Melissa and Brett, Healdsburg Country Gardens - Part 1

(Click on the photo above for the slideshow!)

I don't think I've ever broken a wedding post into two parts before - but it was killing me to narrow the images down to even a few hundred, then 70 to post on the blog - and I decided that I just had to share at least that many here! Melissa, Brett, and their amazing planner Jess Flood put so much work and thought into their spectacular wedding day, that I was running around the whole day just trying to capture a bit of the beautiful cool that made up the day.



The wedding was held at the stunning Healdsburg Country Gardens, and the design had a DIY/ vintage/ wine country-barn-chic to it. Kind of my dream wedding! Plus, Melissa and Brett are fabulously photogenic, and they wanted a lot of playful portraits.

Let's see... where to start. I can only share about a tenth of the amazing details and beautiful design that went into this day, but I'll do what I can. Here are the groomsmen's vintage velvet bowties. I'll try not to gush throughout the posts - just let it be said that each and every detail I'm sharing here, I just adore and want for my own! ;)



Here are the flower girls - Melissa's daughter, Hailie, and her best friend - relaxing in the hammock before the ceremony. I got a great photo of their fluorescent green toenails - you'll have to watch the slideshow for that one.



Melissa made these amazing boutonnieres for the groomsmen:



Beautifully simple, elegant flower arrangements:



The sweet guy was the son one of the bridesmaids - and I just had to share this shot of him, because what I caught him doing was walking towards the ceremony, then deciding that he really needed a sprig of fresh lavender for his buttonhole. He was such a charming, smart, mini man - loved him! :)



Brett's dad and his awesome boutonniere:



Italian accordion player for the ceremony:





Jess Flood (the wedding planner) had that fantastic chandelier-lantern made and hung from the old cork tree where the ceremony took place.





Rose petals to shower the newlyweds!







Beautiful couple, beautiful friends, beautiful outfits, beautiful setting. Perfect!





I think that Melissa bought her and the bridesmaids' hair decoration pieces on etsy.com - but I wouldn't be surprised if she made them.



Family portraits were done inside the old barn to avoid some of the late afternoon wind, and I like the light streaming through the barn cracks that we ended up with:





Melissa and Brett live in Healdsburg (quite often I work with out-of-the-area couples who are having destination weddings), so we headed downtown for some quick portraits in the street. No joke, in the maybe 10 minutes that we were downtown, they saw 3 people they knew, got several hugs, and many more honks.





Back at Healdsburg Country Gardens for some more beautiful portrait locations:







We played around with some shots on the vintage 4x5" camera:



Beautiful bride!



At themed food stations (American, Italian, Mexican) that were deliciously done by A La Heart Catering, guests could choose from turkey sliders, french fries, cotton candy, chile rellenos, tacos, pizza, and lots more (including themed drinks like whiskey and coke or amazing aguas frescas).



They definitely made Hailie a big part of the ceremony and day - and she was very patient with us even when she would've rather have been exploring the many cool nooks and crannies of the gardens.





I'm going to end this post with a group shot of everyone. I think there are around 150 people in this shot! It was a challenge to organize quickly, but it looks so cool that I'm happy we did it. Next time, though... I think I'm gonna need a bullhorn or megaphone ;)

More tomorrow! Tune in for lots more gorgeous details...