian decided to write their love story in her own voice for our blog..

After getting engaged, we immediately set a date. We started planning the wedding officially in August 2018 so we had a little over a year. Like most women, I had already started fantasizing about what that big day would look like before Christian ever popped the question so a preliminary private Pintrest board with colors, flowers, potential dresses and venue inspiration really helped us stay focused on a theme. Visiting local bridal shows and flipping through every wedding magazine  I could get my hands on informed our planning as well.  Our theme was a modern take on a black and white wedding (we went with navy, ivory and gold) with hints of Old Hollywood glamour. Christian is a very simple, elegant man while I like a little glamour. We knew we wanted our guests to have a beautiful view of the Dallas skyline so we focused on finding venues with huge windows, high ceilings, clean palettes, high above the city. It was important for us to get married Downtown Dallas because we felt like that was the place that our romance really blossomed. My South Florida roots and love of Old Hollywood style influenced the Art Deco elements for our wedding; the calle lilies and orchids, the candles, the shape of our cake, the bridemaids’ dresses with the dramatic trains, my wedding dress, our starburst graphics that were carried through most details, the gold accents, all represented to us the decadence and luxe aesthetic of that time period.

In the beginning of wedding planning I tried to do a lot by myself, using websites like the Knot, Wedding Wire and yelp to narrow down certain vendors but about 3 months into planning both Chris and myself started traveling every week for work making it really hard to get things done. Luckily Wedding Wire, helped us come across the best thing that ever happened for us… Krystal Scott and Swank Soiree. She and her team totally rocked our wedding. She took our ideas, paired them with professional, impeccable vendors and brought them to life before our eyes.  One of the biggest challenges she helped us overcome was finding a new venue a mere 3 weeks before our wedding after our initial venue fell through (Note: I made the mistake of trying to choose a wedding venue BEFORE we hired our planner…. my advice…DON’T DO IT! She was able to show me places I had never seen in my independent search.)

Cake – Sugar Bee Sweets

Planner – SWank Soiree

Video and Photo Booth – Hamland Visions

Florals – Haute Floral

MUA –  Brianna Davis Fierce Faces by Brianna

Dress – Bridals by Lori

Hair – Gia Peebles theauragalleria.com