One year ago (a few days ago) me and Josh were eloping in Napa, California. Still the best decision we made (both eloping and marrying each other 😉 ) And now, a year later I realized that I haven’t shared many of our weddings photos or our video with you guys! It’s always fun and interesting to see the behind the scenes details and the little moments that make someone’s wedding so special, so I thought I would share all the things that made our Napa elopement so “us”. And I’m a few days delayed from sharing, because we’re in Napa again as I type, celebrating our anniversary with more wine!
We ultimately decided to go the eloping route because both myself and Josh had been married before and we both already had the typical big wedding. This time around we were older and really just wanted something more intimate and more of just what the two of us wanted.
We still wanted the people in our lives to feel included or like they had a peek into our special moment, which is why we decided to book both a photographer and a videographer for our wedding day. We wanted something to solidify the moment, but we also wanted to have something we could share with everyone else too.
Looking back, I’m SO glad we decided to do both! You can see our full wedding video at the end of the post!)
We decided on Napa because it holds a very special place in our relationship. It was the very first vacation we ever took together and wine was something we bonded over and Josh was very passionate about that he taught me more and more about as our relationship grew.
We knew it was where we wanted our married life to start.
If you’re not familiar with Napa, you may not be aware that they have some verrrry interesting rules about weddings and ceremonies in the county. There are only 4 wineries that are legally allowed to host a wedding and/or ceremony out of more than 500 that call Napa home. It didn’t take long for us to pick Beringer Winery as the perfect spot for the wedding.
The Rhine house was built in 1883 and is considered a state historic landmark, and it’s STUNNING inside. Hardwood floorings, stained glass windows, winding staircases and let’s not forget about the actual wine!
Before the ceremony, we scheduled a private tasting to explore the Beringer family wines. We tasted our way through a variety of wines and tried the estate reserve collections of their cabernet sauvignon, which is our favorite. We learned about the history of the winery and what makes Beringer wine so great. It was such a fun experience, and if you haven’t been to Beringer before and enjoy Napa wine, I’d highly recommend it.
The beringer estate is stunning and you can’t go wrong just taking some time to explore the grounds. We had our first dance to “Beautiful Crazy” by Luke Combs among the grape vines in the vineyard on site.
We ate the most DELICIOUS cake from Bouchon Bakery. (Seriously a MUST visit in Napa). Our cake was a chocolate devil’s food cake with a layer of vanilla bean custard and a layer of chocolate cremeux, then frosted with vanilla bean buttercream. I still dream about that cake. Holy yum.
Josh’s suit was custom made by Mr. Shop in Syracuse, New York. His tie was vintage Chanel.
My shoes were Manolo Blahnik and my dress was Justin Alexander.
Josh had his suit embroidered under the collar with our wedding date, which was a fun little hidden detail.
Violets of the Valley, a local Napa florist, created my bouquet, Josh’s boutonniere, and the flowers on our cake. I told them I wanted lush earthy, textural greenery with florals in jewel tones like magenta, deep purples, deep burgundy & golds. They definitely delivered.
If you know me at all, you know how much I LOVE cheeseburgers and our Napa elopement wouldn’t be complete without them! For our wedding “dinner” we stopped at Gott’s Roadside, the most delicious little diner spot in Napa that has the best burgers, fries, and shakes. We walked up to the order window in our wedding attire, sat at one of the red picnic tables and shared a burger and fries to celebrate our wedding. It was the best.
I know I’m probably missing a million little details from our Napa elopement, so I’ll just let our video speak for itself!
Our photography was captured by Haley Nord and our video was created by Shey Allen Films.
