Joe and Amanda's Wedding in Topanga, California

Luckily, my family members and team of vendors were absolutley AMAZING the entire week. They all found a way to calm my fears and ensured that they could all change plans at a moments notice. My wedding planner especially was an angel and calmed my every worry. She constantly reminded me that the only thing that truly mattered was that my husband and I were able to be together and to marry one another, the decorations, the venue, even the guests, were all just merely additions to what really mattered, that we were coming together as one. That really brought me back down to earth and made me realize that as long as we'd be married, it didn't matter where or how.

NOW- Thursday night (2 days before our wedidng day), winds had shifted enough and the fire was being contained away from Topanga Canyon so we were given the green light from our venue coordinator that we could still in fact hold our wedding as planned.

Saturday morning, I woke up to the most beautiful, sunny morning. There was not a cloud in the sky, nor could you even tell the area was, days before, engulfed in dark smoke up above. My beauty team arrived and my bridesmaids and I had the most amazing morning getting ready together, blasting all my favorite music, laughter filled the air and I just felt to light, I swear I felt like I was literally glowing from all the happiness.

My wedding was hands down, a dream come true. Every inch of the venue was decorated just perfectly and just being in the space, I knew my guests would instantly feel mine and my husband's spirit and love, which is exactly what I wanted and worked to attain throughout the planning process.

I'd always imagined my wedding being a little out of the box, not necessarily your "cookie-cutter" wedding. I wanted every single one of our guests to feel like they'd been transported to a whimsical place away from everyday society, a place where everyone could and would feel cozy and comfortable. A place were we could all just enjoy each other's company. Every wedding is a celebration of two people's love, but I also wanted to celebrate our friends and family who watched and supported our love as it grew- from the moment we met, to the moment we'd be standing face to face at the altar.

Every detail of our wedding was meticulously planned by my husband and I. I'm a huge Disney fan, so as guests entered our venue, they were greeted with a sign with Walt Disney's famous quote, as he opened Disneyland : "To all who come to this happy place, welcome." I even walked down the aisle to a classical version of Aladdin's "A Whole New World." A song that still gives me goosebumps to this day.

A really unique feature of our relationship, is that we met in college, where we both played Division 1 soccer. Because of that, majority of our friends and teammates were actually friends of each Joey (my husband) and I before we even became a couple. I think that is one of my favorite parts of our wedding and really just our life in general. We have a tight knit group of friends that know both of us as individuals and as a couple, it certainly makes get togethers a lot of fun (and very competitive).

Because we like being a little "out of the box" we had to mix up some of your traditional wedding moments. One of those was my father-daughter dance, my dad is a big jokester and loves making people laugh so we knew right away we were going to break out some (rather embarrassing) dance moves. The second, came from our wardrobe change. In the midst of all the dancing, we snuck away to change and had our DJ shortly announce that we had gone missing. Then, as our favorite Queen song (Don't Stop Me Now) started playing, Joey's best men opened the dance hall doors. We re-emerged in our new outfits to a choreographed dance that our wedding party shortly joined in for, followed by our guests. It was such a fun moment to see everyone so surprised and then just let loose. Even people who didn't really know each other started dancing together!

We had an absolute blast and watch our wedding video all the time, just in awe at how beautiful the day truly was.

I've linked our wedding video here if you'd like to give it a look: https://vimeo.com/382837624