Autumn Inn at Park Winters Wedding

This sweet couple? Well, they first met WAY back when their moms enrolled in the same Mommy & Me class. Fast forward twenty two years and one proposal later, and you’ve got a wedding that was destined to be. The bride, who just so happens to be the creative powerhouse behind Pretty Planner Weddings & Events made certain their Big Day felt 100% like “them,” along with a team of awesome vendors including Love & You, Giggle & Riot, Bobby Jo Valentine and Lacie Hansen behind the lens. More pretty right here!

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From The Bride…Hailey is a destination wedding stylist and the owner of event production and design studio, Pretty Planner Weddings & Events.

When I was younger, my favorite movie was “Sliding Doors,” a film whose main premise is that simple and seemingly unimportant choices, encounters, and moments can result in life-altering ripple effects. The way that I would meet and ultimately fall in love with Adam will always make me think about the power of sliding doors.

Adam and I grew up 15 minutes away from each other, just outside of the buzz of Los Angeles in suburbia. When we were little kids, our moms enrolled us in the same Mommy & Me class. As pre-teens, my aunt dated Adam’s father’s business partner and spent time with Adam’s parents, and my grandfather did business with Adam’s grandfather. Later, as teenagers, my parents and Adam’s parents hired the very same college counselor, who happened to be in love with the University of California, Davis that year.

At our college counselor’s urging, Adam and I each opted to attend UC Davis in the fall of 2004. When we finally met through the Greek system, I thought that Adam was smart and handsome, and our chemistry was off the charts. But I had no idea who Adam was on anything but a surface level, or of any of the connections we’d had in our past. Adam didn’t either, but said he knew from the moment he met me that he’d marry me one day.

After dancing around the strange pull we had towards one another for a few years, Adam finally asked me out. We met at a Thai restaurant in our college town, and spent the rest of the evening laughing and unraveling our connections one by one. After walking me to my home and heading across the baseball field that had separated us the past four years to his own, Adam called me and told me that he wasn’t ready for the night to end. We talked on the phone until the moon turned into the sun, kissed for the first time on Valentine’s Day a week later, and have been inseparable ever since.

Twenty two years after our initial contact in Mommy & Me, our very first “ripple,” and after sharing four homes, a rescue pup, the law school experience, bar examinations, long distance jobs and all of the best and most devastating moments the universe could throw at us, we both decided we wanted to be there for all of those moments, forever. Adam asked me to spend my life with him at The Crest, a 1920s theater that had become one of our favorite places in the world, and slipped the most beautiful art deco inspired engagement ring on my finger.

As a wedding planner and designer, I believe that one of my most important responsibilities is learning about and telling my client’s stories on their wedding day. Adam and I knew that we wanted to get married in Northern California where we met, and share our story with our family and friends from all over the country. As a nod to my family’s roots in the entertainment industry, beginning with my grandfather who was Frank Sinatra and Humphrey Bogart’s publicist, and to signify where we both came from, we decided to design the wedding with an Old Hollywood feel in mind. But, because we met and now live in Northern California, we wanted to embrace local ingredients in our cuisine, and balance the glitz of sequins and champagne towers with natural elements like wooden farm tables, wildflowers, and heavy greenery. With the help of a rock star team of vendors, we meticulously executed our vision.

The backdrop for our nuptials was Park Winters, the most striking 19th Century Victorian bed and breakfast estate. We said our handwritten vows under a 200 year-old pecan tree, and a cream-colored afghan Adam’s mother crocheted by hand. Our guests dined at tables outfitted with pieces of vintage crystal I’d spent the last year gathering, floral arrangements hung with pomegranates and berries, and gilded plates dotted with gold dipped rosemary. We walked through a sea of sparklers to our first dance as husband and wife, and swayed together to the most gorgeous acoustic version of “All for Love” by Bryan Adams, the film “Casablanca” silently projected above the dance floor. The entire evening was dripping in candlelight, with the sounds of our loved ones’ laughter wafting through the air. The next day, we hopped on a plane to Thailand, and spent the next two weeks exploring floating markets and Buddhist temples, bonding with elephants in the jungle, eating like kings, and walking unworldly white sand beaches with turquoise waters and epic limestone formations.

When Adam and I talk about our wedding, we both use the word “magic.” It was truly the perfect ending— a culmination of all of the ripple effects that brought us together— and the perfect beginning, all at once.

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Post tags: Al Fresco, Outdoor Ceremony
Post categories: Real Weddings, Romantic, The Blog