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The Couple: Ekaterina and Nikolay

Wedding Date: July 29, 2016

Photography by White Daisy Photography

Tell us a little about you and your beloved: We have known each other for quite a while before dating, we’ve met through friends we had in common. We knew each other for four years before we started dating and there’s really no super special story to that. In some time we had a feeling that “oh yeah, this is the right person for me and I can see us having a family one day”. We lived together for couple years, first year living together Nick got us our lovely pup, Shiba Inu Archy (which was my dream all my life), and the second year living together on Christmas morning, he proposed. We wanted a very small wedding with our families only to keep it casual and my parents’ house in Tahoe seemed like a perfect location with a nice backyard. So planning wasn’t as chaotic as it sometimes can get with the weddings.

What was the most amazing part of your day? The most amazing part of our day was playing corn hole under cafe lights, when everyone was already a little bit tipsy and were super relaxed and were enjoying themselves.

What else would you like to share about your big day? For us, having such a small self-made wedding was the best solution, it wasn’t stressful at all, nobody went crazy, we didn’t have any fights while planning it. The day itself felt very calm because we were surrounded and supported by our families, and we could just truly enjoy and actually BE there emotionally without the need to try and impress anybody.

Ceremony and Reception Site: Private Home

Ceremony Musician and DJ: Bride’s Brother and Father

Officiant: Carole Criddle

Photographer: White Daisy Photography (Amazing work!!! Absolutely love our wedding photos!)

Caterer: My parents cooked all of the food and it was awesome!

Cake/Desserts: Witt’s Cake (Incredible)

Flowers: I bought flowers from Thran’s Flower Shop and did all flower arrangements myself, including my bouquet.

Favors: DIY. They were a set of a small honey jar (honey came from local farm) and small tin container of tea from a local store in Campbell.

Bridal Attire: My simple dress is from Lulu’s and i don’t believe the dress is a wedding one, but I loved it, and replaced with it an actual wedding dress my cousin sent from Russia, because it was way too formal.

Invitations: Designed myself and printed at Zazzle

Furniture, Décor and Linen Rentals: Camelot Party Rentals

Honeymoon Location: Oahu, Hawaii

Any other of your wedding vendor(s) you’d like to call out that we missed in the above questions?  Our eucalyptus garlands were made by a talented florist from the Bay Area, Anastasiya Yurinok.

Any advice you’d give to our readers who are planning their weddings right now? My only advice is to listen to yourself and your partner and make sure everything that is included in your wedding is truly what you would want and need to be there. It is your day and it is about your union, not a show off party to impress, you should feel comfortable and relaxed, not stressed.

Anything that you would have done differently if you were given the chance? Not a thing. It was amazing and very home like, which is just what we needed.

Photos courtesy of White Daisy Photography.

Blog post by Real Weddings Magazine’s Social Media Maven, Aimee Carroll.

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