A joyous Oregon berry farm wedding (& a Bridal Musings personal update!)

Joyous Oregon Berry Farm Wedding – Phil Chester – Peachy Keen Coordination – Hoffman Farm Store 43

Alright, lovelies – time for a little Claire Eliza life update. Following a year honeymooning abroad, Jack & I have finally picked a new home – we moved to Portland! And what better way to celebrate our new chapter than by sharing a gorgeous Oregon berry farm wedding that is so quintessentially Portland.

Joe & Brittany are used to bucking traditions – having married intimately two years prior, the couple beckoned their friends & family to Portland – a city known for promoting alternative ways of life (hello, Portlandia) – for their two-year vow renewal & wedding celebration.

The joyous day featured so many of the reasons Jack & I fell in love with the area. For one, the party took place outside the city in one of the country’s most celebrated & under-the-radar wine regions – the Willamette Valley – at a picturesque berry farm. Continuing the theme of great food & drink, the couple hired a local pizza truck & the iconic ice cream parlor Salt & Straw (which is walking distance from our new home, ahh!)

You’ll see an ode to Portland fashion, too with custom Nikes worn by the bridal party (and bride & groom!) and a cool-bride gown from our beloved friends at a&bé bridal.

We’re so excited to share this beautiful day & open up another Bridal Musings “home” in the PNW (we’ll still be carrying out shoots & fun things in NYC, too!) If you’re a Northwest wedding vendor, bridal designer, or just a friendly bride & groom don’t hesitate to reach out and say hello at claire.eliza@bridalmusings.com.

Photo by Phil Chester via Bridal Musings

Our Love Story

We met on the app, Coffee Meets Bagel. Joe was working for the U.S. Army in South Korea and I, Brittany, was living in Portland, Oregon, working for Nike. Looking back, it seems as if a million seemingly insignificant moments conspired just for us to meet.

It happened during a season of our lives where we had constructed linear ideas of what the near future of our lives would look like and we were both pretty content with those visions. It was unexpected that anything would come from our meeting, but we connected quite quickly and soon found ourselves deeply engaged with each other’s stories, values and hopes for the future.

I knew I’d marry Joe after two weeks. We met in person for the first time three and a half months later when I picked him up at the Portland airport. I wish I could say that sparks were flying, but it took a little getting used to; learning how to just be and exist in the same space, trying to connect the emotional relationship we’d created with the physical one we now found ourselves in. We’d spend the next two years of our life driving along the I5 corridor between Joint Base Lewis-McCord and Portland, juggling the demands of the lives we had previously known and the new one we were creating together.

The Proposal

The inception of our relationship was certainly not traditional, and it’s definitely influenced the way we go about certain moments in our life. We know that at the end of the day, the only thing that’s going to feel important is the love shared between us. As for everything else, we could take it or leave it.

Joe took my dad, a pretty traditional guy, out to breakfast on Saturday morning, during which he’d tell my dad that his intentions were to marry me. I specifically asked him not to ask my dad for permission because it seems like a really outdated thing to do. We spent Sunday enjoying the Oregon Coast with some friends. With Joe’s conversation with my dad top of mind, we darted off after lunch to look at wedding bands. We bought bands on the spot and decided we were now engaged.

Two months later, five months after picking Joe up from the airport, we got married at Ponzi Vineyards in Oregon Wine Country, in the presence of 24 of our immediate family and closest friends. We honeymooned across Spain during the holidays and Joe would deploy to Afghanistan three months later. This summer we got the chance to celebrate our wedding with our extended family and friends nearly two years after tying the knot.

Joyous Oregon Berry Farm Wedding – Phil Chester – Peachy Keen Coordination – Hoffman Farm Store 38

The Destination & Venue

A lot of our family lives out of state and we wanted to use our wedding as an opportunity to bring everyone together and experience the beauty of Portland and the Oregon Wine Country.

Having an outdoor venue felt authentic to us and we wanted a place that was simple yet beautiful in and of itself. When we found Hoffman Farms, we knew it was totally aligned with our vision. We wanted to play up the organic beauty of the farmhouse and chose to decorate with greenery that would look as if it could have existed there without any intervention. We kept all of our wedding colors and decor with the same principle in mind.

Joyous Oregon Berry Farm Wedding – Phil Chester – Peachy Keen Coordination – Hoffman Farm Store 40

The Dress & Attire

We had our immediate family dressed in shades of navy, the groomsmen in white shirts and navy pants, and the bridesmaids in dusty sage dresses, all of which would complement the wood of the barn and the organic greenery so beautifully.

We were able to get the groomsmen Nike ID sneakers as a gift, which they loved so much they convinced me they should be wearing those instead of the brown shoes they were initially going to wear. They definitely made the right call…they looked pretty cool. Joe would be outfitted similarly to the groomsmen with the addition of a suit from Giorgio Armani.

I had actually found my dress on Pinterest, but made up in lace, and knew instantly that the fit would compliment my body type really nicely. I eagerly searched the internet to find what I was looking for. It was serendipitous that I went to a&bé bridal in Portland (psst, they’re featured on our very own Best Bridal Salons of the PNW list!) because they had the Sadie Dress by Made With Love Bridal, which was made up in crepe silk. The pared-back simplicity of my dress looked so beautiful with the

Special Details

What was really special to us and our wedding party was encouraging them to sit and enjoy the ceremony from the pews with their significant other. We also had the bridesmaids and groomsmen walk down the aisle alone, in order of when we met them, which was a really beautiful way for us to acknowledge them for the significant roles they played in our lives and for helping to shape us into the people we are today.

Favorite Moments

It was important for us to rewrite our vows from the first time we got married. Not many people get the chance to get married twice in two years, so we wanted to take the opportunity to reflect on how much we’ve grown and recommit to the idea that in the face of every twist and turn life brings us, we will keep choosing each other, every single day.

To get to bring all of our family and friends together to celebrate was such an amazing experience. We knew it was going to be so special to have all our loved ones there, but sharing those moments with everyone was undeniably more meaningful than we could have expected.

Joyous Oregon Berry Farm Wedding – Phil Chester – Peachy Keen Coordination – Hoffman Farm Store 39

Joyous Oregon Berry Farm Wedding – Phil Chester – Peachy Keen Coordination – Hoffman Farm Store 47

Advice to Other Couples

No decision felt too momentous since we were already married, and we’re really thankful for that. But with that in mind, I’d tell other couples that it’s okay to pass on things that don’t align with you even if everyone else is doing it.

Let your celebration be just that, and let it be an authentic reflection of you. What that looked like for us was passing on things like favors, a photo booth, garter & bouquet toss, and bringing some corn hole for guests to enjoy.

The Food

Portland is known for its food trucks and we wanted to bring that experience to our guests. We had delicious pizza from Tastebud PDX cooked right on-site and got to enjoy Salt & Straw ice cream for dessert without having to wait out a long line (if you know, you know).

The Honeymoon

We got to travel around Spain in wedded bliss the first time around. This time, we actually packed up all our belongings and drove across the country to our new duty station at Fort Lee, Virginia. It was neither romantic nor blissful, but it was an adventure part of one of those twists and turns we vowed to love each other through, and we did just that.