Urban bohemian spring wedding in Long Beach, California

John and Stephen had an urban bohemian wedding in Long Beach, California.

“We talked about all sorts of weddings. We thought about eloping, we talked about a destination wedding, but in the end, Steve wanted something a bit more formal that we could invite our families and friends to and Jon wanted something more intimate and casual. We really tried to meet in the middle.

Initially, it was hard to get a sense of what our day would look like. You know, if you’ve never planned a big party for 100+ people, where would you start? The internet. That’s where. And that’s what we did. But, when we started looking at venues or for ideas, everything we came across seemed so soft, so girly, so bride-y.

And even when we started to tour venues, we were being walked through rose gardens and shown lace and fine China. It wasn’t for us.

Honestly, we started to get pretty frustrated because nothing seemed right.

Finally, one night, we were bitching to John’s dad (who owns a jewelry store, so he has some experience with the affianced) about how everything seemed like such a racket. We didn’t want to just get pumped through the wedding machine. We told him how we couldn’t find anything that wasn’t soft, white and traditional.

And he said, “Well, have you guys even Googled same-sex weddings?” It hadn’t even occurred to us because we didn’t think we were getting any other kind of married than just, you know, married like everyone does.

But that’s when everything started to click. We looked for vendors that had photos of couples like us.”

Two of the best decisions we made were:

1. Asking one of our best friends to perform the ceremony. Jilana knew what was important to us. And there was love behind everything she said. We’ll always remember being joined by one of our best friends—a sister to us, really.

2. Writing our own vows. You know, we both write for a living, so I think we were a little nervous about what would come out when we put our fingers to the keys and wrote about—well, us. But listening to each other’s thoughts was the best affirmation of our connection, our friendship and our love.