Dustin and I met performing in the National Tour of Mamma Mia in 2015! We were the understudies for Sophie and Sky and our first kiss was during an understudy rehearsal. Our second kiss was at a Qdoba Mexican Restaurant on Valentine’s Day. They had a “2 for 1” special on burritos if you kissed someone at the cash register so we decided to go and “practice our lines” with a scene that ended in a kiss. Later that day we both admitted that the free burritos had just been an excuse to get to kiss each other. The rest is history!

I was doing a show in San Diego and Dustin was visiting and took me out to dinner in Balboa Park. We stopped for a photo in front of a fountain and before I knew it, he was down on one knee! Friends and family were scattered all around the fountain cheering and I hadn’t even noticed them!

We wanted our wedding to be small and personal and outside in nature. We share a great love of the outdoors so all we knew for sure was that we wanted to be in the mountains!

Lake Tahoe was the perfect balance of “sea to summit.” Where else could we get married on a beach but also see the most gorgeous mountains in the background?! Not to mention the post wedding hikes!

We wanted the whole day to be fun and casual and a little bit messy! I put on my white dress and, instead of fancy footwear, I donned my trusty hiking boots. I’ve backpacked over 500 miles with Dustin in those boots! We bounced around a few locations getting fun pre wedding photos, kicked off our shoes to get married in the sand, and finished our day wading out into the (freezing!) lake, still dressed in our wedding best. It was adventurous and fun and perfect!

Just our immediate families: parents and siblings.

The best part of planning was discovering some of the beautiful locations around the lake. I thought I already knew the area pretty well but thanks to Lisa and our other vendors, we discovered some wonderful new spots we’d never been to! The most challenging part was planning anything during a pandemic. We pushed back our wedding almost a year and had to make a lot of last minute and spontaneous choices. But everything worked out beautifully!

I’ll never forget making it back our hotel room, soaking wet and freezing but absolutely over the moon, and shaking out what felt like five pounds of sand from the train of my wedding dress!

Pretty much every moment felt like a highlight. But I loved our simple ceremony that had us both bawling like babies and I loved sitting down for a picnic on the beach with our families before the sunset.

Mainly the weather! It looked like it was going to be very cold or rain- it’s just one of those things that you can’t control- but after constantly going back and forth, it ended up being a gorgeous sunny day!

Just go with the flow! So many details on your wedding day are out of your control and it’s all so much fun if you don’t worry about controlling every detail. Everything about the day ended up feeling absolutely perfect to us and a lot of that was due to the fact that we didn’t have built up expectations.

Lisa was truly the best! She captured every moment and found the most wonderful places for us to experience our day. She wasn’t just our photographer, she was basically our point person for the entire wedding experience. We had to make so many changes because of the pandemic and she handled every one of them with grace. And obviously we could make a whole catalogue of the GORGEOUS pre, during, and post wedding shots!!

Florist: Twine Floral Co.

Cake: Lake Tahoe Cakes

Hair and Makeup Artist: Rah Hair Studio Tahoe

Catering: Reverie Picnics

Officiant: Meghan Ruiz

Venue: Round Hill Pines Beach