Urban Garden Elopement

Blair and Nick are living proof that #LoveIsNotCanceled. After a year of planning their wedding for June of 2020 at Morcom Rose Garden in Oakland, they had to pivot and reassess. Their first plan was to elope at the Rose Garden on their original wedding date. However, life keeps us on our toes, and the week of their ceremony they learned that the Rose Garden closed due to aggressive turkey (I know, it’s laughable, but true!)  😉 At this point, they doubled down on getting married – and with help from their great planner McKenna Bochy they decided to have their ceremony at Brothers and Sisters Flower Shop in Oakland with all their friends and family watching via Zoom. It was the perfectly picturesque setting for an enchanted urban garden ceremony, and we were so honored to be a part of it.

You endured a lot of changes and unexpected decisions for your wedding this year. Any insights after the fact?

“At first, we were really bummed to be missing out on the big wedding – especially after all of the work, visioning, and planning that had gone into it! After we made the decision to postpone indefinitely, we gave ourselves a break from thinking about it for a few weeks. After some time, we decided that we wanted to honor our wedding date somehow, and discussed a few different options. Ultimately, given the uncertainty of the situation, we decided that we just wanted to be married already 🙂 Enter McKenna, our amazing planner, who helped us navigate technical logistics, marriage license by teleconference, and a number of other things you never have to think about if you are doing an in-person, non-socially distant wedding! 
We’d still love to do an in-person celebration at some point, but we just don’t know when it will be safe to do that. This was a great way to both honor the date and celebrate virtually with our closest friends and family, but leave open the option for a larger in-person celebration in the future.”

 

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“Finding ways to make the ceremony unique also helped confirm that this was the right decision for us! We thought of the Zoom ceremony as a super-condensed wedding – we were able to incorporate a first dance, a champagne toast, and a cupcake smash which helped make it feel even more special. We also created a shared album for guests to drop photos & screenshots into. it’s a really cool snapshot of the day and of all the ways our community showed up for us – definitely not something any of us will soon forget!”

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“The first glance at the Zoom screen was overwhelming! We were really afraid of missing out on feeling the outpouring of love from our community, but it absolutely came through the screen! It also allowed us to record the full ceremony (including our guests’ reactions!) in a way that we wouldn’t have had otherwise. We’ve already gone back and watched the ceremony multiple times!”

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Any advice to couples in a similar position right now, trying to decide to get married this year or not?

“We approached the decision by trying to identify what was most important to us about the day and finding ways to make the ceremony fit those values. It was always important for us to bring our communities together, so being able to host everyone virtually with chat and video options made that possible! If you can identify what your intentions are, and what you’d most like to get out of the day, the decision will come naturally.”

CATEGORIES:

Elopements, Pure Happiness, Team, Weddings

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