top of page
Writer's pictureAja Lee Faassè

Offgrid Mountain Wedding Part 1

January

Gopher Cages, Dress Hunting, and the 3 month interruption (*see bottom)


I thought this would be a nice way to keep friends and family in the loop with the daily updates since my engagement to Gavin in May 2022, but I now realize there is also a lot of handy info for anyone doing their own matrimonial event, so I will add links to keep this extra useful:)

Gavin proposed in 2022 that we get hitched, it was a beautiful moment on our couch, followed by another actual and second proposal at the 15th century castle in Tynemouth by the north sea in England, by actual I mean the one with the ring and knee and the whole bit. Anyways we decided to just go ahead and set a date for June 2023. Seemed like an innocuous and pretty open year on the calendar (oh how little did I know*) Since I have performed at and attended innumerable weddings as a musician on top of the normal amount you end up doing as just being a girl, I had loads of ideas on how to keep it simple and enjoyable with no unnecessary bits. So like all things in life, I'm just going to ride this wave and see where it lands in June. What could not work out right?

We were first offered a dream house in San Diego to use for the wedding location by some friends, and ideas started to form, but then in my efforts to match the grandness of the location things got way to fancy and I got way to off track of keeping it themed "fun and easy the whole way through" and essentially quit the wedding.

I waited for some epiphany of inspiration that us artists tend to get quite frequently, maybe no wedding at all, maybe we just go somewhere cool..... when our other amazing friends offered their cabin, that just happens to be exactly where I have been trying to buy off grid land for the last 3.5 years, it all started to make sense, and we said yes!

I had visions of planting wildflowers on this amazing slope that goes through the forest and drops off at the top of the 7000 ft mountain, of Gavin building a custom wooden Arch with his amazing woodworking skills, visions of a very merry unwedding with no matching napkins and no wedding DJ (sorry Djs I still love you), more of a rustic destination wedding at one of our favorite spots in the Mountains of California.

But not so fast...

Things started out ok, I was set on getting a dress online when my dear friends put a stop to that and put all kinds of sugar plum visions in my head of going out with the gals, having fizzy drinks and laughing at lunches about how fun it would all be. In actuality dress hunting was exhausting and I was actually *seeing spots and getting dizzy in the dressing rooms, after the 5th shop in 2 weeks I told the ever so kind woman that this was my last stop, I said if I didn't find it today I was done with this dress business and had dreams of ordering the perfect dress on etsy, in the safety of my own home..away from being measured and stuffed into and paraded about like a show pony in the itchiest tulle you've ever experienced...why, why on earth is the tulle fabric so itchy? See best and worst dress shops in San Diego Here. Well as luck would have it the first one I put on that day was the most beautiful sweetest wonderful Aja dress I had ever seen. Best part is that when you are the first one to buy a dress at Jana Ann they name it after you! I plan on using it in my next music video so I will def share the "Aja" later;) Now I was ready to move onto seeds and plants for the mystical fairyland that was to be the isle.

I was all ready to buy a boatload of zone 7, summer bloom, spring plant, bulbs, and native seeds when I thought to call the Idyllwild Moutain Gardening Club and spoke with the most wonderful woman Julie who was their ever so helpful president. I was in good hands. Until she brought up gophers and a slightly caddy shack esq tale of how she lost her prized bulbs right before her very eyes. Julie, lives on the same side of the mountain as our wedding slope. My music brain played me a very sad little violin and I saw the dreams of my wildflower field slipping between my soil covered fingers...... This is where I was interrupted and stopped typing for about 4 months, suddenly the gopher cages were the least of my concerns. While I do love reading a good hilarious wedding rom com novel now and then , I now got to actually be in one. Well I don't know about how hilarious it all was, but now that it's all starting to look a tiny bit hopeful on the homefront, I choose to laugh at the utter mayhem that became of everything seconds after I wrote this blog that was never posted.

*about seeing spots and getting dizzy, discovered what that was and have enclosed in part 2




49 views0 comments

Comentários


bottom of page