{personal} the photographer on her wedding day

I never officially mentioned it here on the blog, but I got married!

As many of my readers know (from posting about getting engaged back in 2010 and moving across the country and finally being together in 2011), our wedding this past summer was the result of eight years of being together (four years spent long distance, four years spent being engaged, five years spent on the east coast, three years spent on the west coast), all of which culminated in a sort of last minute let's-just-go-to-a-courthouse-and-get-it-over-with wedding. However, as soon as we set the date and notified our families, so many of them made the effort to be there for our special day! So we ditched the courthouse plans and opted for a very simple wedding in a park near our home in California.

Not being ones to have something over-the-top and ridiculously expensive, we entered into the "planning" phase by not really having any plans at all. Instead, everything fell together so simply and perfectly... We had a small gathering on a perfect morning under the trees in Wildwood Canyon Park. We had beautiful bouquets and boutonnieres made by a friend (I always knew I wanted something purple, my favorite color). We had pictures and video taken by another friend. We had lunch reservations at The Castaway made by a sister (with an amazing view of the valley). We had an extremely delicious cake from Porto's picked up by a brother. We had the something old (my great-grandmother's engagement ring), the something new (my wedding dress from Anthropologie, the first store I tried), the something borrowed (shoes from my sister), and the something blue (twenty-nine pale blue stitches stitched into the lining of my slip in commemoration of the date).

And most importantly, we had family! I know it's cliché to say that your wedding day is perfect, but it really was. For the entire weekend, we couldn't have felt more loved or more blessed to have so many of our family members take the time and effort to fly across the country to be there. I tear up every time I look back through the pictures and recall the day. And of course I'm so happy to finally be married to this amazing man!