Whimsical San Francisco Summer Wedding
We've only just begun to scratch the surface on our full day of California weddings and it's time to head over to San Fran for an elegant affair like no other. Kelsey Stewart captured every detail that this creative couple designed for their big day, from gilded mini dinosaurs to the best wedding dress hangers I've ever seen. You can just tell that this was one fun wedding and every one of these photos proves it.
From the Bride... I used to hate the narrative of your wedding day being the best day of your life – as if it were the peak and everything else would be downhill. But in a way, it’s true. We were incredibly lucky to have over a hundred of our nearest and dearest gather from seven different time zones (and three different continents!) surround us with love for one day. Even if it’s not the best day, it was certainly the day most filled with love and support.
Stephen and I dated for over six years before we were engaged – that is my small excuse for planning this wedding in my head several years before that ring landed on my finger. Speaking of that ring, I picked it out and altered the design with the jeweler and pretty much sent a payment link to Stephen, which should tell you who is the detail-oriented one and who is the easygoing one in this relationship.
We wanted our wedding to be very personal, turning some traditions upside down or sideways. We currently live in San Francisco and wanted to showcase its beauty. Our ceremony was at the Palace of Fine Arts, a beautiful park with a dome that was preserved from the 1915 World’s Fair. Between the ceremony and reception we transported our guests in cable cars on a tour of the city with local friends acting as tour guides – our solution to the two hour gap between the ceremony and reception. The reception was at the Westin St Francis, which survived the 1906 earthquake and fire, with beautiful views of the city from floor-to-ceiling windows on the 32nd floor. I don’t know if we convinced any of our friends to move closer to use, but we sure tried!
My family is Chinese and Stephen is half-Nicaraguan so we had a lot of Chinese and Nicaraguan influences. We started the day with Chinese Door Games (where the groom and groomsmen have to complete a series of tasks put forth by the bridesmaids to “prove his love” and get to see the bride), had a Tea Ceremony to thank our parents, and had lion dancers at the reception. My father read a poem in Chinese and Stephen’s father read a poem in Spanish at the ceremony. At the reception we stocked the bar with Flor de Caña, a Nicaraguan rum, and had a Nicaraguan drink be the groom’s signature drink.
Stephen and I met at college, when we were living in the same dorm sophomore year. We were set up by a friend and we hit it off. We remain very close with that friend and she was our ceremony officiant! Also in college, I played in a steel drum band – I still go back to visit them at least once a year and they call me Grandma Cathy. I’m the first of the group to get married and they were able to come play at the ceremony – we walked down the aisle to ‘Married Life’ from the movie Up.
One tradition that we turned sideways was the processional – literally sideways, actually. Instead of processing down a central aisle, we had the bridal party walk from the left or right towards the center, in front of the guests. And, instead of having Stephen waiting for me at the end of the aisle, we walked in from opposite sides and met in the middle. We started the walk with our parents at the beginning and they sat down halfway through. Then, it was just the two of us, walking into the ceremony together (I’m all about the heavy-handed symbolism).
I was very lucky to have so much creative help! One of my bridesmaids is a very skilled crafter and we glittered my shoes, painted the dinosaurs, printed out escort cards, and made the cake topper (out of shrink plastic!). I sewed my veil (don’t look at it too closely) and had a momentary lapse in sanity when I decided we could make all the flowers from the wedding out of crepe paper. 20 roses and 10 hours later, I admitted defeat. My sister-in-law generously offered to put together the flowers for us and they turned out amazing.
In between all the weight of traditions and pressure, it’s so much fun just being silly. Cat hangers for formal gowns are silly. Little plastic dinosaurs as centerpieces are silly (and prove that everything looks classy with a few coats of gold spray paint). The entire premise of the Chinese Door Games is to be ridiculously silly. Silliness and big belly laughs (and bubbles, lots of bubbles!) were the sprinkles, on the icing, on the cake of our amazingly love-filled wedding day.
Stephen and I dated for over six years before we were engaged – that is my small excuse for planning this wedding in my head several years before that ring landed on my finger. Speaking of that ring, I picked it out and altered the design with the jeweler and pretty much sent a payment link to Stephen, which should tell you who is the detail-oriented one and who is the easygoing one in this relationship.
We wanted our wedding to be very personal, turning some traditions upside down or sideways. We currently live in San Francisco and wanted to showcase its beauty. Our ceremony was at the Palace of Fine Arts, a beautiful park with a dome that was preserved from the 1915 World’s Fair. Between the ceremony and reception we transported our guests in cable cars on a tour of the city with local friends acting as tour guides – our solution to the two hour gap between the ceremony and reception. The reception was at the Westin St Francis, which survived the 1906 earthquake and fire, with beautiful views of the city from floor-to-ceiling windows on the 32nd floor. I don’t know if we convinced any of our friends to move closer to use, but we sure tried!
My family is Chinese and Stephen is half-Nicaraguan so we had a lot of Chinese and Nicaraguan influences. We started the day with Chinese Door Games (where the groom and groomsmen have to complete a series of tasks put forth by the bridesmaids to “prove his love” and get to see the bride), had a Tea Ceremony to thank our parents, and had lion dancers at the reception. My father read a poem in Chinese and Stephen’s father read a poem in Spanish at the ceremony. At the reception we stocked the bar with Flor de Caña, a Nicaraguan rum, and had a Nicaraguan drink be the groom’s signature drink.
Stephen and I met at college, when we were living in the same dorm sophomore year. We were set up by a friend and we hit it off. We remain very close with that friend and she was our ceremony officiant! Also in college, I played in a steel drum band – I still go back to visit them at least once a year and they call me Grandma Cathy. I’m the first of the group to get married and they were able to come play at the ceremony – we walked down the aisle to ‘Married Life’ from the movie Up.
One tradition that we turned sideways was the processional – literally sideways, actually. Instead of processing down a central aisle, we had the bridal party walk from the left or right towards the center, in front of the guests. And, instead of having Stephen waiting for me at the end of the aisle, we walked in from opposite sides and met in the middle. We started the walk with our parents at the beginning and they sat down halfway through. Then, it was just the two of us, walking into the ceremony together (I’m all about the heavy-handed symbolism).
I was very lucky to have so much creative help! One of my bridesmaids is a very skilled crafter and we glittered my shoes, painted the dinosaurs, printed out escort cards, and made the cake topper (out of shrink plastic!). I sewed my veil (don’t look at it too closely) and had a momentary lapse in sanity when I decided we could make all the flowers from the wedding out of crepe paper. 20 roses and 10 hours later, I admitted defeat. My sister-in-law generously offered to put together the flowers for us and they turned out amazing.
In between all the weight of traditions and pressure, it’s so much fun just being silly. Cat hangers for formal gowns are silly. Little plastic dinosaurs as centerpieces are silly (and prove that everything looks classy with a few coats of gold spray paint). The entire premise of the Chinese Door Games is to be ridiculously silly. Silliness and big belly laughs (and bubbles, lots of bubbles!) were the sprinkles, on the icing, on the cake of our amazingly love-filled wedding day.