Tag Archives: kiss

Santa Cruz weekend: Matt and Katie’s wedding!

Beautiful

Saturday was the day of the wedding! It was also the day we were switching hotels, so we began the morning by packing and checking-out.

Brunch

We had an amazing brunch at Casa Nostra. It was super delicious. We had toast, jams, bruschetta, a frittata, and an omelette. And mimosas. We were pretty full. gem also played her ukulele while we waited for our food!

After brunch, we checked in at the Best Western Plus Inn Scotts Valley and then headed to SS. Peter & Paul where a shuttle drove us up a winding, mountain road to the Stones and Flowers Retreat in Ben Lomond. It was gorgeous.

Guestbook

At the entrance, a photographer took our photo with an instant camera, and these were used in the guestbook. It was a really awesome idea!

gem!

The ceremony was held outdoors to the left of the barn in this picture. The tables were for dinner, and the barn itself was for dancing and dessert!

edding

Here are the tables for the reception.

Ceremony

I didn’t want to try for many photos during the ceremony, but I still snapped a couple.

matt & katie's wedding

Between the ceremony and dinner, it was time to drink wine. Wine time is always good time. Dinner was fantastic with tri-tip, salmon, pasta, and more.

While it doesn’t have anything to do with dinner, I did want to mention Matt’s family. gem promised Matt she’d bake cookies if she came to the wedding, so she brought a cookie jar full of her cowboy cookies around with her to most places (except the wedding itself). As she offered them to people, Matt’s family realized that gem was the woman who shipped cookies every year for Christmas! I love our guild.

During the meal, gem and I also noticed that Matt’s brothers sound very similar to him! I guess we’ve spent much more time listening to Matt’s voice over Mumble than actually seeing his face. That’s kind of weird but proof that you don’t always need physical proximity to make great friendships.

matt & katie's wedding

Speaking of making friends, we met a fun woman, Iamee, and as it turned out, she’s from Orange! We took this awesome photo together. Hopefully we hang out in the future!

Best man's speech

Marc, Matt’s best man, delivered a very nice speech. I texted him to give him an 8 on his speech, but in actuality, he nailed it. No surprise honestly.

gem in the barn

The barn had the letters ‘K’ and ‘M’ for Katie and Matt. There was a spiral staircase inside going up, so gem went up for a photo.

Entrance

Here the happy couple walked into the barn for their first dance.

Matt and Katie's first dance

And then it was time for the first dance itself!

matt & katie's wedding

Sorry, this was blurry. It was dark, there was drinking, and we were all dancing. I have a lot of excuses for the photo quality.

Matt and Katie

Katie and Matt decided to dance above us for a little bit.

Photodancing

By the end of the night, even the photographer joined us in a bit of dancing! I had fun on the dance floor. There was even a bit of line dancing!

Dessert was served buffet-style in the barn. I thought it was a great way of doing it. After they cut the cake, pieces were cut and placed on a table along with brownie bites, cookies, apple fritters, donuts, chocolate-covered raisins, M&Ms, and probably more things I’m forgetting. You could grab a snack, load up on calories, and then go burn them off by dancing. I may not be any good at dancing, but it was certainly a lot of fun!

After things calmed down, we all headed back to the hotel. At drunken requests, I went through Jack in the Box’s drive-through for tacos. As we waited at the window for our food, we saw Iamee entering the restaurant. gem ran out of the car to give her a hug! By the time we got the food, she was waiting in front of the drive-through to get back in the car.

Back at the hotel, we ate our tacos and then headed to Marc’s room to hang out with our new and old friends, talk, and watch people chug whiskey for who-knows what reason. It was fun though! Everyone was super cool. I’m always a little bummed out after events like this because I meet a bunch of interesting people, we get to know each other, and then we go our separate ways. We met high school friends, former bandmates (Matt was signed and had a CD and radio play; check out “In Character” by Blood and Water on iTunes), former classmates turned teachers, former camp coworkers, friends from Boulder, and more. It was really a fantastic day.

Sunday, however, was not so fantastic. After check-out, I went to Jamba Juice because I noticed one was less than ten minutes away, and I was craving it. Once I had my Strawberries Wild, we got on the freeway and headed home. For the most we just talked, but we also listened to some My Brother, My Brother, and Me. We topped off the weekend by eating too much at Las Brisas De Apatzingan with chile relleno, potato tacquitos, and pozole verde.

Congratulations, Katie and Matt! It was a beautiful wedding, and I was very happy that you shared your special day with me. I love you both!

View more pictures in my Flickr album, Matt and Katie’s Wedding, or read my first post about my vacation, Santa Cruz weekend: Redwoods and the Boardwalk.