My Wedding 5 Years Ago

Some may know our story, but many may not. We met 6 years ago, almost instantly knew we'd marry one another, 8 months later got engaged, and planned a wedding in 4 months. Neither of us had jobs, we had no money, but we were so very happy together nothing else seemed to matter. On our one year anniversary of our first date we got married at our dear friend's house in the Hollywood hills in Griffith Park. We got married in a villa, which we now get to revisit often to hang out or spend holidays there. We stood on a balcony with our guests below us, and said our vows in an intimate setting that felt like just the two of us and our officiant. We had thought about eloping, but I'm so glad we did it this way instead.

It was just an instinct thing that we knew we'd be good partners in life...we just knew we'd found "our person" in one another. The person you won't get tired of being around regardless of what life throws at you. The person who you know will always love you more than you think. The person who will endure the pains of life with you with a grace in the darkness as you find your way through it all together. 

We jumped into life together with full hearts, endured the loss of our daughter in our first pregnancy in just our second year of marriage, and spent most of our married life in grief together. Not many marriages like ours would last. Statistically, the odds are against us. But somehow our instincts about one another proved to be correct, and we are still happy to be married and building our lives together. I think I married one of the kindest, loving souls Los Angeles could have raised. 

This week we will celebrate our 5 year wedding anniversary, and though life looks very different now, and we often don't recognize ourselves in these photos anymore, they serve as a nice reminder of where we started with one another. Our wedding day was one of our favorite days together other than the healthy birth of our son. 

Our wedding day felt magical and emotional, full of love for each other and those around us. From the moment we did first looks together, it just felt like life was going to feel different together. And it has. And now for a career I get to help be part of creating beauty and magic for other people's wedding days, and I couldn't love it more. 

Here are a few photos of our wedding as the day unfolded...

Photos by: Hank Fortener 

Blush + Gold Styled Shoot

I’ve been really inspired by the Versailles gardens lately, reminiscing on my trips there, and imagining what types of florals and romantic dinner settings I might want to create in modern day that still capture the essence of a garden style classic look that might correlate to the still life paintings inside the palace. 

I know there is a lot of inspiration out there right now using blush and golds in shoots, but I wanted to do something that switched the order around slightly, playing within the classic color scheme. So, putting a bride in a blush dress, and painting some of the ferns gold in her bouquet were some subtle ways of offering some new inspiration for a look that is so loved. Since I do both fresh and dried flower arrangements for couples, I wanted to use both in a shoot to show how they can intermingle with harmony as we see in the florals on the napkin details. This shoot really is the result of my wild imagination. My husband and I went to visit Versailles for our anniversary 4 years ago, and there was a tiny house on the property (probably originally for the grounds keepers, or maybe as a large shed), we joked and said we’d live there if given the opportunity, and I sort of just imagined what our tiny dinner parties would be like if we ever lived in such a tiny place in the French countryside or on a minuscule corner of the Versailles gardens. And as a result, a bridal shoot was born. 

Vendors include:

Photos: Alissa Noelle Photography

Florals & Styling: Brie's Honeybees & Flowers

Dishes: Dish Wish

Calligraphy: Graceline Arts

Dress: Celia Grace

Hair + Make up: Katharine Sanchez

Model: Bijon Hill

Turning 30 Featured on Style Me Pretty Living

In case you didn't see, my 30th birthday, which I styled and did all the floral design for, was featured on the Style Me Pretty Living blog.

Go check out more photos at the link above, but for now, here are just a few favorites to enjoy:

Talented collaborators include:

Photos by Sara Weir

Hair + Make up: Katharine Sanchez
Glasses + Utensils: Dish Wish
Invitation: Letter Lodge
Cakes: The Good Cookies