Orcutt Ranch Wedding

A groom who learned Spanish for his vows and a bride who negotiated over camping in hers – Wendy and Chris are certainly a special couple! Their gorgeous wedding at Orcutt Ranch is so full of love, light and positivity, and Dahlphotog did a brilliant job capturing that spirit.

Our theme for our wedding was organic, tree, love and life and our colors were fuchsia, gray and a hint of lime green. Chris and I married September 15, 2012 in a beautiful hidden gem in West Hills called Orcutt Ranch. We created our wedding ceremony from scratch and had two of our good friends marry us under a beautiful old tree surrounded by an abundance of trees. Chris loves camping and nature, so we felt this was a good representation of who he is. I, on the other hand, do not find camping too amusing but do love the beauty of mother earth so we felt Orcutt Ranch was a good start to our co-commitment and co-creative relationship. Although I did vow to him that ‘I promise to support you with all your ideas and adventures, even if it means camping but can we negotiate glamping (glamorous camping) once in awhile?’

We decided to do a planting of a tree ceremony as a representation of our love. When my mother found out we were planting a tree, she kindly gifted us a money tree for abundance. Since we were in the trees theme, I opted out of doing traditional place cards and decided to gather leaves, paint them gold and write the table name and guest name on each one of them. Chris and I feel so blessed for life that our table settings were inspirational affirmations. We had our guests sign in on a thumbprint guest book tree and we decided to gift them with real trees they can plant at home and remember us by. It was so beautiful.

My favorite part of our wedding ceremony was when Chris surprised me by saying his vows in Spanish. He hired a tutor and worked for 3 months before the wedding. It was amazing, he had it all down, even the accents. My family was very impressed; it definitely brought tears to my eyes to know that this man loves me so much and would do something so special.

A big hit for our wedding were the ice pops. On our wedding day, it was over 100 degrees. We knew we needed to do something to cool off our guests, and what better way than to provide refreshing fruit bars from Fruitfull? We made a sign that read ‘our love is too hot so cool off with ice pops!’ It was awesome, everyone was happy to have something so refreshing after the ceremony on a very hot day.

Chris and I tend not to follow traditions, but my something new was my dress, my blue was our wedding date embroidered in blue inside my dress, my something old was a gift from my mother-in-law, a bonnet Chris wore when he was born that I used as a hanky, and my borrowed was crystal hair accessories from my friend.

Another big hit was our music; we had a live mariachi band and a great DJ. The mariachi was a big hit especially to Chris’ family as it was something new for them. Our DJ was phenomenal – he had all of our guests dancing the whole night. Chris asked our DJ to play ‘Must Be Doin’ Somethin’ Right’ by Billy Currington and my heart melted. Chris and I both love this song, and it was so magical dancing with him. Our wedding was absolutely magical and every time I reminisce about our day my heart is filled with joy and happiness.
– Wendy