The Most Delightful Day - OUR WEDDING!!

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The day every girl dreams about-their wedding day. I prayed fervently for a husband and waited patiently for the one my soul loves (Song of Solomon 3:4). I absolutely love being married (we just hit our 2 months on 12/26!!) Marriage really is an endless sleepover with your best friend. In this blog post, I want to share with you our special wedding day.

We were very intentional when we first met and asked each other the deep and tough questions couples don’t typically ask until months into dating. Luckily for both of us, we were done with dating games and wanted to settle down, and not waste our time. Six months later, he proposed and then the wedding planning officially commenced! As I am in the hospitality industry, I have high standards, so it was both a good thing and a bad thing I had an upper hand in wedding planning. Venue shopping was a breeze-I knew exactly where I wanted to pledge my vows-Green Gables Wedding Estate. My favorite fictional character is Anne Shirley, from the beloved Anne of Green Gables series. This quaint wedding venue, once a schoolhouse in 1889, is tucked away in San Marcos and offers a gorgeous garden atmosphere with nods to the 1800s. I love all things historic, so after my mom and I toured the venue-I fell in love with it.

Next, dress shopping! Thankfully that was also a breeze. My mom and I were at lunch in the mall one day, and we wanted to look at wedding dresses just for fun. I tried on the below dress, and this one was it! So we actually put a down payment on it that day! Since it was an unexpected shopping trip, I wanted to have the “Say Yes to the Dress” experience, so I had my bridesmaids, my fiance’s mom, my mom come out to see me try on dresses. I tried on dresses that were nice but not as beautiful as my dress, and let the saleswoman in on our little secret. The last dress I tried on, was my actual dress, and then that is when I announced that I said yes to the dress! I have always loved sweetheart neckline with sheer lace, and of course, a princess-style gown.

Choosing the vendors wasn’t that difficult either-it is all about who you know! The fabulous Frankie from All Good Things Photography did our photos. She is spunky, down to earth, listens to what you want, gets all the details one may forget, and captures timeless photos. I actually went to high school with her and she was in my sewing class. A few years ago, our paths crossed again as her husband and I both were serving in the same youth ministry together. One thing that stuck with me during the wedding process is I knew I didn’t want to skimp on photos or a videographer! Which brings me to our videographer-Tim Fisher with PeakFilmsSD. He did an amazing job capturing wedding footage and worked swimmingly with Frankie. I have had the pleasure of knowing Tim for years, as we both went to the same church growing up. He is very communicative and made sure he checked in with us to know what we were expecting. What I appreciated about Tim and Frankie is there timeliness of getting the video and photos to us with just a few weeks after our wedding. We came back from the honeymoon to ooh and ahh over our special day.

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Next is our DJ-he was superb. Greg Gomez from San Diego Partytime DJs is just the best. He did not disappoint. He was the top-recommended DJ from our venue, so after my fiance and I met him, we loved his personality. We laughed so hard with him and felt so at ease. He has been in the industry for about 25+ years if I recall, and he basically could run our wedding if we didn’t have a coordinator. He was very professional but so fun and incorporated all our music choices, as well as set up all the other a/v needs.

Florals-let’s talk flowers! A florist will markup wholesale flowers, and before you know it, you are paying for a small village in flowers. After getting some quotes, I decided on a more DIY approach. I had my friend who is a florist at Green Fresh Florals do my bouquet, and my girls and I made the bridesmaid bouquets the day before the wedding. I bought the flowers from the Albertsons across from the venue, and I used my Ibotta earnings to pay for the flowers-came to just under $200! I will get more into Ibotta in some ways to make money through apps on another post (hopefully soon!). I made my hubby’s boutonniere (orangy rose on the right), and for the guys, I bought boutonnieres from Amazon that they could easily pin on and not have to fuss over. You can find the ones I bought on the Amazon ad below:

For the centerpieces, we used a combination of lanterns the venue provided (they provide minimal decor, linens and upgraded decor for an extra charge) candles, vases, and DIY sticks from my backyard bush/tree that we stained. The flower petals the flower girls dropped, I got on OfferUp. I also got a good amount of decor and wedding items from there too-another money saver!

What about the food!? Well, thankfully that was one thing we didn’t have on our plates (pun intended). The venue catered the food. We had chicken cordon bleu, cranberry walnut salad, bread+butter, butternut squash ravioli, mushroom risotto, and lobster bisque shooters. We definitely enjoyed our tasting, and on the wedding day, I could not wait for dinner! For desserts, my mother in law got us our cake from Flour Pour Cakery. It was a black forest cherry cake with buttercream icing. For the other desserts, we got Mary’s donuts (my weakness) and cookies from Costco. This was a huge money saver. For me, I love baking cake, but I am not a huge cake fan. Instead of buying sheet cake and having a ton of leftovers, we went with a smaller cake and a dessert bar. In my “professional” cake experience, I always see toms of cake leftover at parties, graduations, weddings, and I do not like to waste food or money! So this was perfect-all the desserts were eaten at the end. As favors, I baked sugar cookies for our guests to take home. Again, I didn’t want to spend money on something guests would really enjoy-like the cutesie bubbles or those chalky candies lol.

My husband and I are so blessed to have a strong tribe we belong to. Our wedding party made so many sacrifices to be a part of our wedding. We had 10 bridesmaids, 10 groomsmen, 3 ring bearers and 3 flower girls. These individuals have been in our lives through the hard times, the good times, the great times. I am so thankful for each and every one of these incredible people! They all helped out in their own unique way and prayed for us that God would bless and honor us, not only on the wedding day but through our marriage. Several of our bridal party flew from either out of state or out of the country. Many also have little ones, demanding careers, and their own personal struggles. A common theme was-“I wouldn’t miss it for the world”. We are so blessed, humbled and honored to have these people in our lives.

At the end of the day, I was overjoyed to be married to the man I love so dearly. What a perfect and special day. Also very relieved the 404 days of wedding planning came to a close. Did everything go 100% according to plan? No. We forgot to bring the Martinelli’s for the toast, some of our decor wasn’t placed exactly how we wanted, the shepherd’s hooks weren’t put up with the adorable mini lanterns I bought-but HEY-that was the least of my worries. There is a saying that expectation is the root of all heartache. I tend to be an over-thinker and a perfectionist so I do admit, it took some time for me to get over those minor things as well as other hurdles in life I was (and still am) facing. But I have to keep saying God is good no matter what! And despite the teeny hiccups, our wedding was simply a dream.