Reuben and I are still drinking the leftover beer and wine from our wedding and smiling ear to ear thinking about what an amazing day June 11th 2022 was. I highly recommend getting married to your best friend surrounded by all your other best friends and family in a garden full of otherworldly succulents. The whole day, really the whole week leading up to the wedding, went by in a blur. We’re so thankful to have these beautiful photos from Arlene Easterwood to look back on our wedding day. So, like any decent blogger, I’m going to blog about our wedding day so I can remember all the details for years to come!

The week leading up to our wedding day was so much fun because each day felt like another bus of our favorite people rolled up into town. It started with my brother being the very first guest, which really made it feel like the wedding was happening. Then our families arrived and soon our wedding party and guests. We welcomed visitors to our home, barbecued in the backyard, hiked on a very hot and sunny day with our whole wedding party, and simply enjoyed having so many of our favorite people all in own place.

The night before the wedding we had a dumpling welcome party for our out of town guests at our beloved neighbored bar, The Factory Bay, in their whimsical garden patio. It was catered by Dumpling Time and each bite was more delicious than the next.

My face hurt from seeing so many people I haven’t seen in so long… years! Reuben and I probably stayed a little later than we should have, but we managed to walk home and tried to get a good night’s sleep.

I could barely sleep because I was just so excited and very nervous. I was mentally going through all the checklists and details we’ve obsessed over for months. Reuben and I share a very DIY spirit, so we didn’t have a wedding planner. We designed and coordinated every detail of the day and relied on our friends to help make everything a reality. Despite the amount of coordination happening that day, I think Reuben and I felt relatively calm all day.

I naturally got up at 6am and remember thinking how it felt like summer, it was already toasty and Olive was extra snuggly in bed, like she knew today was extra special. I got ready to head to the Airbnb first and Reuben stayed back so he could load up a van with all the things we built for the wedding (chuppah and signage), flowers, decor, and so much alcohol. Soon after I got into the Airbnb my best people, Katie, Jeff, Alex, and other Katie arrived with food and moral support. We spent the morning getting wedding ready with the help up the talented and sweet Marisa Perel. Later a bunch of sweaty boys and Reuben arrived at the house after unloading everything at the garden. That was our sign to leave for the garden and to put on an extra layer of deodorant.

I was SO antsy to actually see The Ruth Bancroft Garden. We hired a day of coordinator to essentially set everything up and make sure the day was going according to schedule. I created this insane document with every detail of the wedding with site maps and layouts in an attempt to download our wedding day vision on to her. Adrian did an amazing job because it honestly looked better than I could have imagined. The garden was absolutely stunning, the ceremony chairs and chuppah were all line up, and the lanterns hanging over the dinner grove were gently blowing in the wind.

It was very hot, so after a quick walk through we dashed back into the nicely air conditioned building to finish getting ready. Reuben had actually already seen me in my wedding dress because I brought him with me to try on my dress again before saying yes to the dress. But I still wanted to hide from him and do a real first look in the garden. So I hid away in the loft space with my people, while he was just a curtain and a hallway away.

Here’s when things started to get surreal. Literally 5 minutes before I was going to step into my wedding dress, my brother’s fiancé shouted “You won!!!”

For a moment, I had forgotten that the James Beard Awards were simultaneously happening and I was nominated! Actually, I won! Two James Beard awards! Mooncakes and Milk Bread won in the Baking and Dessert category and I had one the Emerging Voice Award in books. I was absolutely stunned and overwhelmed. I started to tear up and just wanting to hug Reuben but we were separated by a curtain lol.

I got myself together and mentally prepared myself to squeeze into my wedding dress. Well, my brides people had to literally squeeze me into it and zip me up. The thing fit and I was ready to get out of that loft!

I did two first looks, one with our wedding party and then with Reuben! Both were so sweet and I’m happy we had this time to take photos before the craziness of the wedding started. Here are a ton of photos with our wedding party because they make me unbelievably happy! We had an amazing group of friends and felt so loved and supported by each and everyone of them. The day would not have gone as smoothly as it did without them.

After photos and attempting to not sweat through our outfits, we had some time to squeeze in a brief tea ceremony, but without the tea. We found a shady spot with my parents and they gifted us beautiful gold jewelry that they’ve been saving for me my whole life. I got a necklace my mom wore on her wedding day that I especially cherish.

The clock was ticking closer to 5 so we all had to hide away again as our guests started to arrive at the garden. The greenhouse was our holding area as we waited for all the guests to arrive. Once we heard No End of Love by John Hartford, we knew it was showtime. Reuben, his parents, and the rest of our wedding party walked down the aisle to The Over Grown Waltz by Bela Fleck, and that song more than any other song sticks out in my mind when I think of our wedding day. It’s so beautiful! Then I walked down the aisle with my parents to Walk Through This World With Me by Tammy Wynette, I heard a rendition of this song at a bluegrass show with Reuben and immediately cried and knew I needed this to be my aisle song.

I was overjoyed to see everyone in one place and smiling at us as we stood at the chuppah together. Our dear friend, Denis, was our officiant and to no surprise to us, he was the absolute perfect person to marry us. He took his job very seriously and crafted an incredibly thoughtful and moving opening statement for us. He knew us so well and was able to tell our story in such a genuine and honest way. Reuben and I wrote our own vows and they were essentially the same in spirit but had their own unique quirks, which seemed very much like us.

I took a few moments to look out into the crowd and really soak it in, but the ceremony (much like the whole day) went by in a blink. Soon we kissed and smashed a glass (that Reuben thought got lost in the shuffle but did in fact make to the ceremony) and we were married! It was a short and sweet ceremony, just how we wanted it and we also wanted to get our guests out of the sun and into the shade with a cold drink in hand. Now it was time to party!