After many wedding planning attempts, Sam and Mike went back and forth on dates and locations and were engaged for over two years when a night out to dinner with friends changed everything. They were exhausted from all of the attempts at planning and trying to make everyone involved happy. They were out to dinner with some friends who told them they were headed out to Napa the following weekend to celebrate their anniversary. Fast forward to the next morning, I get an email from Sam about her journey of wedding planning thus far, how tired from it all they are, and that they just want to be married!! So that night at dinner, a decision for a Napa winery elopement was made.
With a little over a week to pull all of the details together, I wanted to make this day so special for them as they were choosing to fly out here from Chicago with only four of their closest friends and get married on a whim. Not being able to have their parents there was one of the hardest things to swallow for the elopement, but knew the more people who were invited the more complicated it all would get and they would be right back to square one.
The couple’s love for Disney movies was my inspiration, specifically their favorite movie, Tangled. Being able to incorporate as much personal detail as we could in to this simple wine country, morning elopement was my goal. The venue we selected, Whetstone Wine Cellars, was the absolute perfect backdrop for this intimate moment. The castle-like architecture of this old chateau created a moody, yet romantic setting for a morning ceremony. We wanted to let the couple, the vows, and the surroundings of wine country be the star of the show. We had the parents write letters to each of them to be read during the ceremony to give a sense of them being present, we had Disney music played on the harp for the ceremony, and the bride walked down the chateau stairs to meet her ‘Prince’ for the ceremony.
It was simple, romantic and beautiful- a true reminder to myself of why I love what I do. All of the pomp and circumstance stripped away and the simple notion of helping a couple celebrate their love for one another and creating the perfect day for the two of them. -Ashley
