Our Wedding

Photo by Samantha Hall http://www.brightlightblue.com/


How can I even begin to explain the memories of our wedding?



Photo by Samantha Hall http://www.brightlightblue.com/

Let me start off by saying that this wedding really turned out to be a wedding beyond our dreams. When we got engaged and began the planning process we realized that we were going to be on an extremely tight budget. We were originally thinking as minimal as possible. But in the end the generousity of our family was matched by generousity of talented and creative friends and volunteers. People donated items and services we didn´t even think to ask for.









Almost every person that attended had a hand in making the day happen. It was a beautiful display of love and we were continuously overwhelmed by the people who stepped up all throughout the whole process.

We got married in Paradise Springs, which used to be an old camp resort. It sits on top of a mountain in Oakhurst and it has lakes, tall pine trees, and cabins scattered all throughout the property.








Photos via http://paradisespringsmountain.com/


My parents actually decided I was going to get married there years ago, before I had even found a groom. First things first parents. So when we got engaged my mom booked the place for us. I saw pictures online, but I actually never saw the place untill a few weeks before our wedding. I believe in my mom´s good taste. And she definetely pulled through on this one.



I only saw the place a few weeks before the wedding, and Coco saw it the week before. Luckily while we were there to check it out, he was able to experience his first ever snowfall.





I got ready with my girls in the Enchanted Cottage which was a little cabin attached to the Bella Pavillion where our reception was held.


Photo by Samantha Hall http://www.brightlightblue.com/


Coco was getting ready with his family down the road at the Lake House.



I believe there were about 11 people staying in this house and they all managed to get ready on time with only one little bathroom in the house. There were three women who came from all the way from Peru, and one from England.















Coco´s uniform was his special wedding uniform from the Air Force. Much like my dress he can never wear it again. He cannot even attend any Air Force function in this uniform because it is strictly for weddings.



Photos by Samantha Hall http://www.brightlightblue.com/


My bridesmaids and I had the first photo session with Samantha, and we had so much fun with her. I caught my mom and dad for a few pics before the ceremony, and then Samantha headed down to the Lake House to take pictures with Coco and his family.



Photos by Samantha Hall http://www.brightlightblue.com/


The venue came with a beautiful gazebo and we decided to add a few elements to it. The strands of white circles came from an idea that a fellow bride sent on to us from a wedding website. Its actually just white office labels stuck back to back on fishing line. I have to give my mom credit for slaving over these because I think I only made about three.





The cross was donated to us by a friend.



The wood frame for the cross and the flower box were created by my dad who is an amazing wood craftsmen guy. We chose orange, blue, and yellow as our colors because we see those colors so often here in the sunsets of Iquitos. Plus I loved the idea of blue contrasted with orange. I couldn´t wait to see the bridesmaids with their blue dresses and orange flowers. I am kind of a freak about bright colors, luckily my groom was on board.


Photo by Samantha Hall http://www.brightlightblue.com/

My mom and I arranged all the flowers ourselves.



We were so lucky to have a friend who helped us order them at wholesale price. We went with Gerber Daisies, White Garden Roses, and Peonies. I made the bridesmaid bouquets the night before with the help of my mom. We put them in the fridge at the venue and the next morning about a third of them had froze and wilted. Agh! But my friend Karen ran around helping me steal daisies from the centerpieces...crisis averted. I made my bouquet the morning of the wedding right before I left my parent´s house. I whipped it together in about 15 minutes and it didn´t look too profesional, but that was kind of the point. I left the stems super long, just to be crazy like that. I used leftover fabric that was excess from my dress alterations to wrap it...waste not want not!


Photo by Samantha Hall http://www.brightlightblue.com/

Our flower girls were our nieces, Bella and Allie. Bella walked with her father, my brother Nick. Allie walked with her mother, Andrea. Kudos to Andrea for enduring the madness of our wedding when she was still recovering from giving birth to her baby boy just a week before. What an amazing woman. Bella didn´t exactly want to throw the flowers, so Nick kind of ended up being the flower girl. It was pretty cute.







The Best Man was Coco´s uncle Enzo and my bridesmaids were all my dearest friends from college.







The ceremony was performed by my high school youth pastor and long time friend, Rick. We chose to do a bilingual ceremony. I recited my vows in English, and Coco recited his in Spanish.


































Photo by Samantha Hall http://www.brightlightblue.com/





Our musician was my sister-in-law, Alison. She is an amazing professional musician with a beautiful voice and we were so thankful to have her performing at our wedding. She is also the mother of Bella the flower girl and she´s expecting a baby boy soon. Yay!


http://www.alisonmusic.com/

Coco´s grandmother is a published author in Peru and we chose one of the poems from her collection to be read at our ceremony. Abuelita Chabuca actually came all the way from Peru and she recited the poem from memory. She was dressed like the Queen of England and performed the poem with such enthusiasm and energy. Coco´s mom then read the poem in English. It is called ¨Nuestra Riqueza,¨ which means ¨Our Wealth.¨ It basically describes a couple who are sitting in a park together relishing on the wealth of their love and how it could never compare to the millions of dollars owned by others, and that the two could be robbed of the pennies in their pockets but their joy would never be stolen.





After the ceremony we took a few pictures with family and then Coco and I went with our photographer around the property to take more pictures. It was the first time we had seen each other since we parted ways the night before.




















Photos by Samantha Hall http://www.brightlightblue.com/



Our guests went on to the reception.



Before they entered the Pavillion they had the chance to sign the guestbook.





The book we used was made by Coco´s cousin Eri, who is a talented artist and designer. Coco asked her to make the book before he came to visit me in California in our dating days. He sat on the plane writing all the poems he had ever emailed me onto the first several pages of the book. So we used the next set of pages for our guests to write us their messages. We had a few favorites from those messages.





Our guests found their tables by finding a custom made tea bag with their name and table number on it. The tea bags were designed by Coco and he included a summary of our love story on the back of the bag. He also made special tabs for the end of the tea bags that had two little love birds that I had designed in one of my paintings.





We also filled small bags as favors with good fortune seeds that we bought from the marketplace in Iquitos.


http://www.learnaboutperu.com/perus-artisan-traditions/huayruro-seeds-bring-good-luck/


Coco also made our table numbers and our Save the Dates.



I put all the centerpieces together for weeks before the wedding and luckily I had some amazing helpers help me set them up on the day before the wedding.



My dad cut up a tree trunk into little log stumps that I used for the base of our centerpieces. Then for months before the wedding I had my parents save any glass bottles we used. We were buying wine and juice before the wedding completely based on what the bottles looked like. Then I found colored glass items at the dollar store in town, conveniently all in our colors. Then I began to raid my mother´s house, her friends houses, and their backyards, until I had a huge collection of donated items to work with. And they all had such interesting pieces. I hope the women enjoyed walking around and seeing their houslehold items displayed at the wedding. On each centerpiece I made sure to feature at least one animal character. Some were easier to spot than others.












My friends helped with creating the picture lines near the buffet. We used pictures from our dating days and a few of our baby pictures. At the bridal bridal shower the women wrote a marital advice for Coco and I, some of it was so beautiful or clever, that we had to put it on display.





This is one of my favorites of Coco´s baby pictures.



When we entered the reception, we had a surprise in store for Coco. My gracious husband agreed to get married in California knowing that many of his family members would be there, but many of his friends and several people from his family, wouldn't be able to come. And never once did he complain. But he did say once that the one thing he wished he could have was a traditional Air Force sword salute. It was my mom and her brilliant friends who decided we should recreate it just for him. So all of the bridal party gave us a sword salute as we walked into the reception. He was totally surprised, and touched. In order to tribute the captain just a little more all the bridesmaids wore aviator sunglasses and we walked into the theme song from of Top Gun.







The food was so delicious, and compliments to aaallllll the chefs. All the food was made with love by friends and family. There was more than enough to feed everybody and we even had leftovers. What a blessing.











The toasts made by family and friends were all so touching. I have watched the video of the speeches so many times since the wedding, and I still cry. Everyone had such beautiful words. I was amazed.



The cake was incredible!



We were blessed enough to have Patricia, Coco's mom, prepare our wedding cake. She is extremely talented and all we had to do was send her a picture of what we wanted...and poof! She made this. It was the flavor of a traditional Peruvian wedding cake and it was so delicious!






Coco and I had our first dance to one of our favorite songs called ¨El Arrollito¨by Fonseca.



Coco and his mom danced to ¨Fly With Me¨ by Frank Sinatra. Their dance was so graceful and beautiful.



My dad and I planned a silly surprise for our dance, and it was actually all my dad´s idea.



He was feeling a bit apprehensive about the typical slow moving father daughter dance when there would be so many eyes on us. So he came to me one afternoon and said, ¨Hay Anns, what do you think about doing something a little different, something a little more crazy?¨ Ok, um, anytime somebody uses the terms ¨a little different, or a little more crazy¨...I am obviously going to be on board. So we began the dance with ¨My Girl¨and then the music cut and changed to ¨Sharp Dressed Man¨by ZZ Top. This is one of my dad´s favorite songs and one of the songs that is always guaranteed to make him dance without a care in the world. We shared our dance with Coco, he cut in about halfway...symbolic maybe of passing the torch? Well we had a great time performing it, and a great time practicing the weeks before.







Coco also lead us all in a dance that was popular in Peru years ago. Its called ¨Sacarronacha¨ and the steps are pretty easy. Simlultaneaously during this song my bridesmaids passed out masks, noisemakers, noses, whistles. These are all items that you would find being passed out by clowns often times at Peruvian Parties. This time during the party is called ¨Hora Loca¨so we created a bit of our own. We were really proud of the enthusiasm from all the guests. People danced all night and that made us so happy.


Photo by Samantha Hall http://www.brightlightblue.com/





Here´s what rehearsing looked like the night before...







Dance, dance, dance!


Photo by Samantha Hall http://www.brightlightblue.com/























I am not even sure how late the party lasted and I heard that it wasn´t over when we left. Again, we were proud of our guests. The whole day and evening was so fun. There wasn´t anything we would have changed. We are so thankful for how joyous the whole celebration was. It was the best way to start our life together and we will always cherish the memories from that day.