Okay, so I think I need therapy because I’m totally obsessed with this next wedding! I’m head over heels with everything from the invitations (designed by Lily, the bride) to the gorgeous white and yellow flowers to the groom’s suit. (Hello?! He’s wearing white and it’s absolutely brilliant!) This crisp, happy wedding was captured by the talented folks at Jerry Yoon Photography and I’m pretty sure you’ll have a smile plastered to your face all day after peeping the gorgeousness below. And when you’re ready for over the top joy, head on over to the gallery.
Click here to see entire image gallery!
The proposal happened during an afternoon tea service in London. From that point on, we knew we had a few musts: we both love tea time and wanted to carry that theme to our wedding; we wanted to support small local businesses whenever it was possible; and it was incredibly important to us that the wedding be about who we are rather than about tradition. I love doing arts and crafts and styling, so we knew off the bat that I would style the wedding myself with help from the groom. Every opportunity we saw to customize something to make it more “us” we took.
I ended up designing and making a lot of things myself. I designed our stationery and had it letterpressed at a small letterpress shop I admired. I designed the top cake and a local cake company executed my vision. I made my own hair accessories and a big bow hairclip for the flower girl. To save money, we bought some inexpensive vases and I arranged some of the minor floral pieces. The groom and I even worked with a local jewelry broker to design our own pair of wedding bands. We also wrote a piece about our definition of marriage, and asked our officiant to use it as the core of the ceremony.
One of the biggest surprises for people, I think, was that the groom also wore white. Why not? we thought—it would make things more symmetrical and we didn’t see why the bride always got to look cheery and lovely in white while the groom had to wear a dark color on such a happy occasion. We wanted everything to have a modern and fairly minimalist look and feel so we used a lot of white, some bold stripes here and there, and little touches of a dot motif throughout. I could not stop smiling when I first found my shoes because they looked like they were made to match the cake sketch that I had already sent to the cake shop. Our venue had a big ballroom with some sconces and side tables and it was a lot of fun to figure out how to bridge the charm of the old neighborhood it was in with our bright, modern vibe.
We also had some fabulous vendors. Despite having talked at length with our florist about what flowers we wanted to use, when they came together, the arrangements were even more amazing than I’d imagined. Our wedding coordinator kept everything running smoothly behind the scenes and the staffing team she recommended was top notch with the service they provided. Our chef was the owner of a small take-out restaurant in Berkeley that we absolutely love; he doesn’t do weddings often but I called him and asked him if he’d do the wedding of a couple of his biggest fans, and it meant the world to us that he agreed.
I’m really happy that we completely scrapped the traditional timeline and scheduled the day our way. Before the ceremony, we did photos with our wedding party at the Japanese Tea Garden a few blocks from our venue, so the groom and I got to have a very intimate “first look” moment by ourselves instead of in front of all our guests. He is a big video game nerd so I walked down the aisle to a piano solo from Final Fantasy X. I thought it was very sweet that he was the one who cried during the ceremony. Our reception turned into a big garden party with our closest friends and family (about 60 guests) having lots of time to mingle and enjoy the food and drinks. Instead of the two of us dashing to a get-away car, we saw each one of our guests off when they felt ready to leave and that, for us, was the perfect way to end our wedding.
Photography: Aubrey Trinnaman & Blake Henderson, from Jerry Yoon Photography / Flowers: Not Just Flowers / Event Design: Lily Morello, Bride / Event Planning: Lisa Blake, Bellissima Vita / Ceremony and Reception Location: Hillsborough Racquet Club / Invitations: Lily Morello, printed by Twig and Fig / Dress: Priscilla of Boston / Hair and Makeup: Kathleen May / Bridesmaids Dresses: Anthropologie / Groom’s Jacket: Banana Republic / Groom’s Pants: Gucci / Groom’s Shirt: Brook’s Brothers / Chef: Gregoire Jacquet / Staffing: Thomas John Events / Cake: Satura Cakes / Cupcakes: Kara’s Cupcakes / Wine Supplier: 750ml Pianist: Harry Likas