Aside from actually getting married, we were most looking forward to our cocktail hour. We wanted to actually hang out with our friends and family as much as possible, which felt hard to do during a seated dinner, so we planned an extended cocktail hour with passed tapas. Our catering was provided by Nora Spanish Catering, and from what people told me, it was delicious! I was way too distracted to eat so I only had a few bites of the lamb sliders and a corn fritter, which I did love both.

We bounced from one group of friends to another, sharing laughs and tight hugs. It had been years since we had seen some of our friends and I wish we had more than a few hours to catch up with them. I loved seeing the different pockets of friends from our lives come together!

Everyone just looks so good in the garden, don’t they?!

Dinner was held in the eucalyptus grove under a canopy of paper lanterns. The tables were minimal, with wildflower arrangements I made with my brides people the day before in my dining room, and instead of table numbers we had table vegetables! I made watercolors of each of the table vegetables with a little note about the best way to cook or prepare them. Each guest had a seed packet with their name on it which included seeds of their table vegetable! My hope was that everyone would grow their vegetable and think of our celebration as they grow and eat it!

Dinner was giant pans of paella and some other Spanish favorites. We decided to not actually sit with everyone at dinner. Instead, we grabbed a plate of food first and ate dinner as just us in the garden. It was a funny and peaceful moment for Reuben and I to just be together and process the last few hours. To be honest, I barely remember what the food tasted like but I do remember think it was pretty great! The paella and braised pork cheeks were so tasty!

After we ate, we took a few more couple photos in the garden while everyone else ate their dinner! The Ruth Bancroft Garden is so stunning and makes for an unreal backdrop.

Eventually, we did join our wedding guests for the end of dinner and some sweet speeches. My brother lightly roasted us, glasses were clinked, and cheers were made for a happy marriage ahead!

Our guests started to migrate to the dance floor and we were all greeted with the most stunning display of sugar I’ve ever seen. My sweet friend, Jess, made our wedding cake (complete with sugar cosmos and ranunculus that looked better than the ones in my bouquet), and platters of her famous red bean macarons! Our wedding cake was a white cake with mascarpone buttercream and strawberry guava jam. It was perfect and I felt so bad cutting it into it! So many people came up to us later to say that it was the best wedding cake they ever had : )

Our first dance felt hilariously awkward. We danced to Into the Mystic by Van Morrison, which we love, but we kept joking through the entire dance about how this felt like the longest song ever. Reuben and I don’t love to be the center of attention and my dress had sleeves which prevented me from lifting my arms up so we couldn’t wait for the song to be over.

As soon as the song ended, someone brought out our backyard chairs for the hora! The Hora was one of the scariest and funnest things I’ve ever experienced. I didn’t expect to be up so high or move up and down so fast! In pretty much every other hora photo my face looks absolutely terrified. I’m thankful we had so many able bodied men to hoist us up and down for so long! Sorry if you got to sweaty.

After the hora, the dance floor was officially open! I changed into a white jumpsuit and had much more mobility to freely move my arms. Our DJ, Jamie, was absolutely killing it with the music selection. We wanted a mix of funk and throwbacks to get people grooving and they were! Jamie played and mixed everything on vinyl, which added such a unique touch to the dance floor.

The hot hot day resulted in a perfectly warm summer night, which is rare for the Bay Area. So even though we sweated throughout the day, the evening was perfect for us to dance the night away with our friends. We wished we had about 4 more hours of dance party. The night came to a close and we were just in bliss as we looked back on our day and said goodbye to everyone.

Reuben and I took home so many leftovers and after a quick stop at our tiki bar after party, we ate another serving of paella and wedding cake at our Airbnb. Late in the night, we felt exhausted but mostly joyful and satisfied that we pulled off such an incredible wedding.

Love, Mr. and Mrs. Alt!

Our Amazing Wedding Vendors!

Photographer: Arlene Easterwood

Venue: The Ruth Bancroft Garden

Catering: Nora Spanish Catering

Day of Coordinator: Adrian Parties

Wedding Cake + Desserts: Jess Chen

Hair and Makeup: Marisa Perel