Today we’re travelling to beautiful Santorini island, where everything seems more romantic and magical. Perrin and Carleigh fell in love with Santorini a year before their wedding, so they decided that this place will host their wedding. A year after, they created a gorgeous dreamy wedding overlooking the deep blue sea. It was an adventurous trip for their family and friends who travelled to the island for the first time, just for the wedding. A beautiful venue decorated with gold details, fresh flowers and touches in pastel hues was ideal for such an elegant yet romantic reception! See every single detail through the following photos!
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
“We had mutual friend in Los Angeles, so this is how we met.”
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
From Perrin’s perspective: “I brought Carleigh’s Grandmother’s beautiful diamond to Jean Pierre Jewelers to start the designing process and figure out how long it would take so I could begin working on the actual proposal plans. He said give him 3-4 weeks. Come mid-January, I started to plant the idea with Carleigh that a “big work event” was going to happen on February 11 and to keep that weekend open.
I FaceTimed Mr. and Mrs. Shannon to ask for their blessing and to see if they were willing to fly out and surprise Carleigh for the proposal. They booked their flights before I even finished my sentence. I called my sister Emily to run the date by her and she immediately booked her flight out too. Now the pressure to do something memorable was on…”
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
“After researching countless ideas and locations, I landed on the Venice Canals. I wanted the proposal to turn into an engagement party afterwards with some of our closest friends and family, so I booked an Airbnb not far down from the canal bridge I had planned to ask on. The two most important things I knew I had to include: a photographer & pasta. I sneakily got the number of Carleigh’s co-worker who she highly respected as a photographer and asked him if he would shoot the entire proposal and party after. With the generous help of Carleigh’s parents, we picked a menu from a well-known local Italian restaurant to cater to the house for everyone that night. The week of, I told our friends the time & date to be at the house for the surprise… with champagne in hand!”
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
“The morning of Saturday, February 11 we had a flag football game that I intentionally missed because of this “big work event” that I had to prepare for. Mrs. Shannon mowing the lawn, Ashley handling the cake, Christie decorating with roses, Emily providing inappropriate gifts and champagne, etc. It was a true team effort. When Carleigh got back to our apartment, there was a note that said, “Wear whatever [she] feels beautiful in and meet me at this address at 4pm.” I was hoping she would pick up on the surprise by now.
When she arrived to the rose petal path that led her to the bridge I was standing on, I couldn’t stop shaking and forgot everything I had rehearsed. I finally managed to get down on one knee and asked her the most important question … full of [happy] tears. She said yes! Her parents popped out from behind the bridge and totally caught her by surprise. And then Emily from the other side of the bridge. Talk about emotional overload! It was perfect. And to top if off, a random photographer emailed us amazing photos he took from afar, while another onlooker started playing his guitar and singing “Can’t help falling in love with you.” It felt like a movie.
Finally, as Carleigh thinks we’re walking back to the car to go to dinner, I take her hand and turn into the house with all of our friends standing out on the porch. She was shocked, again. And then, we were both surprised when our friend Michels flew down from San Francisco to join the party! Needless to say, we went on to celebrate the rest of the night and weekend.”
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
“The day I got back to work, I found out that I needed to move to Amsterdam for two months asap. I call Carleigh. She quits her job to join. She also takes advantage of my stressed-out-need-to-plan-everything-before-leaving state and ends up designing a ring with Jean Pierre Jewelers (yes, same jeweler), and proposing to me before I get on the plane. All in 6 days. Carleigh and Jean Pierre wanted to make sure I had the ring before leaving. How did I get so lucky? To this day I’m not quite sure how they pulled that off so quickly. But it meant everything in the world.”
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
“Not having a bridal party and being two brides, we actually decided not to have bouquets. We really wanted our dresses to be the focus for our wedding guests as we both walked down the aisle with our dads.”
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
“Did you see each other’s dress – how did you pick? How did you know it would go together?…Well, concern number one was, did we pick the same dress? Luckily on the day of the wedding, we found out we did not!”
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
“The ceremony took place in Santorini, Greece. When we visited Santorini the year prior, we fell in love with the people, culture, food, and scenery. The moment we got off the plane, we both looked at each other and said “this is where we need to get married. Our loved ones need to see this beautiful island. We originally had planned to get married in the States but after researching and looking into venues, we kept coming back to the idea of a destination wedding. Most of our family had never been to Europe before so we thought this would be a great excuse for the trip of a lifetime to make the trek over.”
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
“We think that attending weddings was our biggest inspiration because we were able to experience firsthand what resonated with guests, what we liked, where we thought our focus should be, coupled with getting first-hand advice from our married friends and family.
There is no template way to do it in a gay wedding – we had a blank slate, could draw up any way we wanted. Sure, it was stressful, but it also gave us an opportunity to design a wedding that way true to us and our love.”
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
“The best moment of our wedding was the relationships that were built between friends and family.”
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
“Santorini is such a beautiful place, so we didn’t want to overdo it. We wanted to enhance the beauty by bringing in colors that would make the scenery pop. We stuck to the natural colors of the island like blues, pinks, ivory, peach with gold accents.”
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
“We think that the really important thing is to have a wedding that you truly want, not the wedding you think you need to have for everyone else. The more personal we made things, the more passionate we were about planning, and we think that showed in our big day. Given our destination, less is more.”
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
Photography : Nikos Roussis Photography
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