Remem­ber that wee­kend in July when we were all going to melt? 96 degrees and 85% humidity?

Well, that’s the day that Lau­rie Beth (LB!) and Nick got married. A heat wave never loo­ked so good. It was nearly impos­si­ble for me to narrow down the shots for this post. I wan­ted to share them all!

I arri­ved at Zor­vino Vine­yards and was gree­ted by these ado­ra­ble cus­tom signs!

Then it was up to the bri­dal suite to find the girls. The stun­ning, gor­geous, fan­tas­tic girls. I’m 100% sure LB could have a career as a Cover Girl model should her whole “being a law­yer” thing not pan out.

Trying to stay ahead of the heat wave!

This little guy was so good all day. Even when he was frus­tra­ted and not inte­res­ted in wea­ring that ado­ra­ble tuxedo, he was still a trooper.

If you do one thing for your wed­ding, I urge you to order or make a sweet han­ger for your attire. Etsy has a ton of them, star­ting in the $10 – 15 range, or you can make your own! (if you goo­gle DIY wed­ding han­ger there are tons of results)

LB — you take my breath away. GORGEOUS!!!!

A card from her father left ever­yone in tears.

LB & Nick chose to do a first look. I’m so in love with this action — it’s full of jit­ters and anti­ci­pa­tion — with ins­tant gra­ti­fi­ca­tion of being able to embrace each other imme­dia­tely and tell the one you love exactly how you’re fee­ling with out having to wait out the dura­tion of the cere­mony. Never once have I seen it les­sen the look of awe and enchant­ment on each other’s faces the approach to the aisle/​officiant com­men­ces after.

Nick was so sweet though — and refu­sed to kiss her on the lips until the cere­mony. The per­fect com­bi­na­tion of first look/​not first look if you ask me!

This quiet few minu­tes together gave them peace of mind and time to really take each other in before the cra­zi­ness of the day began.

And allo­wed us to get some of the “for­ma­li­ties” out of the way too — more time to party later!

Here’s the whole gang– cutie patoo­tie inc­lu­ded. He had no inte­rest in stan­ding and promptly plop­ped him­self down on the ground. I love it! Kids have their own agen­das and for­cing them to do “the right thing” can just cause undue stress for ever­yone invol­ved. Let them march to their own drum­mer a little bit and the results can be ado­ra­ble! — Oh, and have I men­tio­ned how hot it was? Nick’s brother Alex was at the ready to keep his brother pic­ture per­fect all after­noon

The other great thing about the first look was that we all had time to duck back inside Zor­vino and cool down and hydrate. I must say the staff there is always fan­tas­tic, but they were espe­cially good about making sure ever­yone, myself inc­lu­ded, had access to water!!

After a cool down it was time to get down to the busi­ness of marrying.

Nick is Greek (you know, in case the han­ger saying “Mrs. Plia­kos” didn’t give it away)  They incor­po­ra­ted some Greek tra­di­tions in to the cere­mony, inc­lu­ding the Crow­ning Cere­mony, per­for­med by his Uncle (I think, sorry if I’m wrong guys!) and his brother.

s|w|a|k!

After the cere­mony we took a few moments to wan­der the grounds at the vine­yard and take some newly wed­ded photos!

These two should be cata­log models. For real.

This is pro­bably one of my top ten memo­ra­ble wed­ding hap­pe­nings. The day before the wed­ding I get an email from LB.. “OH and another thing– my little sis­ter is 8, and she is the big­gest tom­boy ever, so she’s wea­ring a dress for the cere­mony and then I got her a tux to change into for the recep­tion, and she is SO exci­ted. Can you try to get a cou­ple cute pic­tu­res of her in it? That would be awe­some ” And pho­tos we got! And let me tell you, she roc­ked that tux all.night.long!

The recep­tion star­ted off like most, entrance right into first dance surroun­ded by love and friends and family–

I hea­ded up to the bal­cony to get the bird’s eye view, and when I loo­ked down, I saw all the love and friends and family — and the cou­ple being sho­we­red with money!

Like I said,I have a hard time narro­wing down my favo­ri­tes in this wed­ding, but this is defi­ni­tely one of them.

The cutest part? Any­time there was money thrown at the cou­ple, the kids had to run around and collect it for them. My next wed­ding will be a Greek Wed­ding.. I mean, my name is Greek, so that’s close enough right? (oh yes, Melissa Koren.. it means “honey bee, little girl” … thanks mom & dad)

A wedding’s not a wed­ding until Bum­ble­bee & Opti­mus Prime show up. True? True. Plus, in order to get a pic­ture of this hand­some face, I had to give the Trans­for­mers their clo­seups.

I loved the sim­ple, color­ful centerpieces!

And the vine­yard the­med cake!

s|w|a|k (and fros­ting this time too!)

And then the dan­cing began.

I love when other cul­tu­res are infu­sed into “Ame­ri­can” wed­dings. LOVE IT. And with that, I have make a con­fes­sion .. I can’t pos­si­ble write this whole post without admit­ting how much I loved the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wed­ding”. How I want to fix everything with Win­dex. And how this is also pro­bably one of the top ten dance moments for me. *dork much?* yes, yes I am.

LB and Nick mono­po­li­zed the dance floor all night long. I know I’ve men­tio­ned it before, but I can’t tell you how much I love it when the cou­ple actually gets down at their wedding!

And spea­king of get­ting down — remem­ber how I said Julie roc­ked out in her tux? Well she not only roc­ked out, but she threw down the dance gaunt­let repea­tedly. And won time after time! Show ‘em how it’s done girl!

Just before I was about to leave we tried to find a quiet cor­ner to sign the marriage license. Alex pro­cu­red a makeshift desk­top from out of nowhere! He’s magic that one!

With the sun gone to bed for the eve­ning, the air had coo­led down a bit. We snuck outside for a few final pho­tos and I bid LB & Nick a fond fare­well lea­ving them to their hap­pily ever after and taking with me another chap­ter of phe­no­me­nal cha­rac­ters in the m|k|p story.

LB & Nick took a moment to review me on Wed­ding­Wire. And for that I am hono­red and hum­bled! Thank you so much!

When we chose Melissa to be our wed­ding pho­to­grapher, we had no idea that we would also be get­ting a seamstress/​medic/​extra bri­des­maid extraor­di­naire! She was WONDERFUL and lite­rally saved the day about 8 times. Exam­ple: when someone step­ped on my gown and broke my bustle during the recep­tion, she drop­ped her camera, whip­ped out a sewing kit, and sewed me a new bustle in 2 minu­tes flat. AMAZING. Throughout the day, she was calm, rela­xed, and pro­fes­sio­nal, but at the same time, she kept everything moving so that we could get inside and enjoy our reception. 

On top of being just all around awe­some, Melissa took inc­re­di­ble pho­tos; we lite­rally sat at the com­pu­ter crying and laughing out loud as we loo­ked through them. Bot­tom line– anyone can take a pic­ture, but it takes an artist to cap­ture a moment, and Melissa does just that. We highly recom­mend her!