Real Gay Wedding Highlands Country Club in Oakland, CA : Erika and Jenni

This Oakland, CA wedding was sent to us by Dana Pleasant Photography, who actually is based in Seattle, WA. I love the popcorn reception idea! You’ll have to click on the more tag to see them.

Our wedding was a blend of being traditional and unique. We focused on making everything exactly what we wanted in our wedding. You know, you only get married once, so we tried to so we enjoy the process of planning and it paid off in the little details. From the photos to the flowers the day felt absolutely perfect for the two of us. Our goal was for our wedding to be relaxed and non-stuffy. We felt like everyone had a good time and went home with at least one moment that really stood out for them.

Our wedding day was the first day of our married life and it was a beautiful! Our vows to each other and the presence of our family and friends solidified our lifelong commitment. We were so in love on our wedding day, but what is even better, is that we are even more in love with each day that passes since then. That day is one of the most important days of both of our lives and we can honestly say that we wouldn’t change a thing!

We made our ceremony meaningful to the both of us by having a close friend marry us. We also had family play the guitar and sing a song we picked out as we walked down the aisle. Additionally, we each wrote something special for each other that was kept secret until our officiant read it during the ceremony.

Our favorite moment of the day was when we saw each other for the first time on our wedding day. We had both kept our dresses a secret and we also spent the night apart so we had not seen each other since the night before at our rehearsal. There was a lot of anticipation and excitement and when we turned around and saw each other it was a really amazing and emotional moment.

We had a lot of favorite design elements because we, ourselves, put together and created many of the design elements. We got our inspiration for the “look” of our reception from a Martha Stewart Weddings magazine. One of our ideas that we created on our own was our wedding favor. We wanted to incorporate two of our favorite snacks while keeping our color scheme of red and white. Jenni loves popcorn and Erika loves licorice ropes so we came up with away to attach those wedding favors to each chair. To tie it all together we put a note at each place setting that said, “She POPPED the question, so we TIED the knot” The red licorice rope was TIED through the red and white popcorn box we found on the Internet and it was looped to the backs of the chairs. It worked well because then our favors became a nice way to decorate the chair without having to pay for a sash on each chair.

One other crafty idea we used at our wedding was instead of buying vases for all of our center pieces we went around collecting small and large cans and wrapped then in a red satin that we had purchased from a craft store. This allowed us to wrap our “vases” any way we wanted and this also saved us money so we could put more money towards the flowers.

As newlyweds we didn’t want our grand entrance into our ceremony to be boring and something no one would remember so we decided to make a music video where we lip synced to Jeffersons Starship song called “Nothing’s Going to Stop Us Now”. No one at the reception knew about the video except for the two people who had helped us film and edit it. It was hilarious hear and see everyone’s reaction to our goofy video and we received a loud and excited welcome from all of our guests as we entered right after the video was played. We both think that this got our reception off to a fun start.

Photographer: Dana Pleasant Photography

Venue: Highlands Country Club – Oakland, CA

Florist: Costco for bulk flowers and for the boquets and corsages.

Cake: Judy Chadwick

Invitation: Devine Paper Designs. Jennifer Biege

Dress/Suit/Accessories: Clarissa’s Couture – Walnut Creek, CA (Jenni’s dress and jewelery)

David’s Bridal – Milpitas, CA (Erika’s dress and accessories, Bridesmaids dresses)

Tux Rental – Men’s Warehouse