So You're EnGAYged, A Gay Wedding Blog &#187; Erica

Cocktail Hour & Family Portraits

California Country Kitsch Love Fest: The Gay Detailia

Erica — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 16:00:12 +0000

White Knot ribbons + customized buttons by ButtonEmpire = corsages.

(Photos clockwise by Button Empire, K. Ono, and Wyatt Olson Photography)

A wedding with two brides should be gay enough right? Well, yes, but… sometimes you just want to make sure everybody’s getting the message: We’re Here, We’re Queer, and this is a Big F**king Deal! For that, sometimes you need to add a little gay detailia to your wedding, rainbow or otherwise…

To begin our gay detailia, we ordered a White Knot kit and sent them to my maid of honor for assembly. (Thank you, KT!) Next, we found our sassy wedding buttons to complete the ‘corsages’ for ourselves, the bridal party and our family from ButtonEmpire on Etsy. The corsages were comprised of a white knot + a London map button (20 buttons made from one map of London) + an ‘I’m with the bride(s)’ button (later used expertly by Julie & Jacqueline in their La Jolla wedding as well!). As an extra perk for Alex and me, ButtonEmpire created 2 special buttons that read ‘Those whom Love hath brought together let no Prop put asunder.’ — a fantastic button-with-bite pointing to the fact that we couldn’t legally marry in my home state of California because of Prop 8.

That certain CA proposition, however, also led to another purchase on Etsy: ‘Shame on H8′ earrings by SYE-approved vendor, Alaine Jewelry. The entire cost of these earrings, made with Swarovski crystals, went to a marriage equality campaign of my choice. Double bonus!

(Photos by Alaine Jewelry and Wyatt Olson Photography, respectively.)

Continuing the rainbow theme, Bridesmaid Kate offered to knit me a rainbow shawl from a pattern on ravelry.com (there are a ton to choose from!) and it turned out beautiful. The wedding day itself ended up being much warmer than expected so I didn’t actually get to wear it but for a few photos. I will now, though, have a rainbow shawl to wear whenever I please… (Ah, if a rainbow shawl was all it took for people to know ‘I’m queer!’)

The rainbow-ness continued into our cake and DIY cake topper: a white, buttercream cake with white chocolate buttons on the outside, a rainbow (white) cake on this inside, topped off an embroidery hoop for ‘The Brides.’ The cross-stitch pattern was inspired by our Country Kitsch RSVP card, designed by Bridesmaid Christy who wanted to throw in a bit-o-gay into our invites! The inside of the cake was an inspiration for a post ages ago on SYE and we were able to keep it a secret from (most of ) our guests until the actual cutting!

(Photo on left and top right by K. Ono; photo on bottom left by Wyatt Olson Photography.)

Elsewhere on the cake table, we added a few other touches that were gay-flag-esque. One was a gift from a family friend who collects Pez: a set of two Toy Story 2 ‘Jessie’ Pez dispensers. They would have been adorable as cake toppers as well for our country kitsch do, but we were already sorted on that front. Still, we added them to the decorations as our honorary ‘Bride & Bride’ figurines.

We also put our wedding certificate on the table for all the guests to sign during the reception. We hoped that having it on display, and asking all of our guests to sign it, would remind people that while they were ratifying our love by their witness, the government bodies of our state and country weren’t going to be.

One not-so-obvious gay detail from our ceremony was my choice of poem: ‘White Writing’ by Carol Ann Duffy. Now the UK Poet Laurette, Duffy has been very open about her bisexuality for a long time and her poetry doesn’t shy away from the subject matter either. The poem ‘White Writing’ was presumably written for Rapture (2005) before the UK Civil Partnership Act was put into law the same year it was published. To me, the poem references the creation of ‘a marriage where we’re told there shouldn’t be one,’ to quote our ceremony script. By ‘writing it white,’ we as a couple are creating our own rules to live by, whether our union is legally recognized or not. To draw a bit more attention to Duffy as a poet during the ceremony as well, we also found a gorgeous copy of a new collection called Love Poems which you can see Bridesmaids Corinne and Mallory holding in the photo below.

All the rainbows, candy dispensers, and poetry aside, though, the biggest statement we made on our wedding day was putting our names on the county fair marquee announcing our wedding reception. This may not seem such a big deal–there are a number of venues which will announce your wedding on their marquees–but it made me nervous nonetheless. I talked about some of my fears around having our wedding in my very small, Northern California town here before, but just because I’d written them didn’t mean I’d gotten rid of them!

You see, the last time I was at the fairgrounds before our wedding, it was November 2008 and I was voting No on Prop 8 while my drive to that polling station had been lined with Yes on 8 signs–my county was a firm ‘red’ on that measure. And even as our last names do not signify our gender (i.e. someone randomly passing by wouldn’t guess it was a gay wedding), my family is known around town and anyone that’s spoken to my parents in the last few years knew I was marrying a lady! We didn’t have any of the negative reaction I feared by publicizing our wedding reception, but I do know many of the people in town took notice–and, thankfully, we received much praise and love for our public gesture.

All photos by Wyatt Olson Photography (unless otherwise noted!)

Didn’t catch the previous recaps of the California Country Kitsch Love Fest? Get ‘em here:

The Reception

A Ceremony with ‘work to do’

Cocktail Hour & Family Portraits

California Country Kitsch Love Fest: The Reception

Erica — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 16:00:46 +0000

Toasting us with some almond ‘champagne’

(…technically sparkling wine for those of you connoisseurs….)

Bubbly, Tri-Tip BBQ, grilled portobellos, rainbow cake and dancing, oh my! I can tell you right now, we had fun, ate well, and danced our boots off at our reception…

One of the things that my mom came up with was the idea to have Almond ‘Champagne’ (Sparkling Wine)–a bubbly you can only grown in California from the acres and acres of almond groves. It’s slightly sweet and available at Trader Joe’s for a reasonable price! This fit perfectly in with our overall theme and want to keep things ‘local’–whether it was local to Siskiyou County or local to California. Our almond sparkling wine complemented the ales from Mt Shasta Brewery, Hunter Orchard’s apple cider and home-brewed iced tea.

For dinner, we had a buffet–no appetizers or nibbles beforehand necessary! Tri-tip barbecue is the wedding feast of our area so we served it up with potatoes, ‘honeymoon salad’, rolls and grilled Portobello mushrooms for the veggies. Word to the wise, if you’re including a food option for specific diets (whether it be veggie at your meat buffet, or meat at your veggie buffet) CLEARLY label the dish!! The Portobello’s were and looked so good that there was a bit of a squeeze for my dearest veggie friends…

Food…and our local caterer provided the decorations.

We had enormously help the day before the wedding in setting up the venue. We had really, really wanted a barn (inspired partly by Ms. Grrrl’s gorgeous do!), but sadly most of our friends’ barns were full of hay during October and the only one in town was too small. So we made do with the Art Building at the fairground and decided to still keep it basic. Our bridal party + their significant others + family members helped set up table & chairs, lay the glasses, table ware and decorations as well as hang Christmas lights (borrowed) and our embroidery hoops with fabric (DIY from thrift store hoops & fabrics!), and the amazing English chintz bunting that Alex’s mum made!

We went for simplicity in our decorations: champagne colored table cloths, red napkins, and sets of glasses & water jugs for each table. To decorate, we had our jammy favors (sorry, pun intended!) of various jams, jellies, salsas and preserves along with red buttons and tables named after country female singers, i.e. Tammy, Wynonna, Reba, Faith, Carrie, etc. The head table had the most jam jars and we called it The Dixie Chicks (we used to blare ‘Taking the Long Way’ while driving around Santa Cruz when we were first got together…).

Ain’t she pretty?

Alex’s Maid of Honor (middle) and bridesmaids

My Uncle Tim…

The guests demanded Alex speak too…

Once everyone was full up from firsts or seconds of the buffet, my brother kicked off the speeches–this time impersonating Alex’s brother with a toast from him, in a British accent!! He had a rolling with laugther! Then the mike got passed around the room: my uncle, my maid of honor, Alex’s maid of honor and bridesmaids, my bridesmaids, my dad and Alex’s mum. In the UK, both of us had stood up at the end to say something, but as this time we were in my hometown where a good half of the people had not met Alex before the wedding weekend, I wanted to make a speech about her. That, and we had SO many thank yous to friends and family who had helped put the weekend/day together. Throughout all the speeches, we cried.

And when I wrapped up, the calls when out for Alex to say something! They weren’t letting us get away with it! She graciously stood up and figured out something to say: a thank you and a sharing of much love. I think that picture of her holding up the mic and her champagne glass is absolutely adorable!

Gotcha back!

Well, as you can see, the cutting of the cake got a bit messy! My dear friend Maeve of Maeve Makes Cakes (based in SF, but hailing from further NorCal) made our three-tier, rainbow inside, all white on the outside, white chocolate button perfection wedding cake! We were super excited to surprise the guests with rainbow wedding cake and thrilled with how she carried out our button theme with the cake.

One thing I had asked Alex specifically NOT to do was smash cake in my face. In the UK, this is a lot harder (and not as common) because the cake is thick and sticky fruit cake. But for Alex, the temptation was too great! As you can see, I got a nose full after our loving kiss…but I got her back, too! (I will admit I almost yelled at her–that was how much I didn’t want cake-face–but she was laughing so adorably that I couldn’t really on our wedding day. As she said later, she was considerate of the dress; I had to remind her though that I wasn’t concerned about the dress, I was concerned about my face! Ah well, love is love…)

Alex’s mum changed into her plaid shirt, hat and cowboy boots for the ‘hoe down’!

A little bit softer now, a little bit softer now…

A little bit louder now, a little bit louder now…

We do love our dancing, and our guests did not disappoint! The dancing got under way while Alex and I cleaned the cake off ourselves, and then it was time for our first dance. We picked a more up-tempo tune this time around called ‘Love Serenade’ by The Waifs. Then the party got under way. Sadly, the DJ wasn’t the best, but we still rocked out–as evidenced by the photos above. I have never seen a crowd get more into ‘Shout’ as I did on our wedding night!

Guests slowly said goodnight and we continued until about 11:30 when realized…we were completely exhausted! Our bridal party was amazing and had already started taking things down and cleaning up, being strict with both of us that we were not to touch anything. My brother was the last off the dance floor of epic-ness, and crawled home to our hotel completely happy…

With still a few more pieces I’m excited to share with you (think black and white photobooth and gay details!!!), in the meantime, is anyone else planning a country or locally themed wedding? What fun things have you discovered so far? Or super glad you included in your own?

All photos by Wyatt Olson Photography

Didn’t catch the previous recaps of the California Country Kitsch Love Fest? Get ‘em here:

California Country Kitsch Love Fest: Cocktail Hour & Family Portraits

Erica — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:00:17 +0000

That’s right, it said our names on the sign…

The ceremony complete, it was time for cocktail hour! In keeping with our country kitsch theme, we served local apple cider (non-alcoholic) and a signature Love Fest cocktail of lemonade and Sweet Tea vodka. Yum!

The best part about our signature cocktail was that we’d figured it out at the last minute. I mean, we always knew we wanted to have signature cocktails at wedding(s)– we even came up with three of them in the first week of our engagement!–but we hadn’t settled on just one in the whole 1.5 years of our wedding planning–until the introduction of Sweet Tea vodka to a birthday party we attended two weeks before the wedding. We are iced tea/Arnold Palmer lovers anyway, and making it alcoholic was even better!

For about a hour in between the ceremony and the reception, we mingled in the open courtyard between the Floral Building and the Art Building (reception was held in the ‘Art Building’–you gotta love how fairgrounds are laid out…). Now we really had a chance to relax and hug people, chat, briefly catch up, and generally enjoy the gorgeous early evening weather Siskiyou County was providing…

Bridesmaid Nina

My grandpa and me

Some of Alex’s college crew

While those old enough to enjoy the alcohol were chatting, my brother started up a game. Now you may not remember, but, in the UK, my brother got all the guests engaged in a game of Hi-Ya! This time, I’m not sure what the name of it was but there was still a ninja-esque element to it! Something about calculating kick or hit on somebody and freezing…

The game in action…

With the sun quickly setting, we rounded up the immediate family for a few family shots on the lawn. It did occur to me to do family photos beyond my immediate family but when those numbers get above 70 it just seemed like a better idea to leave it. While the shots were quick, they are some of our favorite of our families, from the day and in general. I am still so grateful that Alex’s parents were able to fly over and be part of the California wedding. And with Alex’s brother and sister missing, we had to ham it up a bit with my brother to make up for it as well.

And then I had to take just a few, me and my bro. He’s my forever-been best friend.

Finally, before heading in door for our awesome tri-tip barbecue buffet, we gathered EVERYONE together for a few shots. That’s about 130 people right there! I still can hardly believe how much support and love we had surrounding us that day. And laughter and silliness for that matter. We’re nothing if not a little bit silly…

The rest of the evening flowed on from there–yummy buffet, cake smashing, hilarious speeches, photo booth pictures, dancing, dancing, and more dancing!–so still more to share… But, in the meantime, has anyone else done signature cocktails for their wedding, or planning to? Do games ever spontaneously occur elsewhere?! Are you planning to do lots of family photos or just intimate ones?

All photos by Wyatt Olson Photography

Didn’t catch the previous recaps of the California Country Kitsch Love Fest? Get ‘em here:

A Ceremony with ‘work to do’

California Country Kitsch Love Fest: a ceremony ‘with work to do’

Erica — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 16:00:46 +0000

The Celtic Cats performing during the pre-ceremony reception…

Rock n roll portraits wrapped up, Alex and I jumped back in Wyatt’s little red Nissan and headed on over to the Siskiyou Golden Fairgrounds! The ladies had already beat us there and we knew the guests had been arriving for the pre-ceremony reception of sweet breads (pumpkin, zucchini, apple & cinnamon) and local apple cider. Serenading the group were local band, The Celtic Cats, including my brother’s and my high school music teacher (fourth on the right) with Celtic classics and a few Siskiyou County originals.

We arrived with about 15 minutes left of the reception. I was initially a bit bummed we were missing the yummy food and the extra mingling time–but then the actual hellos started and posing for casual family photos and suddenly both Alex and I were REALLY overwhelmed! Oh! Not yet! You can’t congratulate us now!! We haven’t had the ceremony yet! Luckily, our amazing officiant, Janna, took us aside (behind a building) to wait for the ceremony to begin and we were clear of the guests well-intended, but incongruent well-wishes. From there, we had the whole view of the valley and Janna left us there for a good 5 minutes at least just to be together before we got in the line up for the walk down the aisle.

First down the aisle was my maid of honor with my grandma. Then, my brother–acting as Best Bro for both him and Alex’s bro still in England–walked down the moms, one on each arm. After the family, the DJ cued up Josh Ritter’s “Come and Find Me” and my first bridesmaid walked down on her own, holding our hand binding cords, followed by 3 pairs of our bridesmaids/maids of honor, and then…

Alex and her father, David…

Me and my dad, Charlie…

Alex got to watch me walk down the aisle this time…

The trees, the blue skies, the rows and rows of family and loved ones–I barely remember Alex standing at the end of the aisle as I clutched on to my dad. It was wonderful having him there with me this time–his absence at the UK wedding was felt.

With both Alex and I arrived at our meeting place (it wasn’t an altar of any kind really), Janna–my best friend growing up–welcomed us and our guests to this glorious day, our wedding. The day signified the end of our long period of engagement, as she eloquently put it, “there would be no trilogy here!” Today, she said, we had work to do: we were making a marriage where there wasn’t one, where we were told there shouldn’t be one.

She said:

Throughout history people have gathered together to determine how they should live. It was the collective gathering of people that had the power to make and un-make the rules of society. As I said we have work before us. First we must un-make a rule and in its place set a new one. Thus, would all those who affirm that the love of these two people, indeed these two woman, and any two people as a love worthy of the institution of marriage speak in one voice and say: Yes!

And boy, did we say YES! With that proclamation, Janna declared “The power of this gathered community has thus declared that the union of these two women is both legal and binding.”

So began our ceremony. With that, Janna asked our pairs of bridesmaids to come forward to read the poems we had chosen. I chose “White Writing” by Carol Ann Duffy; Alex chose “Sonnet XVII” by Pablo Neruda.

One thing that was really important to me about this ceremony was that it was written personally about us. As I had stood as a bridesmaid in Janna’s wedding and heard the reflection on her and her husband, the idea of a reflection settled really well with me. Luckily, Janna was super up for writing about the two of us! Her speech had us in tears, in laughter, smiling wholly in love, and challenging us to remember what it is that brought us together on this day of all days, home.

Once tissues were duly used, our vows were up next.

Do you Alex/Erica take Erica/Alex to be your partner and your wife; will you accept her for all that she is, for all that she will be; will you walk alongside her in laughter and sorrow; comfort and support her with courage and love; will you honor and uphold her, cherish and love her, for all of your days together?

Response: I will!

The vows went smoothly. All we had to say was “I will!” in response to Janna’s question and we were through it. The ring exchange, however, required a repeat and well, Alex kind of lost it. The reflection so beautiful, the moment just settling, she couldn’t speak beyond my name in the ring exchange! She tried a few times, and then just cried as she tried to catch her breath. Tissues came out of dress pockets, handkerchiefs from under the bridesmaids’ quilts and a few minutes later she was fine. She was embarrassed afterward, but I found it so sweet–and I was so grateful she was first to speak and not me!

What we said:

Erica/Alex, I ask you to stand by my side, my partner, my lover, my friend. As a symbol of my commitment I give you this ring, for as this ring has no end, so my love for you had no end.

Ring exchange with vows…

Vows and ring exchange sorted, we weren’t quite finished yet. As marriage isn’t legal in California (yet), it was really important to me to have some components of the ceremony that involved community-recognized traditions of marriage, like the jumping of the broom. A tradition we comfortable borrowing from was an Irish hand-binding ceremony. Some acquaintances of ours sent us there script they’d used for their ceremony, to be used with six cords each tying together what “these hands” represent in the relationship. We kept the core of it, but tweaked it for us as a couple. My favorite line read about grasping each other’s hands in grief and in the latest adventure…

Our hands tied together, we signed a simple wedding certificate created by Ten Lines Pica, a SYE-approved vendor, asked our bridesmaids to sign as witnesses and the rest of the guests to fill in the 130 lines with their signatures during the reception. While that was happening, dear friends of ours played Patty Griffin’s “Heavenly Day” in the most incredible acoustic version. It really was our heavenly day, just for that moment…

And then, we were married. Finally. Really. Janna announced us! Absolutely in front of everyone we loved, on two continents, in one year. Bound together by all that love and pronounced legally married as wife and wife…

“You are the Best Thing” by Ray La Montague burst from the speakers at the perfect moment and we danced back down the aisle together, all our bridesmaids behind us grooving along!

Before the ceremony, Janna said to meet her round the corner before heading to the cocktail hour, for just a moment together again. After everyone had followed the bridal party around the buildings and across the lawn to the Lemonade and Sweet Tea Vodka cocktails that awaited them, the three of us let out one big scream of “Yahoo!!” before there were more tears and hugs and partying to be had…

Bridesmaids leading the guests over to the cocktail hour…

All photos by Wyatt Olson Photography

Didn’t catch the previous recaps of the California Country Kitsch Love Fest? Get ‘em here:

California Country Kitsch Love Fest: Rock n Roll Portraits

Erica — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 16:00:09 +0000

Don’t mess with these brides…

After our lovely ladies left for the pre-ceremony reception, we ran around the ranch with Wyatt Olson to take some couple’s shots. Having done the sweet and gorgeous in the UK, we went a bit bad ass in California, aided immensely by tree climbing, an abode called ‘the rocket ship’ (a grain silo turned on its side, made into a dwelling, and painted with a red star!), and an Airstream trailer.

Now if we were to do it again, we might have chosen not to have our portraits done at 1:00pm in the afternoon, with the sun blazing down and no sunglasses, but such as it goes it was the only time of the day we could fit them in–the rest of the afternoon and evening were jam-packed with festivities at a location 1/2 hour away from the ranch!

What I remember most of this brief photo shoot was how much fun we had. I think part of me really had an aim to ‘make our portraits rock n roll’–edgy, funky, Americana was what I was going for–but at the end of the day I have no idea if we really were ‘rock n roll’ other than the fact that we did exactly what we love to do: be together. We laughed, we giggled, we followed whatever inspiration struck us (the rocket ship series is a testament to our goofiness and Wyatt’s genius), and we were just…in love.

When we were in the tree, our ladies were still with us and almost on cue they burst into song, “Erica and Alex sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love, then comes marriage…”

Good news was that was exactly what we had planned. The ceremony was up next.

All photos by Wyatt Olson Photography

Didn’t catch the previous recaps of the California Country Kitsch Love Fest? Get ‘em here:

California Country Kitsch Love Fest: Bridal Party Love

Erica — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 16:00:20 +0000

The lovelies and the lovely Mt. Shasta…

See, I told you! Mt. Shasta. Oh, mountain of my home and teenage years… Majestic. And the perfect backdrop for some classic bridal party shots for Alex’s ladies, our officiant, the brides and my ladies.

But of course, our bridal party shots didn’t start with the Shasta Valley rolling in the background and a sleeping volcano in the distance. No, first, Alex and her ladies went to Hunter Orchard–famous in Siskiyou County for their pumpkin patch and fresh-pressed apple cider.

The trees, the path, SATC…

Then, once we’d met up in the 76 parking lot, we drove out to Lava Rock Air for some shots in front of the aforementioned mountain, surrounding hills (10 points if you can name one!), and wild grasses. Oh, country kitsch how I love you!

High school best buds, boots galore, and Dukes of Hazard…

And then there was the Airstream trailer. Pretty much the whole reason we went out to our friend’s old dairy farm was because my dad casually mentioned that his sculpture artist friend has various little abodes on his property (more on that in the next post), including an Airstream trailer! Now, you may be thinking, yeah, totally goes with the country kitsch theme, but aluminum trailers also have significance for me: For 6 months I lived in a parking lot in LA in a Bols-Aero (Airstream-like caravan). Alex visited me there from England for 3 weeks and immediately after she left, I knew I wanted to marry her. I even found her engagement on my laptop sat on the stoop of my trailer! Suffice to say, I love them, too.

The ladies, mayhem, and Country Kitsch Housewives…

Once all the group shots were done, the ladies piled into their cars to head for the pre-ceremony reception while we took some couples’ shots with the wonderful Wyatt Olson. Here’s another sneak peek:

All photos by Wyatt Olson Photography

Didn’t catch the previous recaps of the California Country Kitsch Love Fest? Get ‘em here:

California Country Kitsch Love Fest – Getting Ready in the Morn’

Erica — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 18:00:59 +0000

I’ve sat in that chair to get my hair done since I was 12…

The morning of the wedding we had SEVEN girls who needed to get their hair done by ONE hairdresser: the woman who’d been doing my hair for the everyday and all-important occassions since I was a pre-teen, Laura. She was AMAZING. Incredible as always, and fit us all in under 4.5 hours. Given that Alex’s maid-of-honor and bridesmaid are earlier risers (even though Alex isn’t!), I elected them to go first into the salon at 8 am. Me and my girls followed at 9:30am, with coffee.

Hair done separately and getting ready separately were more a result of time juggling than any desire to ‘stay apart’ for the morning, and we hadn’t even thought about a ‘first look’ (very unlike our UK wedding where the ‘first look’ was an absolute feature!). Our getting-ready-morning was mostly need based:

we needed to get 7 hair-dos done,
9 women needed to get dressed and made-up,
photos of both bridal groups needed to be taken along with bridal shots and whole group shots–
all before we needed to get back to the Siskiyou Golden Fairgrounds for our pre-ceremony reception of apple cider and pumpkin bread at 2pm! Phew!

Alex’s maid-of-honor, Corinne, in curlers…

Our photographer Wyatt Olson met Alex back at the hotel to take some getting ready shots before whisking her and her ladies off to Hunter Orchard from some bridal shots. Back at the salon, our officiant (my best friend from school) was doing my mom’s make-up, my maid-of-honor was making last minute red-buttons-on-wire to put in my hair, and my bridesmaid Kate was finishing my knit rainbow shawl! The level of activity stresses me out just writing about it…

Minor additions: our bridal party buttons…

Once the hair & make-up were complete, each of us got dressed in the salon bathroom–oh so glamorous!–and arranged with Alex and Wyatt to meet them in a parking lot halfway between the Hunter Orchard and our next photo location, the Lava Rock Air (old dairy farm of a family friend). In Siskiyou Count, there’s a lot of open space! Me and my girls got there first so we had a few extra minutes to get ready before Alex and her gang drove up…

I flagged them down with my button bouquet!

Even though we’d done this whole getting-hitched thing before, I found myself–those minutes waiting for Alex–being nervous and excited all over again. We could see their cars come onto the overpass before they got to us and I stood in the middle of the parking lot to flag them down. From my vantage point, I could just catch Alex’s reaction to seeing me all done up for the first time. She was beaming.

Our ‘first-look’…

With Wyatt in another car and time a-wasting, we didn’t have any formal ‘first-look’ photos as such, but instead all piled back into the cars to head for the diary ranch and our group shots with Mt. Shasta in the background…

All photos by the bridal party

Didn’t catch the previous recaps of the California Country Kitsch Love Fest? Get ‘em here: