High Tea Elevated Picnic Inspired Wedding Experience via Our Bride, Sage

Hey there, my name is Sage, and I just got married in June 2024 at the beautiful Grand Gimeno in Orange. This past year of my life has felt like a cycle of clichés coming true in the best way. If we are being honest, it's because they are so easily relatable. For example, I now understand what people say about their wedding day… It truly is the best day of your life! I look back on that day with so much joy and gratitude. We were so blessed by our families and friends effortless support. So many details went into the planning process and the team at Jay's Catering made my dreams come true so swiftly.

When Aidan, my husband, and I met at the end of 2022 I had no idea the journey would turn him into the love of my life. Aidan and I shared such a safe and profound relationship full of growing together, and fast. Life happened pretty fast for us. Four months into our relationship we started the process of blueprinting the plans for our first home, which Aidan has now fully crafted by hand. Then a few short weeks later he asked for my family's blessing, so we made haste to book our date at Grand Gimeno. Our timeline that summer was a little unconventional compared to the 1991 Father of the Bride I grew up on but, “everyone's story looks different” and, “when you know, you know.” We were ready to share the rest of our lives by sacrificing for each other. Showing one another honor as we believe marriage calls us to do. We officially got engaged 9 months before our wedding date to the day, September 9, 2023. The day before our 6th month together. I told you life happened fast for us.

I have known the Jay’s Catering Company personally for the past decade so there was no question who we wanted to work with leading up to our big day. Not only is the Jay’s Catering company reliable and kind to work with, they deliver such a stress free and effortless quality. I knew our wedding day was in the most capable hands especially after getting to know our event specialist, Patti Reinitz. After we chose Jay’s and booked our date, I looked on Instagram for some local Orange County wedding photographers. I found Sarah Yates, and we had a facetime meeting where she got to know us and we got to know her. We planned our engagement shoot and just got even more excited for how she would capture our wedding day.

I realized early on that the things I cared about most in planning our wedding were the flowers and colors of the wedding. I was one of those little girls putting sticky notes in bridal magazines at 9 years old. I would describe our wedding theme as having elements of high tea and elegant picnic, thus inventing what I call ‘high picnic’. I wanted it to feel bright and airy to match the already blissful feeling of the Grand Gimeno venue. This truly is not possible without the right florists. I was so happy to find Fleurish. They had worked at the venue before and I trusted their creative liberty after we called about my desires for our wedding day. Let me tell you, they delivered and it is one of my highlights to look back on as I find myself living in our wedding photo album.

We had one site visit with Patti at the venue to vision cast what I was imagining and plan out the ceremony and reception layout. She later made a custom online layout which we were able to share with our other vendors, so the day of everyone knew where they were assigned to set up.

In April we were invited to attend the Executive Hanger Taste of Jay’s to help us decide on our wedding menu. They had some really unique vendors that were sharing their products for free, kindly and professionally. Aidan and I look back on this evening as one of our favorite dates in our engagement season. We were lucky enough to finalize our menu after this experience and send our wishes back to Patti to place our order.

Then our wedding date was upon us, June 9th 2024. Aidan and I decided we wanted to be able to enjoy our full wedding day together. We went with our wedding party to church and then headed to the venue where we resided in our individual bridal and groom suites until the ceremony. When I tell you the venue is beautiful, I mean it but when I tell you those suites were the selling point for me, I'm being honest. The day of a wedding can be crowded and unenjoyable. I am so happy to report that my time of getting ready and having Jay’s cater lunch for us ensured that I was a calm and blood sugar regulated bride. The suites had so much space for myself and my 7 bridesmaids. I treasure that time as I soaked in of all my best friends in one room for the first time.   Those are the women that have grown up with me and are responsible for shaping a part of who I am today. The privacy we had gave me the most incredible bridal bliss. I was not stressed once. Although I ran 10 minutes long doing my own hair and make-up, I remembered some applicable advice from the The Princess Diaries, “A queen is never late, everyone else is simply early.” I walked out to line up for the ceremony and the ball room had been transformed into the most special dream come true. The flowers, linens, place settings, seating arrangement, it was all there in real life. I was so honored to call this my wedding.

As both of my parents walked me down the aisle, I was beaming looking at the kindest man I have ever known to be fighting to both smile and cry of happiness at the same time. I couldn't help but laugh lovingly all the way down the aisle. Another cliché moment hit me as I never felt so laser focused and that was, ‘it felt like we were the only two people in the room.’ It will always be the most precious moment of my life. We were so beyond happy. As I was present and surprisingly coherent at the altar I looked around at our dear friends and family and once again my heart was grateful to all the staff who set up the Olive Grove. It was so beautiful and personal. Aidan made our arch out of some left-over copper pipes from our house and his dad, Darian Lockett, also officiated our wedding. Something unique we did was have our bridal party sit in the second row and watch us get married. Aidan and I swapped places at the altar so we were facing our families so they could see our faces during the ceremony. Close to the end of the ceremony our bridal party came back up and that meant my girls were behind Aidan and his fellas were behind me. We told our parties that this symbolized having our spouses back. My girls will cheer for Aidan as my loyal husband and his guys will protect me as Aidan's wife. It is invaluable to have the community of valued friends in our lives. That was a blessing to start our marriage with.

We exited our ceremony and waited for our guests to relocate by the pizza oven and lounge area for cocktail hour. We served Fig Tarts, Parmesan Artichoke Hearts, and Beef Wellingtons. If I could have just had those for dinner, I would still think it was the best wedding food I have ever had, but it just got better. We took photos with our family and our bridal party before our grand entrance into the ballroom to the song “Beautiful Day” by U2. My husband surprised me with our first dance song which was “I Just Want to Dance With You” by George Strait. He chose this because after all the hours of building our house through the engagement season, when this song would come on at the job site, he remembered what he was working toward and pictured our wedding day. Our wedding day was so much more than just our union but a finish line to a long year of overcoming trials and finally celebrating the victory of starting a new life together. I will always describe our wedding day as a day of victory for something bigger than ourselves and our story. We are a part of a greater story. From there we ate our incredible Tuscan Menu dinner, and let me tell you, we still crave that food. It was absolutely delicious and so many of our guests were impressed by how fresh it was served. We were able to take in all our hard work as a couple and secretly looked out for the blind dates we set up at some of the tables. What can I say, “We love, love.” We snuck away for our newlywed photos and then returned for father daughter and mother son dances. We even had a moment where everyone watched us cut our cake which I wasn't expecting, but I'm so glad we did! Aidan and I ate the rest of the cake watching a movie the next day and wished we had more room in our stomachs to finish it. Once again, so good. Since we had 75 people at our wedding we were able to take a picture with each person and enjoy having a personal conversation with every guest before hitting the dance floor for the rest of the evening. My 97 year old Grandpa Frank stole the show and I am not mad about it. He won everyone's hearts over, and it was the happiest I had seen him in a long time. This was extra special because Aidan was wearing his wedding ring and I am wearing my late Grandmother's wedding ring as my wedding band. Their love was something out of the movies and a story we wanted to honor by wearing their rings. We had a blast on the dance floor with plenty of slow songs for everyone to enjoy with their significant others that made for some personal candid photos that were so much fun to send out. At the end of the night we shared one last private dance together in the dim ballroom light to our song, “I Wish I Was” by The Avett Brothers. Shedding some last few tears looking back on our wedding day together, we felt so present and like we did our wedding day, well.

After our grand exit, we now love reliving ‘the best day ever’ through our photo album from Sarah and videos from Jonny Harmon. None of it would be the same without each incredible vendor and especially the Grand Gimeno venue. I wouldn't do anything different. We are eternally grateful for such an easy wedding experience planning with Jay’s Catering and are forever amazed by how, “God blessed the broken road” that led us to the most “beautiful day” and we “didn’t let it get away.”

Venue: Grand Gimeno // Catering: Jay’s Catering // Photographer: Sarah Yates Photography // Florist: Fleur.ish // Videography: Harmon Media