Timing was everything for DeAnna and Cali. The two had a rather spontaneous meet-cute at a festival in San Francisco. Outside a pizza place, one of DeAnna’s friends started chatting with Cali. Then, Cali smiled at DeAnna and introduced herself. “I had this feeling things in my life were about to get interesting,” DeAnna remembers.
The two hit it off and made plans to see each other during the following weekends, which included Cali’s birthday on the Fourth of July. “There were literal and figurative fireworks,” DeAnna says. “She was so charming, interesting and immediately fit in.” And though Cali lived in San Mateo and DeAnna in Sacramento, the distance never felt like a hurdle. “The next year was spent taking turns making trips to our respective cities, getting to know each other and our families and friends. I fell in love with Cali sitting on her patio watching planes land at SFO, and on my front porch listening to the evening crickets and the sounds of Midtown Sacramento. We did a lot of talking that first year,” DeAnna says. After a year of talking and courtship, Cali moved to Sacramento. One year after that, she proposed to DeAnna.
They were quick to agree on what they wanted their wedding to be: local, modern and full of fun. “We started discussing what type of wedding we wanted within the next month: destination or local? We mutually decided on a local wedding,” Cali says. “There were many small details and having a wedding planner made it easier to get everything we wanted.” They hired Jenn Robirds Events, and Jenn quickly became the couple’s point-person for all things wedding. About six months into the planning process, the couple relocated to Portland, Oregon. Just as the beginning of their relationship was long distance, so would the wedding planning. “At the time of our relocation, our wedding was 10 months down the road,” Cali says. “Having a planner in that situation made it possible to plan long distance. We took three trips to Sacramento and the Bay Area during [that time] for a venue walk and tasting, the initial custom suit selections and measurements, and one last trip for the final suit fitting and alterations.”
For DeAnna, one of the highlights was seeing her vision come together. “We had 16 months to plan and about 12 months in, I knew it was going to be everything we wanted and more,” she says. “I spent a lot of time on the planning, alongside Jenn, so seeing the end result was rewarding.” Cali wanted to capture exactly how she felt on that special day. “We stood up right after dinner, started to look around the room and take it all in,” she says. “We did that a few times during dinner. And I loved walking around to the tables during dinner and speaking to our guests and thanking them for being there.”
—Kourtney Jason
