Ten years in the making, now that is a beautiful reason to celebrate. And these Brides did so with a mega-dose of style. Blush pink, classic pink, dark pink – you’ll find the whole pink hued family decorating this barn from blooms to linens and all topped off with sparkling chandeliers. It’s a vision crafted by Joy de Vivre Event Design Boutique + NLC Productions and brought to life with the images by Mark Brooke Photography. See so much more right here.
From Emily, one of the Brides…Kirsten and I knew exactly what we wanted our weekend to be about. 2012 marked ten years together, so rather than see this as the start of something new we viewed it as a celebration of our relationship and an opportunity to bring together everyone we loved. Finally having all chapters of our lives connect was probably the most exciting part of the whole process.
As many states on the east coast are legalizing gay marriage, California is still in the middle of the battle. Despite that, and the fact that most of our friends and family are back east, we chose to have our wedding in California. Our wedding wasn’t about making a political statement, it was about having a huge party with all of our friends and families and celebrating with them the best way we know how – with food, margaritas and music!
Everything really fell into our lap. One of my best friends is an unbelievably talented stationary designer so 42 Pressed created our invitations and we were obsessed with them! We found our dresses in one day – both were Nicole Miller and perfect. (We paired them with Tom’s shoes to make sure we could dance all night.) Our wedding coordinator Joy, of Joy de Vivre in Santa Barbara took one phone call and we were hooked; her enthusiasm and ability to organize us while working within our budget was everything. For us, food was the most fun to figure out – we knew we wanted a taco bar and pies for desserts (Kirsten’s favorite) and thanks to a recommendation from a good friend we found Brian at Duo Events from Santa Barbara. It was delicious, right down to the homemade margaritas and strawberry rhubarb pies! Everyone fell in love with out photographer – Mark of Mark Brooke Photography made us all feel at ease while his pre-planning kept the photo shoots short and painless so we could focus on the party. Finally Nico and his team of NLC Productions blew us away with the flower arrangements, bouquets and canopy they created for our big day.
Everything was gorgeous. It was totally ridiculous. We kept things simple for our bridal party; my brother was my best man (please note his suit) and Kirsten’s youngest sister was her maid of honor while the rest of our combined sisters did the readings. One of our best friends officiated the ceremony and we wrote our own vows. Our good friends’ children walked our dogs down the aisle and another friend played the guitar and ukulele for the ceremony. There was an annual plane show which happened to fly directly over us as we were walking across the field and later in the afternoon we enjoyed someone else’s sky writing – we felt like we were in a movie. One of my favorite parts of the day was getting ready with Kirsten – she did our makeup (while yet another good friend did our hair) and it just calmed both of our nerves to spend the morning together. We did put our dresses on separately and had a “first reveal” which allowed me the opportunity to burst into tears with just Kirsten and not all of our guests. Of course I sobbed my way through our vows as well. As the night came to a close, the kids were covered in dirt, the band played us “Proud Mary” and the school bus rolled in to bring us to the hotel bar for a little more celebrating.
[dotted]
Photography: Mark Brooke Photography | Planning + Design: Joy de Vivre Event Design Boutique | Venue: Coquelicot Vineyard | Floral Design: NLC Productions | Catering: Duo Events | Lighting: LBPS Events | Rentals: Town & Country Rentals | Band: Stew & The Crew | Invitations: Jackie Hall of 42 Pressed | Wedding Dresses: Nicole Miller | Shoes: Toms | Best Man Suit: Astor & Black