Our Wedding Morning

Grace and I spent the morning of our wedding surrounded by our respective wedding parties, first getting ready at the Westlake Village Inn for hair and makeup, and then driving up to our venue for finishing touches and to get into our wedding attire.

There is an old ranch house at our wedding venue with two wings for getting ready, so Grace and I each had our own space with our bridesmaids.

The day before our wedding, I gifted each of my bridesmaids with a Plum Pretty Sugar robe to wear the morning of the wedding. I chose an all-white robe for myself and it was very festive and exciting to see everyone decked out in matching robes in the morning!

To be honest, I was much more jittery on our wedding morning than I had expected to be. I have a feeling others who have been married can relate to this, but it absolutely wasn’t jitters about marrying Grace—it was just a sudden realization of how many eyes would be on me, and as an introvert, feeling the pressure of the spotlight suddenly had me shaky. But thankfully, one of the perks of having a huge wedding party was having lots of people to calm me down.

Grace was pretty nervous too (or so I heard, since we didn’t see each other before walking down the aisle), so I was thankful that she had all her best friends to make her laugh and help her get polished for the big day!

Jitters aside, our wedding morning was SO much fun. Babies were passed around, sweet moments were shared, pre-festivities drinks were sipped (but not for me because my stomach was way too weak/nervous before the ceremony, haha!), and it was just such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have all of our best friends in our place. It was also so magical peeking out the windows and seeing our reception area coming together and floral installations going up.

Grace’s sweet parents!

When it was time to get into my dress, it was so sweet to have a few very special people help me:

My mom and sister got me into my dress

My best friend, roommate of 2 years, and round-the-world travel companion, Anna, put in my veil

My sister put on my grandmother’s bracelet that her husband (my grandfather I never met) gave her as an engagement present in the 1950s

And I put on my own shoes!

I also helped my mom get into her dress.

Before I knew it, it was time to walk down the aisle!

All photos are by Jesse Marble and Jimmy Marble for Our Labor of Love

Our Wedding: Grand Exit

One of the moments I was most looking forward to about our wedding was our final exit! I knew I wanted to do a big, sparkly exit at the end of the night.

After a fun last dance by our wedding band, our wedding coordinator got our guests lined up to send us off to our getaway car!

For a couple of reasons, the traditional sparkler exit was out—most importantly, because of California’s fire risks. I spent a long time trying to come up with a fun alternative to a sparkler exit, and I loved what we came up with.

I ordered about 200 hand-held battery powered light strands (actually wine bottle fairy lights!) and our coordinator passed them out for our guests to wave and cheer as we exited our reception.

I love this picture above sooo much—Grace grabbing my dad’s hand as we left through the tunnel of our friends and family!

At the end of the tunnel of our guests, there was a beautiful 1983 Rolls Royce convertible waiting for us! I rented the car with a driver so we could just relax in the back seat while we were whisked back to our hotel suite for the night. They even put a temporary custom decal on the back for us!

Leaving our reception in a classic car was, I believe, one of the best decisions we could have made in planning our party—it was the perfect cherry on top of our night and signaled to our guests that they could go home (or go to an afterparty, as many of our friends did!).

Definitely a “pinch me” moment, especially knowing we were leaving for Maui in just a day! I felt like the convertible floated on cloud 9 to our hotel.

All photos are by Jesse Marble and Jimmy Marble for Our Labor of Love

Our Wedding: Cocktail Hour

While Grace and I were getting some sunset portraits taken after our ceremony, our guests enjoyed a cocktail hour in our reception area. The bars were open, chilled seafood was passed, and everyone could start celebrating! Our amazing caterers served oysters, sea salt-poached shrimp, veggie burger sliders, fig and ricotta bites, and a cheese and mezze grazing station.

Our coordinator, florist, and venue hosts set up sweet details around our cocktail hour area, with little bud vases and bowls of citrus that fit with the outdoor setting of our celebration.

We also rented some vintage couches and love seats to give our guests cozy places to sit and enjoy a drink before dinner started.

Because we were off taking photos for most of cocktail hour, it was so fun to get the pictures back and see everyone hanging out and having fun!

After we finished our couples’ portraits, we rejoined our reception and were so glad to start hugging our loved ones and celebrating!

All photos are by Jesse Marble and Jimmy Marble for Our Labor of Love

December Goals + November Recap

“How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn—how did it get so late so soon?”

—Dr. Seuss

Really, I cannot believe it’s December. Just yesterday it was the beautiful midsummer eve when we were married. But I’m thankful. I’m hoping to write more about this here, but this has been my FAVORITE Fall of my whole life and I am actually looking forward to Winter for the first time I can ever remember. I’ve always loved the holidays, but to me Winter has meant darkness, cold, and the blues. I’m finally really embracing the season and it feels so special. A big part of embracing Fall was my Autumn Bucket List, and I made one for Winter too! I will share it here soon for sure :)

In addition to being the first winter I've ever been excited for, this December will have a lot of other firsts for me! For a long time I have wanted to save certain things for being married (or at least engaged as the case was with living together). Two of those things I’ve waited for are sending out Christmas cards and getting our first Christmas tree. I’ve never had my own! We are also taking a big trip at the end of the month and I’m so excited. Overall, I think this month will be incredibly sweet. I know it will fly by so my goals are intended to help me savor it!

First, how I did on my November goals:

• Spend Thanksgiving in North Carolina with my family—yes, it was wonderful.

• Celebrate Grace turning 28!—yep! We spent a fun weekend in Joshua Tree with friends.

• Send lots of fun happy mail to friends—a good amount!

• Design our wedding album—yessss! It just arrived today and I am waiting until Grace is here to open it, but I’m SO EXCITED!

• Host a dinner or brunch at our house with friends—yes, we had a small dinner party that was very special.

• Take better care of my body—I like to think marginally better. I worked out while I was home in Raleigh and it felt great.

• Rest, be present, and be thankful—I can always do better but I’m proud of how I did on this.

• Do all my Christmas shopping (and take advantage of Black Friday sales) so I can spend December resting during Advent—done and done!!!

My goals for December are:

• Send our first ever Christmas cards

• Enjoy items on my winter bucket list (try to do at least one a week)

• Get our first ever Christmas tree

• Decorate our house for Christmas

• Reverently and joyfully observe Advent

• Update my 60 before 30 list with progress so far

• Take an exciting trip just Grace and me

• Set goals for 2019

• Host my mom in our house!

• Wrap all Christmas gifts and mail the ones that are going to out of town people

• Replace my phone screen protector

I hope you enjoy and make the most of the very last month of 2018! xoxo

Our Wedding: Sunset Portraits

After our ceremony and while our guests enjoyed cocktail hour, our photographers whisked us away for some magical golden hour portraits! We hadn’t seen each other before the ceremony, so this was our chance to get beautiful pictures of the two of us. We planned our whole timeline for the day around the light, and thankfully the sun didn’t set until almost 8pm on our wedding day.

In the picture above you can really see where our photographers drove us. On the far right of the photo, you can see a road leading up to a hilltop covered in oak trees. That’s where our wedding was held. Our photographers put us in the back of their car and drove down the hill with us so they could get some dreamy portraits in the golden grasses growing around the property. I’m so glad they did, because I’m absolutely in love with how they turned out.

In the picture above, Grace was pointing out to me that the lights of our wedding reception were starting to twinkle. I love that they captured this :)

Our photographers snapped a couple of solo shots of us too. They also had us do funny things like spin around in a circle with our eyes closed and then try to find each other and kiss, leading to pictures like this:

We had such a laid back, fun portrait session, and I was so grateful to our photographers. We chatted about leaving for Hawaii in just over 24 hours, our photographer Jesse’s pregnancy, and looking forward to eating our wedding food.

Here are a few more favorites:

Thanks for reading! I still have several posts left in my wedding series, so keep checking in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I am loving writing these, and I hope you love reading them.

All photos are by Jesse Marble and Jimmy Marble for Our Labor of Love

Our Wedding: Little Details

As gorgeous as your flowers are or as delicious as your wedding food is, I firmly believe that it’s the little personal details that will make you smile most at your wedding and that you’ll remember for years to come.

In a lot of ways, as I’m hoping to showcase throughout this wedding blog series, Grace and I felt like ambassadors in hosting the first gay wedding many of our friends and family (including ourselves!) had attended. Partly because of this, I knew I wanted to infuse our whole day with meaning and take special care for the little details that would make our day uniquely “us.”

In this post I’m sharing a few of my favorite “little details” from our wedding day. I hope they will give you a better sense of the meaning behind our wedding and perhaps give you inspiration for own your little wedding day details!

By far my favorite detail was the individual letters we wrote to each guest. As you can see in the photo above, we wrote almost 200 letters (one for each person attending our wedding) in the months leading up to our wedding and placed them in antique brass letter holders at the welcome table for guests to find before the ceremony. Yes, writing all those letters took forever, but we deeply wanted to express how much it meant to us that each person was there. Some of our guests we hadn’t seen in a long time and knew we wouldn’t get a ton of time in person with everyone, so the letters allowed us to tell everyone why we were so glad they specifically were at our wedding, and convey our excitement to celebrate with them later.

One of my law school friends finding her letter!

We had this welcome sign set up behind the rows of letters explaining that guests should find their name.

Our seating chart was also set up in the entryway area, where guests would return after the ceremony to find their seat for dinner.

While we were getting ready, our photographers took pictures of some of our personal details.

We read our vows from this sweet vows booklet during the ceremony, and I had a few of these handkerchiefs made with our wedding date embroidered on them, for happy tears. On two of the handkerchiefs, I had them stitch “Mother of the Bride” in blue above the date, and gave them to my mom and Grace’s mom before the ceremony. I figured they might need them!

My pearl bracelet in the picture above was my “something borrowed.” My grandfather, who I never met, gave it to my grandmother as an engagement present. I was honored to wear it on my own wedding day. The earrings above—from BHLDN—were my “something new” (along with my dress, veil, and shoes).

I knew I wanted a special hanger for my dress, but there are so many to choose from! I ended up going with something simple: our wedding date and a cute blue ribbon tied at the top.

Our wedding tablescapes were also simple. I wanted it to feel like a carefree summer night, so we had garlands of eucalyptus and blossoms on the dinner tables rather than large flower arrangements, and our table numbers were meant to blend in seamlessly with the rest of the decor.

One of my favorite moments of our wedding day was walking out from our ceremony through a shower of rose petals, tossed by our guests. To make that happen, we had little glassine bags of petals on each seat. I ordered custom stickers to stick on each bag, which read, “please toss as the newlyweds make their way back down the aisle!” with our initials in the middle.

I thought long and hard about whether to do a cake topper at all, but when I found out I could have custom dog-shaped toppers made, I was sold. I used this Etsy shop and was thrilled with how they turned out. Although Willie and Jellybean weren’t physically at our wedding, they were there in spirit!

I also had a gold cake cutting set engraved with our names and our wedding date that we used to cut our cake. I can’t wait to use it again when we slice into our top tier (frozen in our freezer right now) on our first wedding anniversary!

Planning these little details was so much fun, and I highly recommend using small details to bring an extra layer of meaning to your celebration.

All photos are by Jesse Marble and Jimmy Marble for Our Labor of Love

Our Wedding: Invitations & Paper

Today’s wedding post will be short and sweet, but I just had to share our invitations and ceremony programs! I love paper, cards, and invitations, and I honestly LOVED coming home after work this past spring and making progress on assembling our invitation suites every night. In the photo above, you can see we had an invitation card, a details card (with information about hotels in the area and the URL for our wedding website), a response card with a pre-stamped envelope, and a belly band with our names on it wrapping the whole thing together.

I also adore stamps and used to collect them when I was younger, so I knew I wanted to do something fun with stamps for our invitations. Because we were having our wedding in Southern California, I thought it would be fun to get some vintage cactus stamps for our envelopes. I found the ones I used on Etsy.

As for the wording of our invitation, I wanted to go traditional for the most part. If you can’t read it in the picture above, our invitations said,

The Rev. and Mrs. Kempton and Isabel Baldridge and Mr. and Mrs. Christopher and Sarah Capel

joyfully request the honor of your presence as they celebrate the marriage of their children

Grace Semler

and

Elizabeth Holland

and then the details of when and where. Because our parents’ last names were included at the top of the invitation, I used only Grace’s and my first and middle names, which I thought was sweet and old fashioned. Since our parents were very generously hosting our wedding, I wanted to make sure the invitations reflected that and put their names at the top.

I kept our ceremony programs simple and picked a style that would go well with our invitations. Rather than specifying “bridesmaids” and “groomsmen” (as we had no groom), we chose to just list our wedding party in two columns, with my people on the left and Grace’s on the right, reflecting the placement of where we stood during the ceremony.

I was so happy with the way our paper goods for our wedding turned out. This might be surprising to some, but Grace had a big hand in how they looked! I was initially drawn to calligraphy and big, script-y flourishes, but Grace encouraged me to go with something that was more straightforward, black and white, and classic looking. In the end, I totally agree with her, and I think our invitations are timeless. Thanks, Grace!

All photos are by Jesse Marble and Jimmy Marble for Our Labor of Love

Our Wedding: Gift Exchange

I’ve always loved the idea of exchanging gifts with Grace before walking down the aisle. Because we didn’t do a first look on our wedding day, giving each other a gift and a message while getting ready was something I was really looking forward to.

Back in 2015, once Grace and I had been dating for about a year in half, I knew marriage was my end game. We both really believed in focusing on the season we were in, and since we were “just” dating—and long distance at that—we did not discuss marriage in anything but the abstract. That meant I spent a lot of time pining for us to end up together and journaling/texting my best friends about it. At some point, I was so antsy to just tell Grace how I felt (but knowing it wasn’t the right time), and somehow I ended up writing Grace a letter pouring out my heart. But I didn’t give it to her. I sealed it up, wrote the date on the outside, and put it in a folder hidden behind my dresser. Through the years that followed, I wrote dozens more letters. Frustrated letters, impatient letters, joyful letters. I kept them hidden and never mentioned a word to Grace. Until our wedding day, August 4, 2018. I bought this house-shaped glass box to hold them all, and had my bridesmaid (and both of our best friend) Tina give it to Grace a couple of hours before we walked down the aisle.

I wrote one last letter explaining the whole thing to her. The box of letters lives in our house now, and every now and then, Grace pulls one out and reads it. It’s been really sweet and funny going through them all now that we are newlyweds.

Knowing that I had this collection of letters to give Grace, I told her I wanted to exchange gifts and gave her some ideas of what to get me :)

I figured Grace would get me some kind of jewelry but what she ended up finding was so meaningful. She gave me a beautiful gold necklace in the shape of a mountain, which looks like one of the first tattoos she ever got and also reminds me of the mountain ranges we saw on our drive to Alaska.

I love it and have been wearing it often since our wedding.

I also gave my parents gifts the day of our wedding, as a small way to thank them for the huge role they played in our wedding day and honor my last day as a Capel.

I gave my dad a gold compass engraved with the words, “I’ll cherish this walk forever” because he was walking me down the aisle.

I got my mom a gold locket that had a photo of her holding me as a baby on one side, and a recent photo of us on the other.

I love the idea of giving meaningful gifts on a wedding day. If you do a gift exchange, make sure to tell your photographer this is something you want captured! I’m so glad we have all of these reactions in photos.

All photos are by Jesse Marble and Jimmy Marble for Our Labor of Love

Our Wedding: Intentional Time Together

One thing I consistently heard as advice from people who have gotten married recently was to make sure we carved out some time on our wedding day to just be together, take a breath, and soak in the fact that we were now married. There is so much pressure to be with your guests who have traveled for your wedding—which is so important!—but it can also be hard to get any meaningful time with your new spouse. While the majority of our wedding day was of course spent with guests, with our families, and with our wedding party, making sure we had some intentional time together was a priority too.

I can think of four separate times on our wedding day when I felt like we got some alone time and could be giddy newlyweds together. Remember, we didn’t see each other before walking down the aisle, so we wanted to be sure to get at least some face time “just us” between the ceremony and the end of the night. They were:

Our Private Dinner. We asked our caterers to set up a small table around the corner from the lawn where our guests’ dinner tables were set up for a quiet dinner just the two of us. We also had two seats at our families’ table, but we quickly ate a separate dinner and were able to really enjoy our wedding food and just talk about the fact that we were now the Baldridges! It was so sweet and I’m so glad we chose to do it that way. Our caterers plated our dinners before the guests ate, so we were able to eat dinner and then rejoin the reception without being away too long. Our guests could also see glimpse of our table, so they weren’t wondering where we were.

Our Sunset Photos. While cocktail hour was going on, our photographers whisked us away for some golden hour magic. We actually got in their car and drove down the hill where they had noticed some beautiful golden grasses growing! Even though we were with our photographers, and not totally alone, this still felt like some time for us to take a deep breath and have fun together. Plus, our photographers are amazing, and it felt like we were sneaking away from the reception to goof off with some old friends :)

Waiting for Our Grand Exit. As I’ll share about in an upcoming post, we had a big sparkly “grand exit” from our reception that I was so excited about. It turned out gorgeous! While the guests were lining up and our wedding party and coordinator were directing everyone, Grace and I waited back inside the ranch house where we’d gotten ready that morning. We probably only had 5 minutes until our exit, but it was so fun to kick up our feet (after dancing all night) and take a minute to reflect on how much fun we’d had at our reception.

Our Getaway Car Ride. After our exit, we hopped into the back of a fun 1983 Rolls Royce convertible I had rented (with a driver so we didn’t have to worry about driving it!). We stayed at the nearby Westlake Village Inn and had about a 10 minute drive from the venue to our suite. Our venue has a very long (2-mile) driveway, and it’s in the middle of a nature preserve, so it’s very quiet. Driving down the driveway with the convertible top down, staring up at the stars and floating on cloud 9, was one of my favorite moments of the night. As much fun as our wedding was, it was even more fun to drive away from it, knowing we were stepping into our new lives!

We left on our honeymoon about 36 hours after tying the knot, so we had plenty of time to revel in our new season of life once we got there. But I still think it was so important that we spent some time on our wedding day itself intentionally focusing on each other and sharing in the joy of the vows we had just made. All told, we spent less than an hour alone on our wedding day, but because those times were so intentional, they meant a lot.

I highly recommend working with your coordinator to carve out these types of moments on your wedding day! We cherished ours!

All photos are by Jesse Marble and Jimmy Marble for Our Labor of Love

Our Wedding: Why We Didn't See Each Other Before Walking Down the Aisle

Grace and I did not see each other from our welcome drinks party the night before our wedding to when I walked down the aisle at 5:30pm on our wedding day. I knew from the beginning of wedding planning that I wanted to keep our wedding day very traditional in many ways, this being one of them. But I was surprised at how some of our vendors assumed we were doing a “first look” and how we even got push back from some prospective vendors on this (we didn’t hire any of them!).

For those who haven’t heard of it, a first look is when the couple sees each other in their wedding attire prior to the ceremony to take some photos and potentially avoid being as emotional walking down the aisle. I have nothing against first looks and think it’s a great choice for some couples. But I’ve always dreamed of walking down the aisle in my beautiful gown to my future spouse and seeing them for the first time that day. My mom had never even heard of a first look and many people in her generation seem to be surprised at the concept. But for people getting married these days it’s incredibly common. There are so many photographers and wedding blogs promoting the idea of doing a first look that I want to add a dissenting opinion: seeing each other for the first time when walking down the aisle is incredibly meaningful, and while we were both nervous prior to the ceremony, I’m so, so glad we kept with tradition on this one.

Yes, it’s old fashioned, but hanging with my best friends all day, hearing tid bits of what Grace was up to from girls running between the two bridal suites, and not seeing her until our ceremony gave me butterflies like nothing else and was so much fun. Because we knew our nerves would be running high, Grace and I decided to exchange a few texts the morning of our wedding, telling each other how excited we were.

Having a huge wedding party also helped, and we both got lots of pep talks and shared excited jitters with our best friends.

This is my best friend who also happened to set me up with Grace 5 years ago. She gave me the best pep talk when I was getting super nervous leading up to walking down the aisle.

After keeping my dress a secret for almost 9 months and not seeing Grace for about 16 hours before our ceremony, it was the most special thing in the world to walk down the aisle to her. I didn’t even notice our beautiful floral arch or “floating” white and green florals at the entrance to our aisle (you can see in the first photo in this post) until later, because I was so transfixed on Grace as soon as we locked eyes. Being able to finally hold hands and face each other was more joyful than I can ever describe. I know some wedding traditions are rooted in outdated ideas, but no matter the history, this one was beautiful.

Also just a reminder (this might be obvious) that just because you’re not a “traditional” bride-and-groom couple doesn’t mean you can’t claim traditions like this one as your own! I think part of the reason some prospective vendors were surprised at us waiting to see each other until our ceremony was precisely because we’re a gay couple. But I for one think there is nothing wrong with being old fashioned. You can look like a less traditional couple but still have an old fashioned love story, and I think that’s beautiful.

The one tricky thing about not doing a first look is that all of your wedding portraits as a couple have to be taken after the ceremony. But for us, as I’ll share in another post soon, having our wedding photographers whisk us away for some fun and beautiful sunset portraits together was one of my favorite parts of the night. I didn’t feel that not doing a first look hindered us at all in terms of getting amazing photos, but you do have to be sure to plan your whole day around the light. The sun didn’t set until almost 8pm on our wedding day, so we had a lot of time to take great pictures. If you’re having a fall or winter wedding, it’s a little more difficult, but I believe it’s still doable.

We had some prospective photographers doubt the ability to make our timeline happen without doing a first look, and our photographer’s willingness to go along with our vision was a big reason why we hired her. I encourage you to make it happen if waiting to see each other until walking down the aisle is something meaningful to you!

All photos are by Jesse Marble and Jimmy Marble for Our Labor of Love