A Red White and Blue Military Wedding

Happy 4th of July everyone! Today I have a beautiful red, white, and blue military wedding that is perfect for celebrating our nation’s independence! I am in love with all the sweet details, the paper flowers and lanterns are just amazing. Plus, this couple is so adorable and in love, it is hard not to fall for every image!

The beautiful bride Ava shares the details:

After Joe proposed, panic-time set in. I truly was never someone who thought about what her wedding day would look like, which kind of backfired on me when I had to start the planning with a blank mental slate. At first, I didn’t have an inspiration for our wedding day, other than “marriage”. What I did know is that I wanted the wedding to represent Joe and I, but unfortunately wedding venues do not serve protein shakes and Chipotle, so I had to think outside the box. The venue was outdoors and naturally beautiful, so I started drawing inspiration from the scenery. The majority of the decorations were DIY or partially ordered and then modified. I stained a lot of the wooden decor, and Joe wood burned our initials or wedding date onto different things (like the birch bark candles we had on each reception table).

My favorite moment of the day was when Joe and I prayed together with our pastor before the wedding started. We didn’t see each other; we just held hands around a door frame as we prayed. Although I had not felt nervous all day, in that moment I realized that I had been kind of holding my breath throughout the morning. As soon as I saw Joe’s hand come around the door and instinctually grab mine, I immediately started crying. Simply seeing his hand calmed me down, and reminded me that Joe is always the one who is there for me and my calming force.

My advice to other brides is: keep it in perspective. There is a show called “Bridezillas” for a reason, and that is because halfway into the wedding planning, the rational part of a woman’s brain dies, and she starts WWIII with Nordstroms when they discontinue her bridemaids’ shoes (that totally didn’t happen). All I can say is: thank goodness for Christin and Jacob taking detailed photos of everything, because I truly did not notice any of my decorations during the entire wedding. There could have been small bunnies hopping around during the ceremony, and I may not have noticed. Which contrasts my pre-wedding weeks greatly, when I was pillaging Etsy for the “perfect” type of bouquet ribbon. What does that even mean? Joe learned to silently slink away when I would go to my laptop, knowing that our separation during this time was probably for the best.

Luckily, my clear mental state snapped back into place the week before our wedding, when Joe called me from the UCLA emergency room, where a few friendly ambulance drivers had just taken him. While driving his motorcycle on the 405, Joe was hit by a car who didn’t look while merging lanes, resulting in an arm cast and a walking boot for my pre-husband. The morning of our wedding, my dad (who is a physical therapist, not a random man with power tools), used a cast-saw to saw off Joe’s cast so he wouldn’t look like he had just been struck by a vehicle. Joe went the majority of the wedding walking on a broken foot and holding my hand with his broken hand, because he didn’t want anyone to look back on our photos and see his injuries rather than our happiness. I’m so grateful for him every time that I think about that, because it’s a true testament to his loving and considerate nature. Our wedding was the happiest day of our lives, regardless of any hiccups or broken bones. 120 people came that love us and care for us, and the experience of us all together celebrating Joe and I’s love was truly the best day that I could imagine. I could plan the flowers and analyze centerpieces, but I definitely could never manufacture the love and friendship there that day.