In sickness, in health… and in the middle of a pandemic.
So how did we get here?
January 2020
The waves are crashing on the rocks of Lover’s Point while I hear a nearby group of girls shushing each other. “Will you marry me?” Cody asked as he uncovered a rose gold ring. I nodded but apparently took way too long to verbalize “yes”. The nearby girls “ahhwed” and cheered like the perfect movie audience.
I’m sure you can imagine that I was very on top of the Wedding planning. By the end of the trip I already had a wedding date and by the end of the month we had already secured our garden venue, bridal party, and save-the-dates.
March 2020 COVID shut down
June 2020 operations open back up (wedding is on and venue confirms!)
July 13th, 2020
“With Gavin Newsom’s closure announcement today our venue will be unable to host your wedding”.
I hang up as I try to hold my cries in while sitting in the Hollister employee bathroom. But I can’t stop the tears from flowing – our wedding date is in 13 days… I take an extra-long lunch that day.
This is a story about love – the love from our village to pull off a DIY forest wedding in less than 2 weeks.
“I planned everything so this wouldn’t happen to me. I didn’t want any decisions or tasks to be urgent in the weeks leading up to the wedding” I frantically explain to my mom in tears as I eat atop a red igloo cooler. I’ve already transitioned my entire life two hours away from San Diego.
My phone vibrates. My soon-to-be MIL has sent me photos of Cody’s Aunt’s backyard as a potential venue.
I was hesitant. They sent me a photo of a large area of dirt. But there was potential. It would require some work.
That week my sister-in-law went to work in the yard- she built a wall, the stairs our bridal party stood on, and if that wasn’t enough, she also built our entrance wooden doors!
The wood around the yard was put to good use too. It made for an excellent photo backdrop, and we also used it for our aisle benches.
The signs were made with vinyl and the wood was stained by hand.
Our entire bridal party, all 20 of them, came up the day before to help us decorate.
“Marry me, today and everyday”, “Marry Me” by Train plays, as Cody stands at the altar underneath the hexagon arch he built and stained himself.
“The first day I met you, I told you I liked your last name. I never imagined one day I’d be taking it as my own…” I began before our vows.
It was a beautiful and traditional ceremony. Both of our dads were able to read the scripture passages.
Oh and during the ceremony a bridesmaid passed out. In soap opera fahion, the rumor was that she was pregnant – the rumor is now in kindergarten.
“Can I be the one to tell her the good news?” Cody’s aunt, the host, asked eagerly. “The neighbors have a big yard and a barn they’ve offered for you to use for pictures, they even decorated it for you!”
Another piece of good news I had that week, was that Taylor Swift dropped a surprise album days before the wedding. I made sure to get the new song, “Invisible String”, to play before the ceremony and “Paper Rings” played as our bridal party entered the reception space.
After learning we’d be spending less than half the cost of the venue wedding, I decided to have two “splurge” decorations. A vintage couch and our Sweetheart table. The sweetheart table, I assembled and decorated myself. You can’t see the fairly lights in the skirt in this picture, but know that they were there!
Although we never got the “menu tasting” experience for our venue, we enjoyed a whole lot of tacos and donuts. One of my favorite fun facts to share is that we didn’t have a wedding cake, we had a donut wall.
“Would you like another donut?” a man, I don’t recognize, dressed in all black asks. Some members of his Aunt’s church dressed up as waiters to serve us and our guests.
The words of Jack Johnson ring as we share our First Dance, “It’s always better when we’re together”. We have danced and listened to this song together many times before – but this time was extra special.
We originally planned a sparkler exit, but now in the mountains, Smoky the Bear did not approve. I still have 200 sparklers sitting in my garage.
After we made our exit, our friends, and even some friends of friends, shuttled every single guest back down the hill to parking.
When our village came together to make sure our wedding still happened, we felt so humbled and grateful. Words couldn’t express how overwhelmed with love and support we had experienced. The forest was a gorgeous event space. Everything about this day truly exceeded our expectations we were so blessed ♥︎.
