Welcome to J-D Ranch Texas! An Affordable, Natural, Outdoor Wedding Venue with a Breathtaking View
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28/02/2024
🍴Having your event catered is really important. 🍴
We sometimes have couples ask if family members can do the food part of a wedding, and we always recommend no. And this is why.....
Your wedding is one of the biggest most important days of your life. And although it sounds nice in theory, you don't want your guests to be doing the work of a caterer. There is so much involved. You want them to enjoy being a guest and you want to make sure all the food stuff is thought out and taken care of by a professional.
There are a lot of great caterers out there to fit many budgets. We would love to help you find the one that is a fit for you!
This couple used a sand ceremony to symbolize their wonderful 25 years of marriage and the family they built together.
❤️ How beautiful is that?
For tour requests, available dates and more visit us at www.j-dranchtx.com
Photo: Productions
20/02/2024
❤️ Lovin' these bottles on this tree ❤️
Can you see that view peeking out behind them?
For tour requests, available dates and FAQ's visit us at www.j-dranchtx.com
Photo: Aria Productions
09/02/2024
🌹Isn't this a beautiful idea for the couples ceremony exit? 🌹
We love real flower petals out here on the ranch. They are beautiful and they don't leave fake flower petals behind for the ranch animals to pick up accidentally.
What kind of ideas do you have for your ceremony exit?
For tour requests, available dates and more visit us at www.j-dranchtx.com
✨ J-D Ranch Texas isn't just a place for weddings ✨
We were very honored to host one of our favorite couples 25th wedding anniversary out here on the ranch. What a beautiful number of years to celebrate.
Are you looking for a different kind of venue with a different kind of view for your special day? Come visit us and see if we are the one you've been looking for!
For tour requests, transparent pricing, available dates and more visit us at www.j-dranchtx.com
Photo: Aria Productions
Bar: BarMasters Texas, LLC
25/01/2024
đź’§This is the time of year that makes our spring flowers and native ranch grasses so beautiful! đź’§
What kind of venue are you looking at for your big day?
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Let’s Start at the Beginning
While we wait on the ground breaking, we thought we would give you some background on how J-D Ranch Wedding and Event Venue came to be. It all started back in the 90’s when Mitch asked me to the band banquet. He took me by surprise and it was a good kind of surprise. Of course I said..... yes! And that’s where the beginning of our relationship began. We dated for a while, then parted ways for several years. One of my favorite dates he took me on was on this very ranch below my feet. You see, J-D Ranch has been in the Dunlap family for over 100 years. It has a lot of history to it and I am sure a lot of stories to tell if it could talk....and if we listen...maybe it can:)
I don’t remember a whole lot about that date, but I do remember walking the rolling hills, hanging out at and around the ranch house and getting freaked out by the cows. The whole experience still leaves a very peaceful impression in my mind. The picture here is not of the best quality, but it is what we have been able to dig up from many years ago. That is he and I at a New Years Eve party. Stay tuned for more of the story.
After our first “catch up, non-date” I knew he was hooked on me. And sure enough, he asked me out on an official date that very next day. And so it began again...but this time, it stuck. We started dating, we started going back out to the ranch for picnics and such. It was so cool to pick up right where we left off so many years earlier. After we got engaged, and got closer to needing to find a venue, I could find none that suited me. I wanted something simple but beautiful. A place I could really connect with. After visiting several places with my mom, I finally said....can we go look at the ranch? I know there is nothing there but nature, but Mitch and I love that place and it might be just what we are looking for. We went, she saw and we chose. It was beautiful and perfect. And so our life on the ranch began.....
Although we lived in San Antonio, we found ourselves out on the ranch a lot during the months preceding our wedding. We would go out there to work the land and often times made camping trips out of a weekend of work. We even thought it so worth it to be out there we camped in 30 degree weather one weekend....it was mighty cold.....but we loved it! So we asked ourselves the question one day while we were walking along the rough road....what if we could live out here? What would that look like? There was no building to live in. No water or electric except at the well house. Oddly enough it took us a bit of time to come to a very easy solution.....what about a used 5th wheel? It comes with everything we need! It’s a temporary complete home. We can make this work! So here rolls our home of going on 4 years......
As we spent time building our life on the property, we fell more and more in love with being out here on the ranch. We started dreaming again and asking ourselves.....what if we could work out here? What if we could share this place with others? All of our family and friends talk about the experience of getting out in nature, in the fresh air and how wonderful it is. Maybe we could provide that experience for others. So we began to list different things we could do. A lot of the ideas we had were good, but small. We ran the ideas by a business man we knew to get his feedback and thoughts. He mentioned that if he were to do things differently with his business....he would do a wedding venue. At first we laughed, after all, we weren’t the wedding venue type. I made a joke that we could put out some tents and porta potties and whala! What’s funny is that is essentially what our wedding was like. The backdrop was the nature all around us...it was beautiful. We were actually on to something without knowing it yet. We started talking about what it could really look like and what kind of experience we could uniquely provide. The ideas started pouring out and the business started coming to life.
This hill has a beautiful view of miles of the Texas hill country. We decided it was the perfect place to build the venue. But we had work to do. As you can see, there are a lot of cedars on it, not much room to build. So we began. We hired someone to cut the cedars all down. Then we attempted to burn them all just the two of us. We made virtually no progress, it was overwhelming how much there was to burn. So we came up with a great idea! Let’s have a family burn day!
It was great. We all worked our butts off and made a lot of progress. But it just wasn’t enough.....
Well, we hired them. Our road guy came out and checked out the area to see what needed to be done to make a road and parking for us. He asked when we were ready to get started, we said as soon as possible, but there was no way we could get all these cedars out of the way in any “as soon as possible” amount of time. That’s when we he said the beautiful freeing words of “I can get that done in 2-3 days for you”. We were like......YES! So he brought in his guys and this this dozer and got to work.
They burned bigger fires than we would have been ever been able to handle....if for fear only. They got it done in 3 days. It was amazing!
We finally had our canvas cleared and ready. We finally could fully see the view.
After much thought, consideration and conversation, we decided to name the events venue J-D Ranch. You see, the J-D is the registered brand of the ranch. The J stands for John,
the - between the J and D makes an H for Horace and the D is for Dunlap. John Horace Dunlap. JHD. J-D. That’s Mitch's great grandfather. He is pictured on the left, holding Mitch’s dads hand, Melvin Dunlap. To the right is Mitch’s grandfather, Orval Dunlap. They are standing on this very ranch. This is a little piece of history here. And the history goes further back than this.....we have it recorded that the ranch has been around since 1868.
Now that you have a good idea of where J-D Ranch wedding and event venue came from, it’s time to get started on the building of it. We have the final plans, we have the contractor. We are almost there. Stay tuned for the progress.
