Family and Friends Time

When planning our wedding, one very important element for us was that the wedding not just be one long hectic day, but rather a whole weekend to celebrate with our nearest and dearest. This was one of the reasons, besides the budget obviously, that we decided to keep the guest count under 90 people, and this was also one of the reasons we chose to have a pseudo-destination-wedding. We chose Palm Springs because it was driving distance from LA for those who could not stay longer, but it was also far enough away for people to stop and stay a while.

Most of our close friends and family got to Palm Springs on the Wednesday before our Sunday wedding. Because everyone came early and all of our wedding plans were already completed, Jonathon and I were able to just relax and celebrate for an entire week with the wedding being the exclamation point in the middle of all the fun.

I really can't express enough how great it was to spend so much time with our best friends and families before the big day. We just felt so surrounded by love and positivity, it was so special.

On Wednesday night my best friend Lindzee and her husband Erik got into town first and we took them out to eat at a local Mexican restaurant called El Gallito. If you are in the Coachella Valley I highly recommend you stop and have some huevos rancheros. It was great to see their beautiful faces and talk a while, but also it really made the whole thing feel real. We were geared up and ready to rock!



On the Thursday night before our Sunday wedding Jonathon and I both celebrated our bachelor and bachelorette parties in a big way. (Pics and post to come shortly, I promise). You can imagine though how fab it was to have the entire day Friday to recuperate and do absolutely nothing. We started off the day with my dad, stepmom, big bro and little bro and sis at breakfast and then spent the day just hanging out by the pool at the Ace Hotel with everyone we love. It was one of the best decisions we could have made regarding our wedding weekend. We had an absolute blast lounging around and catching up with all of our friends.

I also got to celebrate my lil bro's 10th birthday in person!


After all of that fun in the sun Jonathon and I got all of our friends together and took them all out to one of our favorite restaurants in Palm Springs for a pre-party before hitting the bars again together. Luckily all of our friends became friends and we pretty much had a perfect day and night.





For Jonathon and I both, our friends are like family to us, so spending time with them around our wedding day was such a huge deal. Besides all of the time at the bars and parties and events, just sitting around in our hotel rooms with our friends and family was some of the best memories we both have from our wedding. I felt like a beautiful bride because I had a groom waiting for me, but also because I had all of my favorite people around me too.