All photos: ginaandryan.com
We did it! Will and I were married on the sunny coast of southern California.
We learned a lot while planning for an intimate, intentional gathering, and my hope is that these tips will help you or someone you know who is planning (or, manifesting) their own wedding celebration.
Selecting Your Ceremony Location
Utilize the State Parks
In picking a ceremony location, Will and I were able to narrow our scope to southern California pretty quickly because we wanted to make it easy for Will’s grandmother to attend. As Will and I imagined what our ideal southern California ceremony would look like, we had visions of being married on a cliff overlooking the Pacific ocean. While visiting down south, we decided to dedicate one Saturday to “cliff hunt” by driving up and down Highway 1. We started south, near San Clemente and drove north, stopping at every cliff-like chance we got. Having pretty flexible and optimistic personalities, we both imagined we could just “take over” a random cliff for an afternoon for our wedding. Right? But as we were driving, we quickly came to realize that most of the cliff locations were either privately-owned, occupied by a hotel or a fancy AF home, or there were mere inches between the cliff and side of the freeway.
As we worked our way north, we finally came to Crystal Cove, a beautiful CA State Park where Will spent many a summer afternoon as a kid. Here were the expansive, quintessential California views we had been looking for. So we hurried home to do some permit research. Online we learned that Crystal Cove had several locations within the park to hold an event, and they even had a Special Events manager we could coordinate with.
The next day we returned to Crystal Cove to scope out all the different event sites. Enter: Pelican Point #2 — the dreamiest wedding location we could have hoped for. A long, winding boardwalk leads out to a magnificent vista point, overlooking the beach with birds and waves as the soundtrack. It was perfect. And because it was through the State Park, it cost a fraction of the price of a traditional venue and the money was going to support the State Park! Win win.
2. The Guest List
Keep it small, and everything else becomes more manageable.
We had 16 people attend our wedding. Yes, you read that right, 16! There are so many benefits of having a small wedding, but it’s really, really hard to put into practice. We were planning in the thick of Covid, with no vaccine in sight, so those limitations pretty much made the decision for us. But, you don’t need to be in a pandemic to force a smaller guest list. You could find your own “forcing function” to keep your wedding small. Maybe you fall in love with a venue that only accommodates 30 people. Or you want to take over a small, boutique hotel that only sleeps 50 guests. You can start with some sort of limiting factor, something that is true to your vision and values, as a couple, and helps you make the tough choices of a whittling-down a guest list.
In attendance, we had our immediate families, Grandma, a cousin from both sides, and the friends/couple who introduced us. It was really intimate, and it was amazing for this group to spend so much time together; everyone really got to know one another. While the ceremony location was in Will’s hometown, we still had everyone stay at the same cute hotel, so that we could roll out of bed to have coffee together, lounge by the pool, or share a night cap at the end of the night. As the bride, having such a small wedding allowed me to really sink into the weekend with everyone. I could actually relax by the pool, and hang out with everyone. I even had time to take an incredible 5-mile hike on the morning of our wedding.
3. Travel To / From
Air travel makes the biggest impact on the carbon footprint of your event.
If a main goal for your wedding is to have less impact on the planet, pick a location where most guests can avoid air travel. Picking a location where guests can drive to and from will emit far fewer carbon emissions than traveling by air.
So what about those far-flung destination weddings that have become so popular? Here’s something wild — sweetly suggest that guests offset their carbon emissions by purchasing carbon credits. Find a way to tactfully slip it into your wedding invitation, your wedding website, or both. For your guests, it may be a surprising suggestion, but it brings an important point to light as we reconsider how our actions, and the events we throw, have an impact on the planet. Buying carbon credits doesn’t immediately negate the green-house gases that have been emitted into the atmosphere, but it does put resources towards the effort of reducing greenhouse gases. The biggest impact on greenhouse gas emissions will come from policy at the government level, so be informed on the voting history of your elected officials on this vital topic.
a note re: Photography / Video
Because we had such a minimal guest list, we wanted to have the ceremony really well-documented so that we could share the event with our greater family and friends. We chose to spend most of our budget on photography and videographers whose work really resonated with us (Gina & Ryan Photo and Grimace Films). We also searched for professionals who lived and worked locally in southern California, so that they did not have to travel far for the event (Bonus - watch our wedding video here! I swear it’s not a Patagonia commercial - wait for it…)
4. The Dress
Vintage or pre-owned are guaranteed ways to wear a dress that is more unique, earth friendly, and probably 50%+ less expensive than retail.
The biggest consideration here is that buying vintage or second-hand requires time, so start searching early. On the website Still White you can search by designers and silhouettes that you like. Because we had a quick turnaround for the wedding, I started by selecting a new, ready-to-wear option from BHLDN, but was keeping an eye on vintage sites to see if something came up in the meantime. With the added challenge of consignment shops being closed due to COVID, I ended up going with a new dress. But if I were to have a wedding with more a traditional lead-time of 6-12 months, I would have definitely loved the hunt of finding my perfect vintage dress. To turn buying something new into a more earth-friendly action, I will “catch and release” my dress back into the ecosystem of beautiful wedding dresses.
Note - The vintage fur stole was an improved, in-the-moment addition to stave off the nighttime chill. A guest had it for herself and lent it to me when I got cold. In retrospect I would have removed the stole from being included in so many photos.
5. Gifts for Guests
Chose one thing that is well-made and useful.
And if you really want your guests to use it forever, avoid engraving the gift with your names/initials/the date of your wedding.
Since our wedding was beachside, I had the idea to gift quality Turkish towels made by my friends over at Anywhere Outpost. My vision was that guests would arrive to their hotel room with two towels tied together with twine on the bed, paired with a printout of the weekend itinerary. That was it. But I soon learned that my mother was very excited at the prospect of creating gift baskets for our guests, so I let her run with that. She understood that I was adamant about having a waste-free event, and so she thoughtfully took the effort the pack bulk snacks in mason jars and selected woven baskets that would live beyond the duration of the weekend. While, it wasn’t 100% waste-free, in the end it was a sweet addition that my mom had a lot of fun doing, and I was happy to hand off.
6. Wedding Registry
Choose fewer, better-made things.
If choosing only “fewer, better things” means that your registry is chock full of $100+ items, add a “cash fund” option so your guests may contribute an amount they are comfortable with.
Tip: create multiple cash funds towards a specific goal/fund so that people who love to give physical gifts have a sense of what you will use the money for. And don’t forget thank you cards!!!!
For honeymoon goers, some websites allow cash funds to go towards certain honeymoon activities, which is a really sweet idea that friends have used and enjoyed for their wedding registries (for our honeymoon we sailed to Catalina, just the two of us, and mostly hiked around the island, so we opted against any honeymoon-related funds for our registry).
And my biggest registry advice — at all costs, avoid the lists of your “Registry Essentials”! When you sign up for a registry website, they often direct you to a list of “essentials” (with affiliate links that they get paid for, btw). It will bring you down a rabbit hole of “essentials” you never knew you needed (much like the SkyMall catalog), and soon your registry will be bloated and your kitchen cabinets will be overflowing. For the love of God, ignore these lists.
7. Decorations
Rent rather than buy.
Search for local events rental businesses and you might be surprised with what you find. Rather than purchase, we rented things like bench cushions, rugs and signage. I found this awesome rental company called Archive Rentals that had cute cushions for guests to sit on during our ceremony. While I could have found the similar cushions online for around the same price, I opted to utilize a local (female-owned) business. This ensured the cushions would continue to be used for years to come, rather than be packed away in a garage to never be seen again.
For the reception location, we selected a restaurant with a gorgeous space that matched the “look and feel” we were after, so the space didn’t need much else in terms of decor. We did paid a premium for a location like this, but we saved time, effort and money avoiding the need to decorate a blank space. In a similar vein, we wanted to highlight the natural beauty of the ceremony point, and didn’t want flowers to take away from the vista views. We had small bouquets at the ceremony site, and reused them for the reception.
In conclusion ;)
Planning a wedding is an exciting, albeit daunting time.
I hope these tips are useful in helping you plan a simple and sustainable event.
Cheers!