Our Santa Barbara Zoo Wedding

I cannot believe that it’s already been a full MONTH since our wedding at the Santa Barbara Zoo.

To say that time flies when you’re having fun would be an understatement. It’s CRAZY to look back at the last month and reflect on everything that has already come and gone.

I want to walk you through our wedding weekend as thoroughly as possible so that I can not only bring it to life for you, but so that I can also give as much advice to future brides as I can. With that being said, bare with me as I describe every single minute detail down to the T 🙂

THE VENUE: SANTA BARBARA ZOO

You all know how much I struggled with finding our wedding venue. It took us FOUR MONTHS to finally settle on the Santa Barbara Zoo. SO thankful it was recommended to us, because I never would have even thought to look there had it not been! My first thought when seeing “Santa Barbara Zoo’ on the venue suggestion list on my Wedding Wire portal was “who the heck gets married at the zoo?” Welp, now that our wedding has come and gone, I am SO HAPPY TO SAY that WE DO, THAT’S WHO!

The Santa Barbara Zoo was absolute perfection, so I’m just going to list the pros that come to mind:

• Close proximity to the beach (our favorite), surrounding hotels, and Santa Barbara nightlife
• The ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception were all in one spot, making it easier for guests
• Santa Barbara has its own airport, making out-of-state travel more accessible for our guests
• Ceremony and reception site were both really spacious, so it didn’t feel claustrophobic at any point
• We had a lot of customization options through Rincon Events (the catering/event company in charge of events at the Santa Barbara Zoo), which made planning slightly easier
• Having the giraffe feeding moment during the cocktail hour was a fun surprise/experience for our guests
• Angie (our Rincon coordinator) is the absolute best and she worked so diligently and effortlessly with our wedding planner Alison!
• It’s all outdoors! The weather was picture perfect.

WEDDING WEEK

Our wedding was on a Friday, so that made the entire week fly by. Our family started to get into town the weekend prior to help us check off our to-do list. On top of that, my week was FULL of appointments. I got my extensions put in, eyelashes filled, nails done, microdermabrasion, teeth whitening – literally the works. I had to laugh because if I did that every month, WOW would I feel good about myself haha. My bank account no so much.

As much as I wouldn’t say our wedding was DIY at all, we had a TON of decor we were bringing from our home to use throughout the weekend. I made the arrangements for our rehearsal dinner to save some money, we brought ALL of our boho living room decor to set up a lounge / photo moment at our wedding, and we just had a ton of little details that we were transporting. Picture frames, signage, sharpies, accessories etc. To say it was hectic around our apartment leading up to the wedding day would be an understatement.

Since we had a lot of loose ends to tie up before the wedding weekend got started, we decided to head up to Santa Barbara on Tuesday afternoon. Heading up early was also to allow us time to soak everything in and take it as slow as possible with our family around us.

Brennan’s family got a stunning Airbnb in Montecito, so we were able to stay there our first night up in SB. I highly recommend taking a day or two before the festivities begin to really let it sink in that your wedding week has finally arrived. This also helped calm my nerves (slightly) because I didn’t feel very rushed that Tuesday and Wednesday. We got to soak up some quality time with loved ones before anyone started to arrive, and we got to spend some quiet time together before the craziness began.

REHEARSAL DINNER

When we originally started looking for the perfect rehearsal dinner venue, we decided Arnoldi’s would be exactly what we needed – it has two outdoor bocce courts and outdoor patio seating, and it’s yummy Italian food. As fate would have it, they ended up getting booked before we could secure it.

It took us weeks to figure out where we would go from there – to be honest we were a little annoyed they hadn’t saved it for us after telling them we were ready to book, and we were so clear on what we were looking for that it ended up being harder than we though to find an alternative place that fit the mold.

About a month out from the wedding we were up in Santa Barbara for the night, still with no wedding rehearsal venue locked down. We wanted to grab lunch around the marina so we drove over to a place we found on yelp and walked upstairs to grab a table. It was right on the water, had an entire upstairs bar with two outdoor lanais, and it was completely empty.

At first we were just captivated by the view – after about 30 seconds of taking it all in it hit us – hello wedding rehearsal venue!

Fast forward to the night of our rehearsal dinner: the lanai was a market lighting VISION. We had 3 farm tables with high top tables surrounding them, and the perfect taco bar. There was even a little window on our lanai that connected to the bar for quick ordering. It was the perfect location to host our family and friends the night before our big day, and we didn’t even know about it until we stumbled in one day by accident. Don’t you love when that happens?

Since our wedding was running on such a tight schedule due to the Zoo hours, we knew that we wanted to plan accordingly.

The Santa Barbara zoo closes at 4:30 to the public, so we couldn’t start the wedding until 5pm; in turn we had to be out promptly by 10:00.

This was honestly one of the only downsides to our venue, but we made it work a few different ways. We trimmed a LOT out of the traditional wedding reception schedule, and we did a ton of speeches at the rehearsal dinner.

We have such incredible friends that we wanted to give a chance to speak, so instead of just telling them you’re SOL, we told them to be ready the night before. Queue the waterworks. This was one of the highlights of the entire weekend – it’s SO special to hear from people that you’ve been close to for so many years of your life. To experience your friendship from their perspective is truly magical, and if you’re trying to cut down on time during your wedding reception – I HIGHLY recommend simply pushing speeches back to the rehearsal dinner as opposed to nixing them completely.

THE MORNING OF OUR WEDDING

My sister & best friend Allyson spent the night with me on our wedding night. I was VERY adamant that I wanted to wake up early, get a workout in, get my favorite coffee, take a shower and let my hair air dry for as long as possible…you get the picture. I wanted my morning to be relaxing, calm, and start off JUST right.

Allyson made sure that happened! We woke up around 6AM, did a workout (despite fighting over gym time with my HUSBAND who went down there at the wrong time cough cough), went to Jeanine’s Bakery for the best Iced Almond Milk Latte you’ll ever have in your entire life, and then it was back to the hotel room to get the day going.

Liana & Larissa from Salty Mane arrived to start hair, Courtney Dapper – the best MUA you’ll ever find – arrived to get started on myself and my mom & sister, and before I knew it there were girls getting glammed left and right.

T3 Micro and Homebodii made for the PERFECT bridesmaids gifts – everyone was in their pink stripe monogrammed PJs, doing their hair with the best hair tools on the market (in my humble opinion), and it was a beautiful chaotic love-filled room.

I had some finishing touches to make on my vows (saved the best task for last I guess?!) so I spent some of the morning fine-tuning and transcribing them into my CUTE “Her” vow book that my college bestie sent me when we got engaged. This actually made for some really special photos / video moments, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it because I spent a little too much time on them vs watching my girls get ready.

Before I knew it, we were running out the door to do the first look at the Santa Barbara Zoo!

FIRST LOOK

If you had asked me years ago what I thought about doing a “first look,” I would have said I wanted to wait to see my future husband at the altar.

But boy let me tell you – doing a first look was the BEST.

Not only does it give you such a special moment together before you have to be surrounded by everyone else, but it also captures such joy on camera/video. I also had extreme butterflies/anxiety before the first look, and as soon as I was with Brennan my nerves were calm. If I hadn’t seen him before the ceremony, I would have been freaking out!

After we did the first look, we took care of all the photos with our family and bridal party. Also highly recommend doing this because it saved SO much time after the ceremony.

When photos were done, we all headed up to the bridal suite at the zoo to pray, have some champagne and hydrate, and get ready for showtime.

THE CEREMONY

For all the anticipation of the ceremony, it sure does go by with the blink of an eye.

Everything was perfection. I remember it all so clearly, from start to finish, and the only way I can describe being up there is euphoria. Absolute bliss, and overwhelming joy.

I’m not gonna lie to you – a handful of things DID go wrong with our ceremony, and I’m still deciding how to eloquently go over them without sounding negative lol, buuuut it ended up being perfect after I was finally up there with Brennan.

I was THE MOST nervous for the ceremony because we wrote our own vows and I felt SO vulnerable crying and professing my love in front of so many people, but once you get up there – I don’t know how it happens – you truly ONLY see your future husband/wife. No one else mattered, and I didn’t have one ounce of nervousness like I thought I would.

We had Brennan’s sister, Ashley, officiate. Not only are her and Brennan best friends, but as a couple, she has been such a big part of our relationship. She took me in as soon as we met, she has been a mentor in more ways than one, she shares our faith, and we knew right away that wanted her to have an important role in our day.

Leading up to the wedding we had all collaboratively worked on the ceremony script after she shared it with us – filling in things here and there, tweaking little details, making sure it flowed how we pictured it. I went into the ceremony thinking I knew exactly what she was about to say – but boy was I wrong.

She completely blew it out of the water. The paragraphs she added in after we made our edits to the outline were beyond perfect and had us all teary eyed. Again – to hear someone so close to you share words about you as a couple, as people, is such a special gift.

Other than having our sister as the officiant, my next favorite detail of the ceremony was our Sand Ceremony.

As a Christian, I always pictured what I would have in my wedding ceremony that signified not only my religion and dedication to the Lord, but also my commitment to my husband and our faith as a new family.

We wanted to make sure whatever it was that we chose that it was fully representative of us as a couple as well as how we practice and view our faith.

Once we researched more and found the Sand Ceremony, we fell in love and made it our own.

There are more ways than one to go about it, but since the beach as been such an integral part of our relationship from the beginning, it was a no brainer for us how to structure it. With sand from where we met, Santa Monica beach, sand from where we got engaged, Malibu beach, and sand from where we were getting married, Santa Barbara beach, we would create a joining of the sand to signify the foundation and future of our marriage.

As quickly as it began, it was over.

I got to kiss my husband and walk down the aisle as Mr. & Mrs. Cassidy. There is no greater feeling in the world.

RECEPTION

From the ceremony we went straight into cocktail hour.

Like I mentioned above, one of our favorite parts about the Santa Barbara Zoo was that every “event” that evening was taking place within walking distance of the last. The guests just had to take a few steps and they were right at the bar for cocktail hour. The same goes for the reception!

Since we were getting married at the zoo, we did decide to incorporate the giraffe, MICHAEL :), into the evening. Brennan and I ran over to feed him and take photos before the guests got to line up and do the same. Then it was off to take photos and video as husband and wife!!!

At first we thought we would join cocktail hour after photos were done, but since we finished up a little early, our wedding planner suggested we end cocktail hour and go right into the reception to be as efficient with our time as possible.

We decided to structure as much as possible at the beginning so that we could essentially “get it all over with” and get right into the dancing. I say that lightly because we by no means wanted to rush through it, but we were SO excited to dance with everyone – we literally dance whenever we possibly can – so this was more important to us than the other things on the list!

Our first dance was to “Best Shot” by Jimmie Allen and it was timed perfectly to happen right as the sun was setting. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

We shared our Grandma/Grand Daughter, Mother/Son dances, said the blessing over our dinner, had said dinner, and then our Maid of Honor, Best Man, and parents gave their speeches.

The dancing started as quickly as it could and didn’t stop for a second until the reception was over. ​​​​​​​It was the best dance floor I’ve ever been on, and I think about it daily.

Our friends and family are SO much fun and it was the most incredible feeling to be surrounded by all of them at one time. Overwhelming in the best way.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The cake cutting happened randomly in the middle of dancing because we just had a tiny naked cake for ceremonial purposes – we honestly only had one bite and went back to dancing.

And finally the bouquet toss! Shot-out to my blogging bestie Kelsey DiPrima for catching the freaking bouquet like a CHAMP. Literally one of the highlights of the night haha.

The dance floor was FULL of energy and hands down our favorite part of the evening.

After the reception was over, we brought the party back to our hotel right outside the zoo and had an hour of hosted wine & cheese in one of their event spaces so that people could get situated with their post-wedding plans and we could formally say goodbye to as many people that were still standing.

An hour was just enough time to soak as much in as we possibly could, and I’m so happy we had just that little bit extra.

We said our goodbyes and just like that, all of the planning and celebrating had come to an end.

We were freakin MARRIED. SO INSANE!!!!!!

POST SANTA BARBARA ZOO WEDDING THOUGHTS

It’s honestly so insane that an entire year of being engaged went by as quickly as it did.

It was no secret that I struggled with the planning process in more ways than one, but I 100% have the wedding blues. I miss it every single day, and would do anything to do it over again. Not necessarily all the planning and $$$, BUT, to be surrounded by so many loved ones at once, and to feel like a princess all weekend long, there’s really nothing that tops that feeling thus far.

Being able to see Brennan as a new husband that weekend – is that weird?? – was also so precious and special. I think about him saying his vows to me and I get instantly emotional. The moment I walked up to him for our first look, before he had turned around, and I could just feel the anticipation. His face when he finally DID turn around. Dancing with him all night long – it was all so beyond special.

It was all SO worth it.

I would marry him a hundred more times, and I would recommend to anyone contemplating going for the wedding of your dreams (whether you’re panicking about the planning or the costs involved) just do it. It’s a day that you will remember for the rest of our life, and nothing compares to your wedding.

The best love story is your own, and it’s incredible to celebrate that.

ANYWAYS

You guys –

In all seriousness I have SO many thoughts going on in my head about things I want to share with you about the wedding day, mistakes I made, lessons I learned etc. But I truly feel like they have to be in a separate post.

You know I am ALWAYS honest with you and I go into great detail – sometimes too much detail – so I want to make sure I give as many takeaways as I can. I just think they need to be separate from this blog 🙂

If you’re a bride-to-be, or even a fiance-to-be, feel free to comment your questions below or send me an email or DM – I’ll use your questions to start the next few blogs I want to write out the wedding.

LOVE YOU ALL thank you SO much for all of your well wishes and sweet words on our wedding day!

VENDORS & PARTNERS

Venue: @santabarbarazoo

Photography: @alyssaricolephoto

Video: @wildandfreefilms

Wedding Dress @ruedeseinebridal via @lovelybride

The Black Tux @theblacktux

Hair: @saltymanestudio

Makeup: @courtdappmakeup

Planner: @loveandlaughterevents

Signage: @frankandbunnylove

Hair tools: @t3micro

PJs: @homebodii

Acrylic Signage: @tashdesignco​​​​​​​

Peacock chairs: @crownedrentals 

​​​​​​​Rentals: @catalogatelier

DJ: DJ Zeke