Vineyards are always a gorgeous venue for a wedding, and today’s purple vineyard wedding from Orbie Pullen Photography is perfect! You can never go wrong with long farm tables and burlap runners. I am obsessed with the creative florals, using grapes as a nod to the location (they even had unripe green grapes in the bouquets!) There are so many great ideas for you rustic chic brides!
We went to college together on the East Coast, and though we shared many friends in common, we didn’t start dating until eight years after we had graduated. This common bond meant that we had the good fortune of crafting our wedding as a joyful reunion of old friends.
To take a step back from the aesthetics of the day, it was important that the ceremony be about, well, us. We spent weeks and weeks choosing readings and writing our shared vows, and we asked our officiant to respectfully request that our guests be “truly present” and take no photographs or video during our ceremony. It meant so much to walk down the aisle and see the smiling, unobstructed faces of our families and friends.
Our first joyful memory of the day was waking up to clear, blue skies. September and October are usually Northern California’s two most beautiful months, but the weather at our rehearsal the afternoon before had been very overcast and rather chilly. Since we had no contingency plan for cool, rainy weather, we were incredibly relieved that Mother Nature saw fit to give us a day with expansive blue skies and temperatures that were just right for a bride wearing a strapless dress.
We wanted our wedding to highlight the idyllic beauty of autumn in Northern California. We spent quite a bit of time searching for what we thought was the perfect venue, and we ultimately settled on a private estate nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains. We made every attempt to incorporate the rustic, romantic feel of the estate and its environs into our wedding, from the wooden farm tables covered with burlap runners, wooden boxes bursting with seasonal flowers, and Mason jars with tea lights; to the unadorned ceremony space decorated only with rows of simple white wooden chairs and an aisle shaped by birch logs overlaid with succulents and moss; to the warm chocolate chip cookies and glasses of cold milk that were served after dinner and just as the sun was setting.
One of our favorite shared memories was our first look. It seems as though couples react to their first looks in a myriad of ways, and until we were in the moment ourselves, we had no way of knowing exactly how we were going to react. As it happened, we laughed. We laughed and we giggled and we twirled one another around for goodness knows how long. And we even managed to sneak in just one little kiss.
Photography | Orbie Pullen Photography | Venue | Pacific Oaks Vineyard Estate | Planner | Amy’s Wedding & Events | Florist | Mints & Honey | Cake | Edith Meyer Wedding Cakes | Caterer | Five Star Catering | Invitations | Hello Lucky | Hair and Makeup | JBeautique | Gown | Marina Morrison Bridal Salon | Suits | Theory | Musicians | Pacific Strings | DJ | Santa Cruz Live Music & DJ | Transportation | TSCE
