If you’re planning a wedding, chances are you have peeked at Pinterest once or twice (ooorrr perhaps are currently living and breathing it). WHY IS PINTEREST SUCH EYE CANDY? It’s in the details, darling. If a tiny part of you (or everything inside of you) wants to create a celebration that could be passed around for Pinterest inspo, it’s time to get detail crazy.

If you start digging around in the history of why wedding traditions are what they are, not only do you find a reoccurring theme of warding off evil spirits (bridesmaids dresses, the bouquet, and being carried over the threshold are just the beginning), but you’ll notice that much of what we do today is a combination of past traditions built upon past traditions (just one of the many examples: breaking of bread to celebrate fertility was transformed into a wedding cake, then much later in time cakes were stacked higher and higher as a kissing game, creating multiple tiered wedding cakes). And if you dig toooo far… things get quite barbaric, and honestly just a bit disturbing (tossing the bouquet and garter became a distraction from ripping the brides clothes off for luck. just, no.).

If traditions like these are your thing, we do not mean to persuade you from planning a wedding just so. Do it, and do it big. But if you’re like us and find yourself wondering “but whyyyy do I have to wait and see my best friend until mid-day walking down the aisle when this is supposed to be a celebration of US?!” – then don’t be afraid to break the rules.

Anna and her family have been friends of Paul’s for quite some time now, so when Anna and Jarrod came to us about doing their wedding, we were over the moon. We met up with them last week on the beach in Del Mar California around sunset to capture a few engagement photos; we were so excited about doing a “winter session” that actually meant temperatures in the 50’s vs. Michigan temps in the single digits!

As the sun dropped, the clouds swirled around changing the tones of the evening light, and it was as if these two had simply stepped into a movie and walked off into the sunset.