* Cheska, Part-time Baker & Arnold, Full-time Taste Tester * Photographer: Christina Richards * Soundtrack for reading: “Everyday” by Vetiver *
One sentence sum up of the wedding vibe: A relaxing, introverted celebration with great food, sweets and music that was fun for introverts and extroverts alike! Hooray! (We’re more of the one-on-one conversations type, than a dancing couple.)
The Info—Photography: Christina Richards / Venue: Radonich Ranch / Food, rentals, centerpieces: Vignette Events / Sweets: Gerhard Michler and Alfajores made by Cheska’s friend, Carmen / Invitations: Designed by the Cheska and printed by both Cheska & Arnold through a letterpress workshop from Reb Peters Press / Flowers: Cheska’s friend, Marissa / Music: Cheska/Spotify/iPad /
Other decorations, crafts, etc: A total collaboration between our maid of honor, Steph, our bridesmaid, Cheryl and many talented friends and family! / Cheska’s Dress: Saja / Cheska’s Shoes: Anne Klein and Repetto / Cheska’s Jewelry: All from my very generous mom / Arnold’s Wedding Band: TitaniumKnights / Arnold’s Suit: Boss Black / Arnold’s Shirt: Custom by Spoon Tailor / Arnold’s Shoes: Florsheim / Ring Bowl: Paloma’s Nest
Other cool stuff we should know about: We had quite a small wedding but it was definitely a big project for us! For me personally, I wanted to learn a lot of different skills while planning (ie: letterpress printing!) We had a budget, set up a wedding fund, and were really hands on with almost everything. I really wanted letterpress invitations but there was just no way we could do it at the prices we were seeing at that time. Being a loyal craigslister, one day, I decided to type “lettepress” on the search box and lo and behold—I found a letterpress workshop run by an aritist in Oakland for a very reasonable price! And off I went, designing the invitation with the help of Rebecca Peters and teaching myself how to use Illustrator. My dad provided the stick drawing of a couple—the boy handing a yellow flower to the girl. I thought it would be a great hint for Arnold since he hasn’t given me flowers yet…
We took a lot of calculated risks to plan our wedding. I found the venue the night we got engaged. A few weeks later, we visited the venue in person and just loved it. We booked it a year and a half before the wedding date without even tasting the food (because they didn’t do tastings). So, we checked references instead and just put our faith that it will all taste great in the end, which it did! We also found our amazing photographer, Christina Richards, here on APW. At that time, she had only photographed two weddings but we really just loved the photographs she had taken. (I was even more excited when I found out she went to SCAD. If I happened to be more artistic, I would have loved to study there.) We met with her shortly after, then booked her even before we had booked our venue. We were really lucky to have amazing vendors.
