Modern Durham Ranch Wedding with a Touch of Quirk
You know what I love, love, love? Weddings with big personality. Those celebrations where the couple's style shines through in every detail, and guests feel relaxed and ready to party right from the get-go. It's the kind of wedding that happens when you pair a non-traditional bride and groom with the ladies of Bash, Please and have Our Labor Of Love behind the lens. More right here!
From the Bride... BenAnna. Our friends have been calling us this from the very beginning, a silly moniker that captures the serious togetherness and intentional companionship of our partnership. We met on OKCupid.com as a 95% match. We packed in our first two dates on back-to-back evenings in San Francisco. Date #1 was simple and casual: wine, pita and hummus at a cafe. For date #2, Ben eagerly went with Anna to her weekly hip-hop dance class. Nothing breaks the ice faster than sharing in tall, gangly, awkward dancing glory. The next day, Ben moved up to Seattle. (Luckily, it was only for six weeks.) Up for adventure and realizing there was something really special about Ben she didn’t just want to let move away, Anna flew up to Seattle the following weekend for date #3. And #4, #5, #6, and at some point, we simply stopped counting. Two years later, while exploring in Alaska, Ben proposed to Anna at the top of a mountain in Denali National Park—and here we are!
For our wedding, we embraced the element of surprise throughout our entire wedding and the wedding-planning process. No one knew where the wedding was going to be (including our parents!) until their shuttles dropped them off at Durham Ranch's gates. Our relationship started as one big adventure, so it felt only fitting, not to mention SUPER FUN, to weave it into our wedding as much as we could. So instead of listing the location for Saturday's festivities, both the website and the invites just said "secret location." We're not very traditional people, so our wedding wasn't either. Ben and the wedding party danced down the aisle to a Cake song. I mean, who does that? But it was awesome. And perfect. And the whole party embraced it, each pair (or triplet) doing their own little dance down the aisle.
One of the things I remember most about our wedding ceremony was how much we laughed. And how much our audience laughed and was totally engaged in the very personal, touching address Anna's sister gave before she officially married us. At one point, she whipped out a box of Cards Against Humanity. I did say we weren't traditional, right? To top it all off, Mother Nature moved the earth beneath our feet that night. We were still up—actually, Ben was taking out the 100 bobbypins in Anna's hair—when the 6.0 Napa quake hit just past 3 a.m. Though shaken up, we were very lucky, and all of our guests and vendors were safe and sound.
You can see our beautiful wedding film right here from Sharkpig!
For our wedding, we embraced the element of surprise throughout our entire wedding and the wedding-planning process. No one knew where the wedding was going to be (including our parents!) until their shuttles dropped them off at Durham Ranch's gates. Our relationship started as one big adventure, so it felt only fitting, not to mention SUPER FUN, to weave it into our wedding as much as we could. So instead of listing the location for Saturday's festivities, both the website and the invites just said "secret location." We're not very traditional people, so our wedding wasn't either. Ben and the wedding party danced down the aisle to a Cake song. I mean, who does that? But it was awesome. And perfect. And the whole party embraced it, each pair (or triplet) doing their own little dance down the aisle.
One of the things I remember most about our wedding ceremony was how much we laughed. And how much our audience laughed and was totally engaged in the very personal, touching address Anna's sister gave before she officially married us. At one point, she whipped out a box of Cards Against Humanity. I did say we weren't traditional, right? To top it all off, Mother Nature moved the earth beneath our feet that night. We were still up—actually, Ben was taking out the 100 bobbypins in Anna's hair—when the 6.0 Napa quake hit just past 3 a.m. Though shaken up, we were very lucky, and all of our guests and vendors were safe and sound.
You can see our beautiful wedding film right here from Sharkpig!