finally. finally. finally. right?

I had the hardest time picking what to show you, so, with the advice of some others, i'll be sharing in a few installations.

Our wedding was held at a private residence in Laguna Beach, so we had the luxury of getting ready at the actual venue. No rushing around which was nice. And the most important part for me, being able to oversee the set up:) 

Ryan and I are in no sense of the word, traditional. And we didn't want our wedding to be. We had dated 5 years before our wedding day. We wanted this day to be more like a big party with close friends and family to celebrate, rather than forcing ourselves through the motions of a large traditional wedding. There wasn't a seated dinner, we served cocktails and appetizers all night. We didn't have a bridal party, if we did, we figured we'd have the entire wedding standing up there with us. There were about 80 guests, and it was perfect.

i picked up some comfy white robes for us ladies and beautified them with ban.do!

The reason we chose this venue. 180 degree view of Southern California's beautiful beaches.

After hours of my mom, my sister and I getting ready, we took some shots from the master suite balcony. Could you imagine waking up to this every morning?

R and his pops trying to figure out how to tie a bow tie. It was funny to see all of the pictures of the morning progressing and the SEVERAL attempts to tie these suckers. I think it was my mom who finally came to the rescue after a few hours of instructions and youtube.

and our first look...

we had our first look before the ceremony.

we decided to do this so that we could enjoy as much time as possible with friends and family after the ceremony. we didn't want to leave our guests for an hour or longer to take pictures, so we took them before hand. best decision ever. i still cried when i walked down the aisle, but i couldn't imagine NOT having this time before the ceremony, i would've been a mess.

and then he turned around.

but you'll just have to wait until tomorrow to see that:)

[all images by up imagery]

[bouquet // florals by jenny]