We have a wonderful California destination wedding to feature today full of amazingly thoughtful details. Sabrina and Jeff travelled from Boston to the Ralston White Retreat in Mill Valley in San Francisco North Bay with a host of wedding guests from across the US to celebrate their wedding weekend. They were amazingly creative and thoughtful when it came to planning the details of their wedding. Sabrina made her own jewelry, they had chocolate and olive oil tasting for their guests as well as fun party props for dancing and an ice cream sundae bar instead of wedding cake…
When and where did you first meet, and how did you fall in love?
We like to tell people that we met kicking each other. While graduate students in Boston, we both joined the school’s taekwondo club, which quickly became a big part of each of our lives. One day after a particularly exhausting tournament weekend, we were the only two people to show up to practice. This somehow kept happening over the next few weeks until we decided that we might as well give in and start dating. We got engaged four years after that, and were married after another two years.
We would love to hear about your wedding destination, why did you pick your destination, what made it special to you?
I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and my parents are still in the area. We were originally looking for something in Napa, since we love to go wine tasting there whenever we’re in town to visit my parents. While that fell through, it turned out to be a stroke of luck because we discovered the beauty of the San Francisco North Bay. We ended up booking Ralston White Retreat, a historic mansion nestled on the slopes of Mt. Tamalpais and surrounded by redwood forests, for our wedding weekend. The mansion was built by Ralston White as a gift to his bride 100 years ago, and it still retains most of its original architecture and many of its furnishings.
Did you have a wedding planner?
We didn’t have a wedding planner, but we had Janice Kim (from Janice Kim Events) as our day-of coordinator; she was fantastic!
We did a wine ceremony: I poured a white and Geoff poured a red into a carafe so they mixed to look like a rose. Then we poured the mixed wine into glasses and each drank a little. (We were afraid it was going to taste awful, but luckily it was fine!) Right after the ceremony, we had our catering company serve our favorite rose wine (the V. Sattui Gamay Rouge) to our guests, to symbolize all of our friends and family participating in our union.
I love chocolate, so we had (an extensively friend-tested) chocolate tasting bar…
We put together a photobooth complete with costumes (most of which ended up on the dance floor within the hour).
We had an ice cream sundae bar instead of cake…
Geoff’s father made balloon hats for everyone, which was unexpected, but a huge hit!
What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome while planning your destination wedding?
The logistics of trying to plan a full weekend of events for our guests from across the country was an enormous challenge (in addition to the wedding, we also organized a wine tour to Sonoma and a traditional Chinese banquet for the next day). With the exception of two visits out to California from Boston, everything was done over email or the phone. I kept extensive notes in Google Docs (which I sometimes say planned our wedding for us…the final count was at 83 documents!) In addition, our wedding had many DIY elements: we did the flowers, made the invitations and other paper goods, organized a photobooth, and many other things. All of this either had to be transported from Boston or was made when we flew to California just a couple weeks before the wedding. I still remember entirely filling my carry-on suitcase with chocolate (for our chocolate tasting bar) so it wouldn’t be exposed to the summer heat in the airplane cargo hold!
What unique touches did you include in your wedding in order to make it more personal?
✈ We wrote our own ceremony, being sure to make it appropriately nerdy (as a nod to our science backgrounds), and also walked down the aisle together to “New World” by Bjork.
✈ Our officiant was the head instructor of our taekwondo club and later became one of our closest friends. When Geoff and I first started talking about our wedding, asking him to marry us was the first thing that come up.
✈ All of our rings are handmade. Mine were custom designed by a jeweler in Boston, including my moissanite engagement ring. When Geoff and I first talked about getting engaged, we both knew we didn’t want a diamond, and independently came across moissanite as the perfect replacement. The stone has a fascinating history, having first been discovered in a meteorite that landed on earth. Because it is so rare, however, all moissanite used in jewelry is lab-made (another nod to our science backgrounds!) Geoff’s ring was made by a jeweler on Etsy, and has a mokume gane inlay. This technique, originally used to make medieval Japanese samurai swords, involves compressing layers of metal and polishing it down to a distinctive pattern.
✈ I made my own jewelry, as well as jewelry sets for the bridesmaids, mother of the bride, and mother of the groom. We also made cufflinks for the groomsmen and I made a pair of earrings for every female guest at the wedding.
✈ Our champagne toast was a special Wilson Creek Almond Champagne that we fell in love with the first time we tasted it.
✈ Instead of table numbers, we used wine bottles from wineries that we had visited together.
✈ Our dinner “music” was all movie songs that tables had to compete to guess.
✈ Instead of a traditional first dance, we did the “Jump On It” dance from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
What was the best decision you made?
Early in the wedding planning, we decided to have a “wedding weekend” to give us a chance to spend more time with our guests, and to give our guests a chance to get to know one another. Our venue slept about 40 people for three days, and Geoff’s family (most of whom flew in from Michigan) also rented a large house nearby that slept an additional 20 people for the week. We love that we found someplace a little bit secluded, which allowed our guests to step outside of the everyday world and just enjoy each others’ company for the weekend. Many of our friends from different parts of our lives are now friends with each other as a result!
What advice would you give to other brides?
To the best of our ability, we tried to plan our wedding with our guests in mind. One of the things that many guests said after the wedding is that they felt well cared for. To our surprise, they noticed all the little things that we did to try to make them more comfortable. Many guests must travel a long distance for a destination wedding. Show your gratitude by planning with them in mind, because they will notice and appreciate it
Thank you Sabrina and Jeff for sharing your wonderful wedding weekend with us and to Choco Studio for their FAB images!
Photography: Choco Studio | Ceremony & Reception Venue: Ralston White Retreat | Wedding Coordinator: Janice Kim | Hair & Makeup: Thy Dinh Makeup Artist | DJ/Band: Tony Chu & Jonathan Mondar of Spintronix | Catering: Wine Valley Catering
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