Sometimes when your life takes a turn in a different direction, sometimes it is a while before you can get yourself back on track. On February 14th 2006, my life did just that. I was introduced to a man who immediately changed my life. Ross and I were introduced by two mutual friends, who both knew that we would be perfect together. Emailing and texting taught us all about each other and soon we realized what our friends already knew, we were perfect for each other. One problem, he lived in San Diego and I lived here in Fresno. Numerous circumstances allowed Ross to finally move to Fresno and our love story continued. In March 2008 at one of my favorite restaurants on the coast Ross proposed and of course I said YES! So started the journey of a wedding planner planning her own wedding.
We knew we wanted to keep our wedding small and intimiate so we asked Ross’ parents if we could host the wedding at their home. They agreed and so the planning continued. If any of your know my husband, you know that he loves to cook and BBQ, so we broke one of my wedding planning rules…..we did our own food! That’s always a big No-No in my book, but we knew we could handle it. The menu consisted of tri-tip, chicken, salad, baked beans (Turner Family Receipe) and Macaroni and Cheese (Arnold Family Receipe)
We planned a Labor Day Weekend Wedding, and with many prayers we were blessed with wonderful weather. It was only 85 on the day of our wedding….totally unheard of for an outdoor wedding in August, right? We were blessed with about 80 of our closest friends and family on our special day and everything was perfect!
Another element to our wedding that makes it unique is the order in which we did things…….I wanted to have our ceremony by candle light, so in order to make that happen we needed to have the ceremony about 8:45pm…..now you cannot ask your guests to wait until 9:30pm to eat dinner, right? So we reversed everything. Cocktails and appetizers upton arrival. Thanks to my cousin Kristina Van Winkle for her wonderful appetizers! We also had every type of beverage you could imagine! Raspberry iced tea, lemonade, beer, wine, sodas and yes, even Starbucks! Then our guests were treated to dinner, courtsey of Ross! There is a photo in our wedding album showing Ross eating a Hot Dog! Yes, he even cooked hot dogs for the kids, but if you know my husband, he will eat a hot dog no matter what else is on the menu. Still to this day, he says that was the best hot dog he has ever had.
The backyard at the Turner’s was filled with chocolate brown and ivory linens, chair covers too! We inlisted the help of parents and cousins to help the day before! It was so nice to be able to have so many family around to help us. Our centerpieces were a combination of coffee beans in glass containers with candles and flowers. My bouquet was a beautiful combination of ivory roses, green kermit mums and blue delphinium. I dried the bouquet after our wedding and it is displayed in our bedroom! Thanks to Mariah at Simply Flowers for all her hard work for our wedding flowers!
After Dinner, when the light was just perfect, Ross and I exchanged vows that were wrote ourselves. It was the best part of the day for me! It really brought our family together. We also included all of our friends and family in our ceremony. Each person was given a rock with their name on it when they got the wedding. During the ceremony we asked each person to come up to the ceremony area and give us their rock, we had a huge pile of rocks by the end of the ceremony, symbolizing all the thoughts and prayers of our friends and family. At the close of the ceremony, our parents included their rocks, followed by Keska and Rylee and finally Ross and I. We even had a rock for Penny and the future ‘Turner #3″
For dessert we were blessed to have a delicious wedding cake from Laura at Sweet Dreams Bakery. She created a wonderful dark chocolate cake with peanut butter filling! Of all the wedding cakes I have tasted over the years, this truly was my favorite! Ross’ mom also made Strawberry Pizza, another Turner Family receipe. It all made for a great dessert buffet!
When you are a wedding planner, its hard to plan your ‘own’ wedding. And, yes I did put on all my own chair covers and linen and you could even find me at the end of the night cleaning up still in my wedding gown. But I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Our wedding was exactly how we wanted it to be. My husband is the most amazing man and my prayers were answered the day I met him and he continues to love and support me in every way. Very shortly after our wedding, I was blessed with the best gift I could ever ask for, we found out we were pregnant…..and so the journey continued….
Our wedding was also special because we had help from some of my vendor friends. Tom Milne at Milne Photography, along with his assistant, Laura, really helped capture our wedding. Even though Ross and I HATE having our photo take, Tom and Laura really did an amazing job. Tom even climbed up onto the roof of the house and took a photo of all the guests in the backyard! It was great! Town & Country helped us out with our table linen and our chair covers. We were able to transform the backyard into the perfect wedding site. Mariah Walton with Simply Flowers created some beautiful flower arrangements to compliment our coffee bean theme. My bouquet was perfect and she even made Rose Magic Wands for the girls. Special thanks to Sweet Dreams for our wonderful wedding cake, and another thank you to my parents for driving the cake from Oakhurst to Atwater! We can’t thank Rich and Gloria Turner for all they have done for us, and for allowing us to host our wedding at their home. It was perfect, and everytime we visit, I can’t help but remember that perfect day.
Rylee and Keska were a big part of our wedding, the planning, the ceremony, everything! They even refer to our wedding anniversary as ‘their anniversary’ too! Thanks to my girls for all their help! They will make great wedding planners one day soon.
Milne Photography
Simply Flowers
Sweet Dreams Cakery
Town & Country Party Rentals
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