Why my [our] wedding weekend was the best weekend

All photos are by Jessica Czarnecki except for the photos on Sunday (lunch and party)

On August 6 and 7 Jaime and I got married and it was one of the best weekends of my life. I’ve been wanting to write for a while about just what made my wedding weekend celebration so perfect but I haven’t gotten around to it until now.





We got our marriage license a few weeks before the wedding weekend:



First, Jaime and I planned our weeded wedding in less than two months. With that said, of course, we knew we were going to have a very small - call it a micro - wedding. So we decided to have Saturday be a tiny intimate day (nine invitees) and Sunday be a larger funner day with most of our close LA friends. Now when you get married and decide to have a very small wedding everyone tells you “good for you that’s amazing because it really is about you and your partner and what you want to do.” And while I get this sentiment, small weddings are the trend now, just because it’s small doesn’t mean that it’s just about you and your partner. If that were the case you would elope! Having a micro wedding is sometimes even more socially dramatic than having a big wedding because you only invite a few people. And then you have to navigate the social dynamics of that. To tell people or to not tell people who aren’t invited? You end up spending a lot of time and neurons considering this. It was important to me that my loved ones who weren’t invited knew about the wedding, for the most part, and that it was going to be very small with mostly local contacts going.

Behind the scenes! Loved this picture so much because it features my late mother's Mother of Pearl purse

 

In any case, to kick off our wedding weekend we had a pizza party at Jaime’s close friends’ house. It was mostly just the people who would be coming to the ceremony the next day. It was such a blast. Then the next day, Saturday, Jaime and I ended up having a wedding ceremony on the beach in Los Angeles and had a total of about nine friends and family, a friend who did the video, a friend who did the photos, and the ordained minister who is also a friend.

One of the most memorable things for me was that I ended up inviting an aunt from each of my parents' sides. One paternal aunt and one maternal aunt, representing each of my deceased parents. I love these aunts so much and so the experience of having them there was one that I cherish with all my heart. We had the most beautiful little ceremony, with our minister singing a precious song. After the ceremony, we went to the restaurant where Jaime worked and had an intimate brunch with everyone who was at the ceremony.

In addition to my mom's sister Barbara being present, I love that this tattoo made it into some of our wedding shots. This is my mom's mom's maiden name, Choque. On my other hand I have Jaime's last name.

 

I definitely got drunk (LOL!) off champagne and tequila shots they kept bringing out and then we ended up going to the Angeleno Hotel Pool to hang out, which is where my aunt and my mother-in-law were staying.

 

 Jaime and I woke up on Sunday morning and grabbed Mike’s Deli (yum!) before getting ready for the next day's celebrations. On Sunday, we decided to go to a day party that my friends throw every Sunday in the summer in downtown Los Angeles - Subsuelo Sundays at Caña Rum Bar. It is a very fun party. And before that, we had lunch at a restaurant right across the street. It was so perfect because it was a casual place and you pay as you order, so we didn’t have to deal with a big bill and people just paid as they ordered and people came and went. We ended up having about 25 people come through to that, and it was so much fun. And then we all walked over to the bar for the day party across the street. The theme of that particular party that day was Jamaican Independence Day. So it was mostly Jamaican music with some Latin beats coming in and out. It was so fun to party with strangers and also a ton of people that I know. Some of them were completely surprised that I came in a white dress and was celebrating my wedding. I even threw my beautiful bouquet that my aunt Traci made me and a complete stranger caught it.

 

A wonderful weekend and a wonderful wedding. I wouldn’t have done it any differently! Cheap, no-nonsense, fun, mindful, and drama-free! Loved it. Thanks to everyone who played a part or sent their love and well wishes!