A Redwoods Park Ceremony and an SF Waterfront Steak Dinner

Getting Ready for the Redwoods Park Ceremony

Hair and makeup started early with DreamCatcher Artistry, several family members in the chair before Carolina. Her dress was a clean strapless satin gown with a softly folded neckline, worn with her dark hair down, pearl earrings, and a delicate initial necklace. The bouquet came from Vanda Floral Design — a loose, garden-gathered mix of pink roses, peach garden roses, tulips, chamomile daisies, and baby's breath in a spray of greenery, bound with a dusty-rose ribbon.

Up in the hills, Roberts Regional Park was set and waiting: forty-one wood chairs lined along the grove with a white runner down the middle of the forest floor. Ethan got ready in an ivory dinner jacket with a black bow tie, and their officiant, Janette Say Yes, pinned his white boutonnière on among the redwood trunks before the family began to gather.

Vows Under the Redwoods at Roberts Regional Park

The groom walked in first with his parents, then the ring bearer and flower girls — three young cousins, the youngest five — followed by the bridesmaids and groomsmen, the women in floral prints and deep teal. Carolina came last, on her uncle's arm alongside her mother, down the white runner as the afternoon light dropped through the canopy in long soft columns.

Janette Say Yes married them in the grove, the family close in the chairs on the forest floor, a small girl in the front row holding a basket of petals and a boy beside her in a bow tie. The kids were right there for all of it. Carolina and Ethan exchanged their rings under the tallest trees, the redwoods standing up dark and straight all around the little clearing.