Two Grooms, a Same-Sex Micro Wedding in the Russian River Valley

Portraits Through the Stavrand Orchards and Gardens

After the vows came the walk through the grounds. The Stavrand sits on nearly six acres, its orchard trees threaded with redwood groves, enough range in one place to move through the family groupings without anyone going far. Both grooms gathered their parents in close for photographs among the trees — a dad in navy, a mom in periwinkle blue, a small dog off at the edge, everyone laughing. Hardy Wilson worked them through it.

Then Derrick and Rocky took their own portraits, holding hands in a green meadow at golden hour, the redwoods dark behind them and their shadows running long across the grass. There is a moment of them alone in the trees, close and unhurried, the estate quiet around them.

Dinner, Toasts, and Lucky Devils Band in the Redwoods

Champagne came out first, the grooms clinking flutes on the lawn as the family drifted in around them. Then dinner moved indoors under a wood-plank ceiling and a pair of round iron candle chandeliers. A long table ran the length of the room, a garland of greenery and candles down its center, place cards at every seat.

Toasts went around, and Derrick and Rocky cut their cake from Sweet C's Cakeshoppe, feeding each other a bite while the room filmed it on their phones. Lucky Devils Band played the evening live, and the weekend they had built for themselves in the Russian River Valley carried on around them, candlelit and loud, well into the night.