Carin + Albert

An Auburn native, Carin enjoyed showing Albert—who is from Tucson, Arizona—what she considered her childhood “backyard”: Lake Tahoe; it was on a vacation there, five months into their relationship, when they “hardcore fell in love.” “That next summer we took his two kids—who are 14 and 11—[to Tahoe] and they just loved it, so we [knew we had] to get married there,” she adds. “It’s the most incredible place…we love it.”

With six months to plan and a firm budget, the first thing Carin and Albert did was sit down and each write what the most important thing was when it came to their wedding. “His number one was venue and my number one was photographer,” Carin recalls. “Those were the two things we wanted to allocate our budget to the most. Everything else we figured out how to make it work for cheaper, but still be exactly what we wanted.”

The couple decided to tie the knot at Slice of Heaven Estate on Lake Tahoe. Carin says the spacious lawn that opened up to the lake was the casual, family reunion type of feel they wanted for their wedding. “We wanted it to be a party for everyone, and we wanted everyone to make a vacation out of it,” she says.

To play up the beauty of the locale, the couple decided to hold a noon wedding, followed by cocktails and a late lunch. “I wanted everybody to be able to see Lake Tahoe in the sunlight—it was just the perfect time of day to showcase the lake,” Carin adds.

Being the couple had decided to splurge on venue and photographer, they made the rest of the wedding a family affair by seeing what family members’ talents they could employ to help keep costs down. Two of the bride’s aunts did all of the flowers, while her father decorated the property with flowers in planters and painted nautical signs to use as decorations. Her mother baked the couple’s two favorite cookies for favors, and her grandmother sewed a special nautical flag for the day, which the couple raised on a flagpole to symbolize their union. “It made it so special to have those memories with our family members—like my cousin sitting there doing my makeup with me,” Carin explains. “It was neat to be able to share those really precious moments with people who are already so special to us.”

Keeping with the family theme, Carin also arranged a special moment during the ceremony involving Albert’s two children that would now be becoming her stepchildren. “I wrote something for the officiant to read about how we weren’t only becoming husband and wife, but were becoming a family,” she says. “He called up the kids and we all held hands as the officiant read what I had written. I’ll never forget it—it was hands-down the best moment, I think, for every person at that wedding. It was incredibly beautiful.”

“Even though we didn’t go ‘all out’ on every detail, it still was our dream wedding because we got what was most important to us.”

For those planning their wedding, Carin advises doing exactly what she and Albert did: sit down and prioritize. “Pick what’s important to [each of] you and what you want to allocate not just your money, but your time [to]. What are the sentimental things you want?” she says.

—Corrie Pelc

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