The Couple: Andrea & Scott
Wedding Date: July 10, 2015
Photography by Madison Weber Photography
Tell us a little about you and your beloved: We first met through mutual friends at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo back in 2010 and started dating in 2011. Graduation, a new home, and two puppies later, Scott popped the question. We were going to Santa Rosa to visit his family for the day and left our dogs at home. On the way to Santa Rosa, we stopped at the Jack London State Park in Glenn Ellen for a little horseback riding adventure. We were a little late and apparently the rest of the group had already left. I was thinking, “Wow, this is lucky. It’s like our own personal tour!” I found out later Scott had planned the whole thing so that we had a private tour. Good planning with a little luck! Along the way our leader stopped us for a break at a huge redwood tree. We learned that this specific area in the park was the inspiration for the ewok villiage in Star Wars. Scott was so excited about that! We went down to take some pictures near the tree, and Scott got down (smoothly) on one knee and proposed! It was perfection. Good thing these horses were trail trained since I could not focus the whole way back.
Wedding planning went pretty smoothly. I had been planning my dream wedding since I was little, and Scott was pretty easy going about the whole thing. I immediately called up Madison for the photography. We didn’t know when the wedding was going to be or where, but knew we wanted her. She is a great friend of ours, and it was important that we were comfortable with our photographer. Plus, her photos are amazing! We did have to choose between the Sacramento area and the Sonoma area for our venue, but once we looked at the cost of a Sonoma wedding and saw a few venues in Clarksburg, it was clear that Clarksburg could give us a perfect location. Everything else just sort of fell into place after that!
What was the most amazing part of your day? I think my favorite part of the day was our first dance. We had so much fun trying to learn how to waltz (which we basically decided it’s just take large strides and twirl every once in a while) and how to do some fun swing moves! We did our “real” first dance, and then the DJ switched to “You’re the One That I Want” from Grease. I remember feeling so excited about that! It was such a fun dance and we were really just having the time of our lives. It basically summed up our entire day.
What else would you like to share about your big day? Our day was really wonderful. We had so much help and support from our family and friends, and they really made our day special.
Ceremony Site: We got married in my childhood church, St. Joseph’s, in Clarksburg. It worked out perfectly because it was only a five minute drive to the reception location afterwards, and we had the entire place to ourselves the whole day.
Ceremony Musicians: I asked my theater teacher from elementary school, Lorna Bagby, if she could play the piano for our wedding. She did a wonderful job!
Officiant: Father Robert Copsey
Reception Venue: Scribner Bend Vineyards. The location couldn’t have been more perfect. We loved how it had the perfect area for cocktail hour, and that everyone could easily flow into the dinner and dancing area once everything was ready. We loved that the vineyard was surrounding us, and that we felt like we were secluded in our own space. The staff at Scribner were so helpful too. Kelly was our day-of coordinator, but she also helped us from the beginning at the venue. She was with us every step of the way, and made sure our day went as smoothly as possible.
Photographer: Madison Weber Photography
Caterer: Bella Bru. They did an amazing job. The appetizers were delicious (people still talk about them to this day), and the entrees were fantastic. We had a family style meal so everyone could choose exactly what they wanted to eat. We keep saying someone else needs to have a party and use them, just so we can eat the food again.
Cake/Desserts: One of our friends, who was also one of my bridesmaids, made our cake for us. We only wanted a small cake, and she made it perfectly. She made a naked cake with frosting and berries in between each layer and on top. We bought a cake topper off of Etsy, and she put it together perfectly. We also asked a few of our family members to make different desserts. Everyone seems to have their specialty, so we definitely took advantage of that. We were too busy dancing to really enjoy all of the desserts, but I know everyone loved them since everything except a few crumbs were gone by the end of the night!
Flowers: Visual Impact Design. Neither of us know a whole lot about flowers or floral arrangements, so we told them to go ahead and have fun with it. All we requested were bright colors and kind of a wildflower feel. They turned out beautifully, and we honestly couldn’t have picked out better arrangements.
Favors: We decided to give out favors that we felt people would actually want to use. We gave out mini bottles of olive oil and vinegar to each person. It was fun to see people actually use them for their bread at the wedding. We didn’t even think about that!
Bridal Attire: Dreamnette Bridal
Bridesmaids’ Attire: DressbLee
Hair: All of the girls’ hair was done by Salon Chevaux. We were lucky enough to have them come to my parent’s house (where we were getting ready).
Make-up: My maid of honor actually did my make-up. She did a great job!
Invitations: DIY. We made our own save-the-dates and invites, but did print the save-the-dates from PSPrint. We made a whole fun day out of making the invites with the bridesmaids, my mom, and a few of Scott’s family members. We owe them big time!
Signage: DIY. We made our own signage, which wasn’t a whole lot. We used a scrap piece of wood for the gifts sign, and then used different pieces of cork and burlap for our seating assignment sign.
DJ/Entertainment/Band: SJ’s Disc Jockey. DJ Joe Kalamaras listened to the type of music we wanted and really made the night full of fun dancing.
Photo Booth: DIY. We had a couple of old shutter doors that we had removed from our house. We painted them and made sure that they could stand up on their own. We then got a polaroid camera all set up with plenty of film, a little table set-up (which we had taken from our house), a box of props and had a fun little photo booth area! We asked the guests to take a picture and then stick it in a book we provided, along with a little note from them. They could then, of course, take some pictures for themselves.
Décor Rentals: DIY. We were lucky in that the venue was absolutely beautiful on its own, so we really didn’t need to add much. It was really just the dessert table pieces, the photos we put out on the tables, and the Photo Booth area.
Furniture Rentals: Celebrations! Party Rentals & Tents
Transportation: Scott and I made our getaway in his 1972 Mach 1 Mustang.
Honeymoon Location: Portugal and Italy
Any other of your wedding vendor(s) you’d like to call out that we missed in the above questions? We got Scott’s suit at Men’s Warehouse. They worked so well with us to make sure we had everything we wanted for both Scott’s suit and the groomsmen’s attire!
First Dance Song: We had our first dance to “Then” by Brad Paisley. A little over halfway into the song we did a switcharoo into “You’re the One That I Want” from Grease. We even threw in a little half flip!
Any advice you’d give to our readers who are planning their weddings right now? Take a breath! Get the big stuff (venue, caterer, photographer) out of the way quickly, and everything else will come together in time. And listen to your vendors. They have been doing this for a while and know their stuff. When the caterer says you shouldn’t do a buffet with a large amount of people, they are probably right (we were glad we listened to them on this one).
Anything that you would have done differently if you were given the chance? I think we would have made sure to get all of the speeches and our first dance on film. And we would’ve liked to eat more appetizers! We were so anxious for the reception that we couldn’t even stomach eating anything! That wore off by dinner, luckily!
Photos courtesy of Madison Weber Photography.
Blog post by Real Weddings Magazine’s Social Media Maven, Aimee Carroll.
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