SAN MARCO BACKYARD WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY BY TONYA BEAVER

Sydney and RJ San Marco Wedding Day

Love Story:

How did you two meet?

We initially met in college, 11 years before we started dating! Sydney saw RJ give a talk about his gap year adventures and was immediately smitten with his engaging way of talking about the world (and his cheekbones). We both harbored secret crushes through undergrad and medical school but remained “just friends.” In retrospect, we are so glad we did not try to start dating until we were older, as we both had growing and exploring to do independently.

We also went to the same medical school, two years apart. Over time, our “just friends” hangouts (hikes, runs, making dinner, even watching a meteor shower…) became more frequent and started to feel a lot like “date-not-dates” as we affectionately call them now. Sydney is from Utah and always talked about how great it was, so RJ interviewed there for his pediatric residency and ended up matching there! (Was Sydney playing an epic long game of subtly convincing RJ to move to her home state so she could date him in 4 years? The mastermind will never reveal her secrets.)

Two years later, Sydney also matched at Utah for her internal medicine residency (Thank you, Dr. Milne!) Finally, we both found ourselves living in the same state again and were both single. After a particularly epic “date-not-date” hike on Kessler Peak, RJ let the cat out of the bag in the very romantic REI parking lot and asked if Sydney wanted to call their next hike a date. (Spoiler alert, she said yes.)

How did he propose?

It snowed in late May. It was perfect. RJ can’t plan the weather, but we will give him credit for that anyways. Sydney thought she had planned a routine hike with friends in the mountains bordering Salt Lake City, which we do often. Little did she know… RJ had secretly communicated with everyone beforehand.

He managed to sneak the ring and an entire bottle of champagne in his backpack without Sydney noticing! (Quite a feat for typically- ultralight-RJ to conceal a large and heavy bag!) We had been talking about marriage for awhile, but Sydney was still genuinely surprised, happy-cried, and apparently said “Yes!” but has no recollection of what came out of her mouth during this moment of black-out joy. Even better, no one dropped the ring despite somewhat cold/numb hands, and our friends were all able to capture some amazing photos and videos of the moment for us to savor forever.

After descending from the waterfall, we told our families the good news, more secret champagne bottles came out of hiding, and more happy-crying ensued. The day closed with a cozy gathering at our house with additional friends over Pizza NoNo’s (https://www.nonopizza.com/) very appropriately named “YesYes” pizza! The ring was picked out by RJ’s late father for his mom, who saved it and generously let it become part of our love story.

Wedding planning:

How did you decide on your color scheme, flowers, and cake?

We both went to UNC Chapel Hill, whose color is Carolina Blue. Blue is also Sydney’s favorite color. She knew she wanted bright, colorful flowers over white or pastel ones from the beginning. Midway through the planning process.

RJ’s mom gave him his late father’s suspenders which were an amazing blue, green, and coral floral pattern, and they were so great we knew he had to wear them under his wedding suit. So, we went with a whole range of colorful flowers but kept blue and coral undertones.

(Shoutout to our florist Shea who expertly pulled off blue, pink and coral without it looking like a baby shower!)

Picking the cake was easy–Sydney has a tree nut allergy and Jacksonville has a heaven-sent bakery called Sweet Theory (http://www.sweettheorybakingco.com/). It is one of the only places in the country that makes fancy bakery treats that are safe for people with nut allergies.

At the same time, we knew our true dessert passions are molten chocolate lava cake and key lime pie, so we served those to guests and used the Sweet Theory cake for ceremonial cutting (and savoring during the post-wedding days with leftover champagne 😉 We were especially excited to find our dream cake topper–two dancing Sandhill Cranes!

(Well, technically we used a christmas ornament from the International Crane Foundation’s shop–and are so excited to repurpose it this December on our tree! https://savingcranes.org/ ) This is Sydney’s spirit animal and we often see them when we are in our favorite places in Utah. They also happen to mate for life and dance to find their partner, so they’re kind of our marriage idols.

How did you decide on your invitations, and who did you use?

We used Minted for our wedding invites due to a reasonable price, simple elegance (we didn’t want multiple papers and envelopes) and easy address import system. Going through all of the designs and creating our invitation was one of Sydney’s favorite ways of procrastinating. We wanted one that was artistic and painterly with a summery and elegant vibe. Qing Ji’s artwork on Minted was spot-on and matched our blue theme perfectly.

What was the most fun part of wedding planning?

Writing our vows. It was like falling in love all over again.

Pro tip–throughout the planning period, keep a secret note on your phone jot down random song lyrics, memories, moments, or book excerpts that remind you of your partner or your relationship. It made sitting down to write the vows at the end a lot easier, and kept a lifeline of intention and romance through some of the stress and logistics of planning.

Which part did you not like as much?

The time commitment. We’d rather be hiking.

What are the biggest pieces of advice you wish you would have known before the
wedding day.

1) The day goes by SO. FAST. Take the time you think you need to get ready
and set that clock back by a few hours–if you’re ready early, all the better and
you can relax.

2) Nobody’s wedding is 100% perfect. That is the beautifully imperfect nature of
love and life. So just have fun, stop worrying, and soak up this time with your
person and your people!

3) You’ll face so many decisions along the way and it’s easy to fret about in the
trees and lose the forest. You can’t pick the wrong date or the wrong
flowers. At the end of the day, you love each other and you’re getting
married! Pick what feels right for Y’ALL and what aligns with your priorities.

Wedding Weekend Info:

Rehearsal Dinner Location: The River Club https://www.jaxriverclub.com/
@jaxriverclub

Ceremony and Reception Location: Groom’s parents’ home (under the very backyard
tree that watched RJ grow up!)

Caterer: Chef’s Garden https://cateringjacksonville.com/ @chefsgardenevents

Wedding Coordinator: Tara Lee https://www.loveleeeventsjax.com/ @tara_lovelee

Photographer: Tonya Beaver https://www.tonyabeaverphotography.com/
@tonyabeaverphotography

Cake: Sweet Theory http://www.sweettheorybakingco.com/ @sweettheorybakingco

Cake Topper: International Crane Foundation https://savingcranes.org/
@savingcranes

Florist: Shea Hopely https://sheahopelyflowers.com/ @sheahopely

Officiant: Kate Baustian, a personal friend who has known us both throughout our
15 years of friendship/dating/engagement

Hair: Saskia Penland http://saskiapenland.com/ @saskiapenland (and flowers out of
the parents of the groom’s garden)

Make-up: Keri Merkle https://www.kmartistry.net/ @kerimartistry

Entertainment: Bold City Classics https://boldcityclassics.com/ @boldcityclassics

Wedding Dress: The Bride’s Shop https://www.thebridesshop.com/ @thebridesshop
and Lillian West https://www.justinalexander.com/lillian-west/collection/wedding-
dresses/ @bylillianwest

Wedding Shoes: Sydney’s: Naturalizer https://www.naturalizer.com/ @naturalizer
and RJ’s: Trask

Bridal Earrings: Grace + Hudson https://graceandhudson.com/ @graceandhudson and
Ana Luisa https://www.analuisa.com/collections/earrings/ @analuisany

Bridal Polish: self-manicure with Sally Hansen’s Rosie Riveter
https://www.sallyhansen.com/en-us @sallyhansen

Bridal Scent: Gabrielle by Chanel https://www.chanel.com/us/ @chanelofficial

Vow Books: Moleskine https://www.moleskine.com/en-us/ @moleskine

Rings: Engagement ring initially chosen by RJ’s late father for RJ’s mom, resizing & wedding bands by Gold N Diamonds https://www.goldndiamondsaltlake.com/
Ringbearer “pillow”: “Sharptooth,” RJ’s legendary childhood toy dinosaur

Bridesmaids Dresses: The bride let her maids pick their own blue dresses
Groom’s Wear (and all of the groom’s nephews’ wear): J. Hilburn styled by Terrell
Naumann https://jhilburn.com/ @jhilburnco

Groom’s bowtie and pocket square: custom GPS location of Kessler Peak (our hike
where we decided to start dating) by Kind Design https://www.kinddesign.co/
@kinddesign

Groom’s suspenders: his father’s, vintage Hunt & Holditch
http://huntandholditch.co.uk/

Guestbooks: Shutterfly (photobook) https://www.shutterfly.com/ @shutterfly and Fly

Young Studio (thumbprint tree) https://www.heatherlyoung.com/ @fly_young_studio

In your words, can you give a storyline of your wedding day?

We had the incredible opportunity to get married at RJ’s parents’ house, so our day started like every other morning of our wedding week—with coffee and family. Before the bustle began, we took a moment for ourselves in the backyard where we would get married later. Sydney met some close girlfriends for a walk around the neighborhood for some intentional and distracting exercise.

The morning felt lovely and slow paced, but as soon as we got back to the house it was go-time for the girls and moms, who got ready upstairs while getting to peek at the preparations down in the yard. RJ hung out with his family downstairs, threw baseball with his nephew, and very romantically did not want to see Sydney before the ceremony. We chose not to have “traditional” bridesmaids and groomsmen who were standing up with us in matching outfits, but we still got all the benefits of hanging out and getting ready with our bride tribe and groom crew beforehand.

Time slowed down again during the ceremony itself. We knew from the start that we wanted to say our own vows and have a short but meaningful ceremony. We had wanted our two close college friends to officiate jointly but one couldn’t be there in person. So Kate consolidated input from Michael, and we trusted her completely–her sermon was a complete surprise to us at the ceremony and it was everything we had hoped for and more. Everything about the ceremony felt unhurried and present, from our vows to our exit, where even the rose petals seemed to fall peacefully.

We used cocktail hour for couples portraits after family portraits, since we didn’t do those before the ceremony. Our lovely wedding planner Tara had the caterer prepare a plate of appetizers for us so we got to steal away for a few minutes and actually try our delicious apps! We planned remotely and weren’t able to do any advance taste testing–so it was another trust moment and all the food was divine. We were very happy with our timeline decisions to do our wedding dance later in the evening so we could get right to speeches and dinner for the guests. During dinner, we walked around to all the tables to talk to people–one of the best decisions we made.

During the planning process one of our priorities was making sure the live music wasn’t too loud during dinner so people could converse, and our band was spot on with the decibel level and vibe. Once again, our wedding planner Tara had a plate of food waiting for us after our cake cutting so we actually got to enjoy the food at our own wedding while watching our partner dance with his/her mom or dad 🙂

Our other very anticipated surprise for the night was hearing our band play our first dance song. We had never heard it live before and it was amazing with the 9-piece band. We managed to “have our cake and eat it too” with our party style–Sydney LOVES dancing and we knew we wanted a live band and an epic dance party.

But we also LOVE a good evening on the porch with friends and we knew we wanted some quality time to actually catch up with everyone who came from afar. So, we ended the dance party a little earlier than usual, kept the bar open and had chairs/twinkly lights set up in the yard for people to relax and talk. We wouldn’t have ended it any other way.

What was the high point of your wedding day that you hope to remember forever?

For Sydney, it was a very vivid moment standing at the altar at the very start of the ceremony. There was dappled sunlight coming in through the oak tree and a gentle breeze. It was my first time seeing RJ in his wedding best, and my first time getting to see our amazing flower arch!

The weather was miraculously pleasant for that time of year. Here we were, holding hands at OUR WEDDING, finally in front of our loved ones, with our best friend officiating, about to get married. It felt like the whole universe was rooting for us.

Tonya Beaver Photography Studio Location: Jacksonville Beach, FL

318 First Ave N

Jacksonville Beach, FL 32250

To view more Wedding Sessions, please visit:

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Hi, I’m Tonya, a Jacksonville Florida Photographer. I specialize in photographing weddings, families, and babies. I would love to hear all about your photography needs to see if we’re a right fit for each other. As a photographer, I get to capture the most exciting and life changing experiences in people’s lives.

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