Phillip Balestreri and Brittany Balestreri's Wedding in Soledad, California

The story of our wedding

A bottle of champagne, a box full of French pastries from a local pâtisserie, the sun setting behind the iconic Eiffel Tower and one very important question. I’d say it was the perfect start to any engagement.

A year-long engagement allocated an abundant amount of time to plan our wedding at ease.

“You will argue,”

I can’t tell you how many times we had other couples tell us that we would fall into the “disagreements on the details” trap. It wasn’t always easy but we decided early on to never let the true meaning of the day get away and we always reminded each other that our wedding would work our perfectly, even if it didn’t happen exactly as we planned.

And we were right.

Our wedding day was absolute magic. Like an orchestra led by family, friends and our wedding planner, we watched the months unfolded and rebuild into the day we had been dreaming about for the past year. It was was truly a work of art. We had both our ceremony and reception at Paraiso Vineyards, a true gem nestled into the hilltops overlooking the checkerboard of agriculture fields on the valley floor. We wanted to create a comfortable atmosphere and A STARR Events helped us do just that. Beautiful green garlands of eucalyptus and olive hung from the tent ceilings, couches and lounge chairs were constructed out of hay bails and covered with old country quilts, the venue held our crowd of 175 perfectly, never feeling crowded, and local BBQ skirt steak and chicken was served for dinner. We have been told countless times that our wedding food was the best they’ve ever had. And for all the people who told us we wouldn’t eat on our wedding day—we both had seconds!