Winter Wedding in California

The "big event" of our trip to California was a wedding! We came to help out with the last wedding preparations and share in the joy! Plus, Felicity was a bridesmaid!

The wedding, although just a few days before Christmas, was to have a "winter" theme and look about it, but not a Christmas one. And from the decor to the colors, it was just perfect! Her mom, my dear friend, is a wedding coordinator, and her dad has done set designing for theater, and between the two of them, they completely transformed a horse barn into a beautiful reception venue that just exuded wintery rustic-elegance! I was thrilled to be part of the crew to finish getting the reception barn ready. This is what it looked like when we arrived.

So much fun getting all the tables ready! Got to practice my Carson skills! Just beautiful!

We finished with plenty of time to get cleaned up, change clothes, and drive over to the wedding venue (sources listed at the end of this posting). I loved how the wedding colors echoed the blue-ish winter mountains in the background and harmonized so nicely with the leafless oak trees.

I cannot tell you how my heart ached with gratitude to the Lord that our little granddaughter's health was stable, so that Felicity was able to leave her and travel west to be in this wedding! It had been so long anticipated, and her ability to travel so in doubt for so long...to see her walk down this aisle...well, the tears did flow behind this camera lens.

The cuteness of the flower girl helped to distract my mind. She remembered, at the very last moment that her job was to drop petals. So, she paused at the front and slowly and methodically emptied every last petal from her basket. All there. In one spot. Too cute!

The bride and her father arrived by horse-drawn carriage! (If this seems slightly familiar, this young lady's cousin got married at the same location and also arrived by carriage, just last summer. I shared pictures from that wedding here.) Their uncle piped each of them down the aisle. Nothing beats bagpipes at a wedding!

The sun came out from behind the clouds just as the ceremony was starting, and it just made everything sparkle...simply magical! The bride's gown was made by her talented mom.