A Second-Wedding Garden Elopement in Mendocino

Married in the Woods at the Mendocino Botanical Gardens

They married in a clearing in the woods, under the closed-cone pines the property is known for, ferns and rhododendron close on every side and a few red fuchsia blooming in the green. Jeanine came down to "You and Me" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the processional they had picked for a wedding with no aisle of chairs — only the trees. The old pines arched over the whole clearing, their trunks bent and mossed, the woodland light coming down soft and diffuse.

Kathleen stood between them in a dark robe with her notes in hand, her curly gray hair catching the light while she read. There was no crowd sound, no footsteps in chairs, no noise from a parking lot — just the three of them under the canopy while Jeff, in a soft blue shirt with the dried boutonniere at his chest, and Jeanine, her tattooed shoulders bare above the black satin, held their hands together for the rings. The Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens run forty-seven acres from the highway down to the coastal bluffs, the woodland tucked inland from the exposed headlands, and the clearing felt like a place set aside on purpose. The ceremony was short and entirely theirs, the vows landing quietly between the two of them, the officiant, and the woods.

“The processional played to no chairs at all — just the two of them, an officiant, and the pines.”

A Toast, a First Dance, and the Late-Summer Blooms

Right after the vows came a champagne toast, and then a first dance — the two of them alone in the gardens to Norah Jones' "Come Away with Me." From there they walked the grounds for portraits, Jeanine carrying that autumn bouquet along the garden paths, up the wooden steps of one of the cabins, past the tall green hedges, the terracotta and rust of the flowers glowing against all that green. She stopped on a garden path mid-laugh, the bouquet held out in both hands, the coastal light soft and gray overhead.

The paths carried them past an ivy-covered yellow cottage, built in 1877, its front lettered above the door, and all the way down to where the gardens meet the coastal bluffs and the surf runs white over the rocks below. The Dahlia Garden blooms hardest in August and September, which put Jeanine and Jeff among the flowers at exactly the right week of the year.

Off to Dinner, Just the Two of Them

There was no reception hall to move to. The celebration was dinner, just the two of them, out on their own. They left the gardens to Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling in Love," and the send-off closed a day built for exactly two people.

A morning getting ready, vows in the woods, a dance among the blooms, and dinner to follow — a whole wedding for two, on the Mendocino coast, and not a thing about it they had to explain to anyone.