Jessica, Public Health Grad Student & Alex, Medical Student
One sentence sum-up of the wedding vibe: An intimate backyard, pool-side wedding in the Hollywood Hills, complete with a taco-bar, piñata, and an incredible amount of laughter.
Soundtrack for reading: “Ragged Wood” by Fleet Foxes
Other Cool Stuff We Should Know About
Alex and I figured we’d get married at some point (we’d been together for six years when we got engaged), but neither of us had thought all that much about having a wedding. I even re-read super old diaries wondering if I ever thought about weddings when I was younger-nope. We’re both introverts, so the whole idea of a wedding seemed mostly intimidating, stressful, and expensive. So when we started planning it came from a place of mild resistance, we knew we didn’t want to elope, but even a small wedding seemed like a lot of attention we weren’t sure we wanted. It seems so obvious now, thanks in large part to this community, that we were fully capable of having a wedding that reflected us, not what the wedding industry expected, but at the time, it was daunting. We also felt entirely unprepared to plan a wedding, so when choosing our vendors we did what we do in real life to find our people and places-since we move around a lot, we’ve honed this skill well. Essentially, we found one person that we liked, and through them found others with similar philosophies. By finding one vendor we knew we wanted to work with, and then following their lead to find others, we quickly found our small team of awesome people whose ideas and personalities aligned with ours. Having amazing people to work with made the whole process really enjoyable, and freed us up to invest in our vision of our wedding without any added pressure of what we were “supposed to do.”
And a shock to myself, I ended up loving planning. I went into it thinking I’d hate it. But I have so many fond memories I didn’t expect, like spending hours with my sister crafting things that would only be on display for a day was amazing, not for the result, but because I got to spend extra time with her bonding over the absurdity of how long something as simple as a garland can take to make. And I will treasure that damn thing forever. And then there were the flowers. Initially, I couldn’t imagine having them, they were expensive and then died. But, once I allowed myself to be excited about them, it was so great. I absolutely loved my bouquet, and although I spent very little time actually holding it, I am so glad I decided to get it. It was pretty, and I loved it, and that was okay. We decided to have a first dance, and took dance lessons, for people who hate being the center of attention, this was a big deal. But we had so much fun, and it’s something we’d like to continue to do as a married couple. I sometimes wish I had allowed myself to love planning sooner, to not push back so much initially-but that’s how we work. We’re scientists, we question absolutely everything. And in the end, our wedding was indeed a reflection of us. But that had a lot less to do with all of the “things” and completely to do with the people who surrounded us (family, friends, vendors), which seems so obvious in retrospect. If I could give a piece of advice to our planning selves it would be: give yourselves permission to enjoy it the process, you’re allowed to love wedding planning.
Favorite Thing About The Wedding
For both of us, our favorite parts of the wedding were the small moments when we stole a few moments to ourselves. We absolutely reveled in the collective love from our community, but what stands out to us are those little moments when we could step back, slow down, and enjoy each other’s company.
