Austin & Cassie | Los Angeles, California Wedding
We met Austin & Cassie on a three-way Facetime call, since she lived in California and he lived in Illinois. And I (Susannah) have known her for years through our blogs. So when she got engaged to the man of her dreams, she told us she wanted us to shoot her wedding! I've loved getting to meet different blogging friends in the past few years, but getting to shoot someone's wedding who I've known online for so long was such an awesome bucket-list privilege. And photographing a California wedding was dream-come-true for us!
We got to experience LA traffic, the California sunshine, In 'n Out (twice), and the hospitality and graciousness of a bunch of new people. And we got to see newlywed Sam & Hadley very briefly in between it all, since they live in Southern California as well.
Austin & Cassie's relationship has been long distance from the beginning, born of mutual love for books, Star Wars, Casablanca, adventure, Pixar movies, and Jesus. They got engaged on the beach (involving a message in a bottle--swoon!), and then only got to see each other three times before their wedding day.
Their love for adventure, peaches, the color orange, and movies like Star Wars, Casablanca, and Up all went into their wedding. I've never been so emotionally invested in a wedding's details--we loved how they used their details to showcase their personalities and unique relationship, instead of just making them fancy for fanciness' sake.
Austin & Cassie are both the oldests of very devoted slews of siblings. Everyone who gets married starts a new home, but that's a much bigger deal to them, since Cassie is moving across the country to Illinois and leaving everything except her new husband behind! You have to like a guy an awful lot to leave that many people who love you this much (also, Southern California, sheesh). I loved this post she wrote about her current being-engaged feelings and their similarities to a scene in Tangled...
Like I said, I'm totally in love with these details. When I first saw their guest book table, it literally made me weepy. Hand-lettered quotes that were special to them, all things map & adventure, and one of the coolest guest books I've ever seen--people signed at their favorite destinations in a big atlas.
And speaking of weepy, she walked up the aisle to her brother's piano version of "I See the Light" from Tangled and GAH.
The ceremony and reception were both held at the beautiful Grace Community Church in Los Angeles. And what a perfect day for an outdoor reception! Whenever possible, one should eat pie and drink strawberry lemonade in the sunshine.
These two have some awesome people. Crazy, steal-the-bride, make-the-Flynn-Ryder-smolder-face people.
Such a perfect day to start their new adventure. Which is being begun by their honeymoon (including attending the Star Wars Celebration together) and the cross-country roadtrip to their new home together in Illinois!
(loved the stunning flowers by Soraya and the great coordinating by Christy Hoeks)
