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Jennifer and Darren’s Sedona wedding story is one of many miles…this couple who likes to travel incorporated many personal touches into their day as well as a few nods to the geography they love so much!
Jennifer gave Darren custom-made map cufflinks as a wedding gift. One cufflink shows a map of Jennifer’s hometown, Seattle, and the other shows a map of Darren’s hometown, Perth, Australia. They were custom-made by Tomatomade (on Etsy.com)
Jennifer and Darren chose greens with accents of plum and incorporated native Australian flowers to reflect Darren’s home country. How much do you love that?! Jennifer explains more: Our colors, flowers and passion for travel also translated throughout the event including table cards identifiable by favorite airport codes and photos from each destination (which we made ourselves), and our green suitcase wedding cake by Sedona Cake Couture. Afterwards, we realized one of our favorite take-aways from the wedding were the “GuestLibs” we created for our guests to sign instead of a traditional guest book. We prepared fill-in-the-blank cards for our guests to fill in blessings and wishes for us. They were overwhelmingly, unexpectedly thoughtful and creative in what they wrote. We plan to make a framed word collage of the key words and phrases to display in our home as a constant reminder of the good wishes and blessings from our friends and family
The thoughtful touches continue…since our ceremony location was naturally beautiful, we wanted everything else to be very simple so as not to detract from the view. We made our own, simple chuppah, topped with chofa at the corners for good luck (brought from Thailand by a friend especially for the occasion), and it was carried down the aisle by the wedding party. We wanted to include our immediate family and close friends in the ceremony and asked several of them to write blessings for us, which they read during the ceremony. We also performed a sand ceremony symbolizing our union, using beach sand from near Darren’s home in Perth, Western Australia, and Jennifer’s home near Seattle.
I asked Jennifer about the Ketubah in her ceremony: We signed a beautiful watercolor interfaith wedding ketubah (Jewish wedding contract) that we found on Ketubah.com. We read the ketubah to each other as our vows during the ceremony, and it will hang in our home as a piece of artwork and a reminder of our commitment to each other.
How much do you love this cake? Sedona Cake Couture always impresses me…
I’m not sure if you have noticed but beer, especially homebrew beer, is very popular in general but particularly at weddings these days. Jennifer and Darren cleverly incorporated beer at their wedding in a meaningful way: As part of our reception, we created a beer tasting with an interactive, multimedia slideshow telling the story of our journey together. We featured five beers that represented our travels: our favorite local beer (bottled for us by Jim from Oak Creek Brewery), a beer from the first place we traveled together (Jackson Hole, Wyoming), the national beer of Thailand (one of our favorite places), a custom wedding IPA made by a friend (who also grew the hops for the beer), and a stout from Western Australia (which was transported by Darren’s family).
KG: What was your favorite part if the day?
J/D: Our favorite part of the day was being able to share a very personalized reflection of us with our family and friends. This started with our choice of ceremony location, Spirit Song at L’Auberge, overlooking one of our favorite places, the red rocks of Sedona. With the help of our officiant, we created a very meaningful ceremony. It was not overly traditional, but every aspect of the ceremony had personal significance. We particularly liked our homemade chuppah (Jewish wedding canopy), seven blessings written and read by our family and close friends, and the sand ceremony.
KG: Did you go on a honeymoon?
J/D: Darren had several family members who traveled from Australia to be with us, so instead of a traditional honeymoon we took two weeks and traveled all around the west coast while Darren’s brother, sister-in-law, and parents were here. We hiked Yosemite, tasted wine in Napa, explored San Francisco and Monterey, drove the Pacific Coast Highway, and ended with a trip to Disneyland, including lunch at Club 33. We plan to take more traditional solo honeymoon in Thailand or elsewhere in Asia the next time we venture down under to visit family in Australia.
KG: What advice do you have for couples planning their wedding?
J/D: A bit of advice is to chose really good vendors, clearly convey the key elements about what you want, and let them do the rest! We chose really great vendors that all knew each other, worked well together and knew the venue. Prior to our big day we conveyed the most important elements to the vendors, allowing them the freedom to do what they do best and allowing us to focus fully on enjoying every aspect of our wedding.
Jennifer and Darren, CONGRATULATIONS and thank you for sharing your wedding day with us!
Jennifer and Darren’s Real Arizona Wedding Team:
Ceremony Site: L’Auberge de Sedona, Spirit Song
Reception Site: L’Auberge de Sedona, Creek House
Photographer: Sedona Bride Photographers
Bridal Gown Store: Suzanne’s Bridal Boutique
Bridesmaids Dresses: Macy’s
Tuxedos: Jos A. Bank
Florist: Events by Showstoppers
Invitations: Minted
Cake: Sedona Cake Couture
Ceremony Music and DJ: Sedona Sounds
Jeweler: Diamond House
Make-up Artist and Hair Stylist: La Petit Spa, Patricia Vega
Officiant: Patricia Ballentine, family friend
Hotel Accomodations: L’Auberge de Sedona
Rehearsal Dinner Site: L’Auberge de Sedona, Creek House
Happy Planning from your Arizona Wedding Blog!
Kelly
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