Bursting at the seams with personalized details, this orange-drenched soiree from WINK! and onelove photography is a completely smile-inducing day. These high school sweethearts opted for a big (I’m talking 300 guests) family wedding and they filled it with everything that they love—our favorite theme of all. Hop over to the full gallery for more!
From the beautiful Bride…Josh and I are high school sweethearts, started dating our senior year, but had been friends since freshman year. It was quite an odd friendship because we are truly different, complete opposites, yet we were inseparable. We have years and years of moments shared and important events that have changed our lives and I wanted some of those little things to be present at the wedding. A lot of our wedding flowers included oranges and not only because I love them but because his first job as a truck driver was transporting oranges. (Delicious Californian oranges) I wanted our wedding to have a little bit of both personalities, and I think we did a great job of combining the two with our decor and fall inspired colors.
Since high school we’ve loved photo booths, at every mall, every theater and anywhere we came across one we have taken pictures, so for sure we were going to have a one at the wedding, and we didn’t just want any photo booth, we wanted something original and fun, one that would be open for a big group to take photos all together, so we found Perfect Setting Photo Booth. They were the greatest, they allowed me to dream up any kind of backdrop and they made it happen! I had the prettiest fall inspired flower wall.
Also, from the day we got engaged we both knew that we had to have a live Mexican band because all of our family and friends love dancing and so did we, so the band was one of the firsts to be booked and definitely a hit at the wedding. Our over 3 ft. tall LOVE marquee sign! For a while now I’ve been obsessed with marquee signs and knew that I wanted one for our wedding. However, everywhere I searched I couldn’t find a big enough one or they were too expensive to rent so one day I sent a link to my dad where they had a DIY marquee sign and I asked, “Can you make something like this? but 3 times larger?” His exact words were, “I can make anything! It’ll be even better than that one.” And so he did. The hardest part was keeping the project a secret, as he advanced on the letters I wanted to show and tell people about it, but I also wanted it to be a surprise for our guest so we kept the secret and everyone was amazed by it as they entered our reception. The marquee sign is definitely the best gift, not only did it look gorgeous at the wedding, but is now mine forever. My dad did such an amazing job that a lot of people have been requesting he make more.
Things can get intense and stressful, when one of you wants to elope (bride) and the other wants the big wedding (groom), when you have a huge family like ours, it gets harder to stay within budget, it gets harder to come up with a seating chart and really hard to say no to children at the wedding when most people have little ones, but you have to remember what’s most important to you and work around that. Make a list of everything starting from most important down to the least and focus on having your top 3 (at least) At the end of it all we allowed children, and we welcomed over 300 guest, but everyone was happy and the amount of love we received from each and everyone of our guest was beyond magical. We are truly blessed to have such amazing family and friends. Best advice I can give anyone is stay calm, don’t focus on perfection, always remember that your wedding day is about marrying your better half and no matter what goes wrong, at the end of the day you guys will be married and the greatest adventure of your life is just beginning.
I was extremely nervous the whole morning, from waking up, to when they were doing my hair and makeup and the whole car ride to our first look location. Then we saw each other for the first time and I became calm, all of those nerves turned into an immense amount of happiness. There he was my future husband, he was holding white roses, I love flowers and he loves the way they make me smile.
From the handsome Groom…Seeing my Bride for the first time was my favorite part of the day, the moment I saw her I thought, “No one can ever be more gorgeous than her, I am the luckiest man.” Having a first look was the best, not only did it help calm our nerves but we shared that intimate moment just the two of us, we admired one another and we had a chance to say “I love you” over and over before declaring eternal love to one another.
Photography: onelove photography | Videography: On Bended Knee Films | Florals: Seed Floral Couture | Stationary: Stephanie Griffin Visual Designer | Grooms Attire: Calvin Klein | Ceremony And Reception: The Grand Long Beach | Photobooth Flower Backdrop: Perfect Setting Photobooth | Shoe Designer: Nordstrom | Styling And Coordination: WINK! | Wedding Dress Designer: Yumi Katsura