It wasn’t that long ago that Kaylene, Nils and I were running on Roberts Beach during their Monterey engagement session. We returned to the same spot with their family and friends on a Saturday in late September for their Monterey Beach wedding.
People get married in Monterey in September because there’s less chance of being subjected to Monterey’s pervasive fog. The cold wet stuff was polite on that Saturday and decided to stay away until after the ceremony’s conclusion, providing a gorgeous blue background for a touching ceremony.
And while the beach was beautiful, the real star at Kaylene & Nils’ Monterey wedding was the reception venue: Their home, which they lovingly transformed into a cozy space peppered with handmade details.
The two of them clearly did a lot of work, and it showed. There were wine barrels that served as containers for drinks, hand-printed wood blocks as table numbers, an accompanying hand-lettered seating chart, a wood-burning stove surrounded by a semi-circle of chairs, a section of couches and easy chairs covered with linens that matched the wedding colors and created an outdoor space that felt like a living room.
After dinner, Kaylene & Nils gave a speech in which Nils, who served as a planner in Afghanistan, described the extensive preparations made for a particular military operation there. He then said that the planning for that operation paled in comparison to the planning needed to turn their home into a reception venue for their wedding. The joke got a lot of laughs, but I suspect he wasn’t really joking.
The day went smoothly with help from a great team of vendors — Patty and the crew from from Every Last Detail Wedding & Event Coordination, Jerry from Kona Jerry’s BBQ Catering, Hanni and Jesse from Lilify Floral, and others.
Kaylene and Nils have been a wonderful and fun couple to work with from the beginning, and the friends and family at their wedding were cut from the same cloth. Everybody let loose on the dancefloor and had a great time socializing under the oak trees in the backyard. A wonderful night all around.
Check out some of my favorite pictures from the day below.
