our wedding.

james and i will be celebrating our third anniversary tomorrow, and in honor of the occasion i thought id share some of the highlights of our wedding, as shot by my wonderfully talented cousin valerie patterson (you can see more of her work here):

we got married in jamess grandparents backyard, in a decidedly nonchalant (but still wedding-ey) affair. we were going for a simple, old fashioned backyard wedding, inspired by the types of weddings you see in photos from the 20s and 30s, where everyones all serious and dressed in black and it kind of looks like a funeral. the kind of wedding with a short, to the point ceremony and then some snacks and maybe some pictures and then everyone goes home. the kind of wedding that causes severe family drama over its lack of personalized place settings, designated seating, party favors, a dj, candy buffet, decorations, open bar, rented dance floor, extended family portraits, rented tuxedoes, matching bridesmaids dresses, unicorns and a steak dinner. 

the kind of wedding where multiple relatives flip out that i did my own hair and makeup:

(hey, i do my hair and makeup every day, if anyone can do it right, its me. i dont care what day it is)

and thats exactly what we had, on what was supposed to be a cool and pleasant labor day weekend, but actually was the record setting hottest september 4th ever in the history of lakeside california. im not kidding. aside from that, and some other small setbacks, like running out of water and my pastor being two hours late and certain guests stealing the toasting wine, and that i was recovering from what im pretty sure was strep throat, it was our perfect dream wedding. 

our perfect dream wedding, shot by my lovely cousin on my favorite kind of film without even having to ask. and film alone. thats right, our entire wedding was shot on 6 rolls of lomo 200, nothing digital. and i am still SO happy about this decision. honestly im kind of glad it was so bright and hot because of how pretty the light was how dreamy our photos turned out and gosh i sound like such a photo nerd right now. 

AND this house was perfectly designed for an outdoor wedding, with a zigzag path leading to the yard from the pool house:

down to the gazebo where we made our vows:

the ceremony was intentionally very short and basic, i was TERRIFIED of having 150 people looking at me, so we just had our vows, no scripture readings, no contract signing, no unity candles, just vows. and i completely stand by this decision. 

and after that, while we took a few minutes to cry and then compose ourselves before taking our wedding party pictures, all the guests were invited to eat a light afternoon tea of crumpets with assorted sweet and savory toppings while we took our bridal party portraits. i really, really wish we had gotten some pictures of the food, because people still tell us how much they loved the food at our wedding, but unfortunately our photographer was a bit busy, you know, taking pictures of us: 

our bridal parties were a little funny too, james had his five closest friends, with his longtime best friend jonothan as best man, while i had my two sisters (age 16 and 9) and three best friends (one of them being male) all serving as equal bridesmaids with no maid of honor. but i was also wearing a dress i bought off the rack at nordstrom so i think we all know by now that i was terrible at bride-y things. 

when we finished with the group pictures james and i went up to the pool house to take our bride and groom portraits:

this one in front of jamess grandpas vintage coke machine has always been my favorite (i mean seriously, HOW PERFECT WAS THIS HOUSE), and since i know youre dying to know, my dress was sue wong, from her alice in wonderland collection (i saw it in harpers bazzar right after getting engaged and HAD to have it, thankfully it was just from nordstrom and my  aunt offered to buy it for me), my veil was from etsy, the key necklace and feathers in my hair were from the renaissance fair, the pearl necklace was a bridal shower gift from my grandma, and my earrings were from claires. 

after portraits we re-joined the group for cake:

which rather than a traditional giant expensive "wedding" cake (which we ALL know is just regular cake at 500 times the price) we had a selection of homemade cupcakes in a variety of flavors (because it was REALLY important to me that nobody got stuck eating cake they didnt like):

if you havent put it together yet, this was a very hands-on, diy wedding (my mom did all the flowers AND the food, i hand folded envelopes for the invitations), and one of my most favorite handmade details were the little pieces of fondant i stamped with the custom stamp i had made (also from etsy) to top some of the cupcakes:

after cake james and i had our first dance (the only dancing at the whole wedding), to a sweet jack johnson song that he surprised me with:

 (i just want to take a moment and appreciate how perfect that picture is, is my cousin a genius or what?)

followed by a quick toast: 

 (this picture is probably my most favorite from the whole wedding, because in the back you can see that my sister had already changed into her bathing suit, because maybe i told people the wedding was also a pool party)

and then we left for a quiet, lazy honeymoon in downtown san diego. which was also perfect. 

looking at all these pictures and writing this post and remembering our wedding day has brought back so many sweet memories, especially of all the family and friends who helped out to make the day so special, and it has reminded me how glad i am that we did things the way we did, because by far my favorite memory of the day (that we dont have pictures of, obviously), was that, because the wedding was short and we checked into our hotel around 6, was that james and i got to go out for a nice, quiet dinner, by ourselves, on our wedding day. and i cant think of anything more perfect than that.