Our Beach Wedding

7/17/07 is when Brandon and I officially tied the knot. Yes... that is a whole whopping 16 days after we were engaged, and no I was not pregnant =-P At this point he and I had been dating for 3 and a half years and we were inseperable!

We had already set an appointment with a photographer to get our engagement shots on the beach that day. After some thought we decided just to turn the engagement photo shoot into an actual wedding! As I mentioned earlier it was definitely a whirlwind, spur of the moment event because we were moving to Tucson just a few days later. We crazy kids decided - "Let's just get married!!" then everything seemed to fall into place. My mom had a friend who made my bouquet, I already had the perfect sundress towear, the weather was perfect, and a family friend of Brandon's happened to be in town who is also a pastor!

It was so much fun and felt so spontaneous! We knew we would still have a big wedding the next summer - our parent's wouldn't let us skip that even if we wanted to. So, after work on a Tuesday evening we all gathered at the beach in Channel Islands Harbour for our vwedding ceremony. It was so laid back and casual, which is definitely our style. In attendance was each of our parents, a pastor and a photographer! It was so intimate and personal. After we said our vows we all gathered for champagne and toasts! The champagne was a surprise to us, planned by our parents. It was great to see the raw emotion in eachother and also our parents over this big decision we had made. We were so happy that they were all so supportive and happy for us! His mom even booked us a reservation in the Honeymoon suite at the Ventura Sheraton, right on the beach and loaned us her Lexus convertable so we could ride home in style! Heck ya!

The best part of this wedding is that it was only about us! At our big wedding the following summer it was easy to get caught up in everything going on (time schedules, our guests, the evenings events etc)that we couldn't get much time for just the two of us. It was really great to have this beach wedding so small and intimate. We also loved playing in the water and sand

afterwards! (As seen in these pictures). We were so happy and in love that we barely noticed how cold the water was =-D

Our first big leap into our future together!