From the sweet couple... We always knew we wanted a venue outdoors that reflected our casual and rustic style. Never in our wildest imagination did we think we would end up in Winters California but we found a gem in the Bay Area. The most common question in the planning process was “Why Winters?” and the question stuck with us so much that we decided to poke fun of it in our custom letterpress save the dates. We created a custom CD enclosure holding our save the date video as well as a fun panel designed to highlight things to do near our venue location using the tagline “You’re getting married WHERE?!”. The venue was out in the country and we wanted guests to get excited about this small little town northeast of our home in San Francisco.

Being in the wedding design/printing industry put a lot of pressure on us to have this “amazing” wedding. But at the end of the day we really wanted the day to be true to who we are and most importantly we wanted it to be a celebration for our family and friends who supported us individually and as a couple. We designed and planned every detail ourselves to truly reflect the things that we love most – paper, letterpress, design, food and details galore!

We knew we wanted our invitations to be an experience showcasing things to come at the wedding – something fun but refined and completely US. The letterpress pieces were enclosed in a kraft box with shreds of paper serving as filler but also subtly told the story of how we met. So many of our guests tried to put the pieces of our story together that we framed a completed story made up of shredded pieces of paper and displayed it at the wedding. We wanted the day to showcase our love for paper and print in everything - from the silkscreened welcome bags with our favorite snacks, to the letterpress popcorn bags and ice cream cone wrappers with tongue and cheek messages like “Ain’t Love Sweet” and “You Make Me Melt”. We even used letterpress wood blocks as table numbers.

The best thing about the venue was all of the great little hidden areas on the 10 acre property – a fig forest, hammock lounge, and even a hidden outlook overlooking the countryside. I designed a property map that we included in the letterpress program highlighting all of these great spots with the intent of having our guests explore and wander throughout the evening. My father-in-law and I made wooden signs to guide our guests through the property and provided various installations and vignettes showing pieces of our love story throughout the property. On our first date, Mario had the idea of saving every cork from all of our dates and future dates and writing the date and location on the cork – it was a really sweet idea and I knew that he wanted many more dates with me past our first. We designed a floating cork installation with fishing wire and wine corks which captured some really monumental points in our relationship – from our first date, to our engagement, to buying our first home. Another installation was a frame wall, made of frames from garage sales, which was an homage to our families and the love stories from past to present.

The food was also such a huge part of the day. We absolutely love to eat and cook so we didn’t want our guests to go hungry. We chose our caterer, Full Belly Farm, because we wanted our entire wedding to showcase local vendors and local foods. The highlight of the day was a spit-fire roasted pig that they started roasting on site at 8am. Everything we served at the reception was from their farm and we hand picked local cheeses and charcuterie from the Bay Area. Dessert featured our favorite ices creams from San Francisco based Mitchell’s Ice Cream and we even had our favorite savories for late night snacks –a popcorn bar (bride’s choice) and a nacho bar (groom’s choice). To top it off, we toasted to 1 of 2,012 bottles of a one-time production of the Mumm Napa Championship Brut from the San Francisco Giants’ 2012 World Series win. It really was the small things that made the day special.

The entire day really was a family affair. My mother-in-law created all of the flower arrangements (with the exception of bouquets), my father-in-law made the ceremony pillars, lawn games and chalkboard frames, and our niece helped us hand paint all of the succulent favors and cornhole games, and my brother-in-law was the chef at our BBQ rehearsal dinner. I couldn’t imagine it any other way because it really was a testament of two families becoming one. We couldn’t have pulled this day off without the support of our closest friends and family.